[CaptainCrunch]

Ok, I know this is going long, and I'm sorry.

But lets look at the story line.

Shockingly, while it was a solid story that had a galaxy spanning feel to it, it was really a fairly rote retelling of a new hope, but with more octane to it.

It doesn't take us long to meet one of the protagonists in Finn who goes out on his first mission and views the brutal nature of the First Order and decides to rescue Poe and flee. As I mentioned before, I had some trouble making the leap of logic that a person who was bread as a Stormtrooper, and raised as a storm trooper would turn his back on the First Order so quickly, part of it is that Finn is written as a reluctant player in this game, a trait that would have popped up during his training. My preference would have been that he was a combat veteran that had seen too much and decided that he couldn't live that life anymore. Its a minor point, but I had trouble believing Finns reasons. At the same time we meet Kylon Ren in a great debut where he basically is shown as an extremely powerful Dark Warrior who mercilessly searches for a map that will help him find Luke Skywalker. We are lead to believe that he is absolutely dark when he mercilessly kills an unarmed man and orders the murder of everyone in the village, then he uses the Force to try to rip the location of Poe's droid out of his head.

We then catch up with the droid, and meet Ray a scavenger who is waiting for the return of what we assume is her family who left her stranded there, we see her living a hard scrabble life while she ekes out a paltry existance (BTW I want that bread baking liquid)

Rey and BB-8 meet, and then shortly afterwards Finn and we begin a adventure across the galaxy with thrills and spills throughout. Rey grabs the Millennium Falcon which is in a jump yard and shows that she's a natural pilot as she and Finn and BB escape a First Order attack only to get captured by Han Solo and Chewbacca. We get a throw away scene of Han fighting business rivals and then head over to Maz's tavern. Most of this is a throwaway except for seeing Finns true nature as he just wants to flee the First Order. At the same time Rey finds Luke's light saber and when she touches it has a vision from the past where we see Luke with R2D2, the Knights of Ren enacting a slaughter at the Jedi Academy and Ren saving Rey's life we think, and then a young Rey being abandoned on Jarku. Rey also seems to be repulsed by Luke's lightsaber and she flees into the woods where she is captured by an attacking First Order. The attack is broken up by the X-Wings of the Resistance.

I forgot to mention that we saw the Death Star 3 errr Star Killer base in action. This is a weapon with a gun the size of a death star that drains stars for energy and shoots a concentrated hyperspace laser that destroyed the capital of the New Republic and the Republic Fleet. Instead of three factions, we're left with two, the Resistance and the First Order. I have to admit I wasn't the fan of another Super Weapon. The one thing I did like was that it couldn't be knocked out with one shot, and the movie recreated the trench run from ANH with the taking down the shields moment from ROTJ.

Now I want to talk for a second about the First Order and Supreme Commander Snoke. I read an interesting interview where Abrahms talked about a discussion around what would have happened if the Nazi's had fled to Argentina and re-emerged years later more powerful and focused then ever? This was the New Order, they didn't directly rise from the Empire, It seems like they were the most hardcore of the Empire (which had signed a treaty with the New Republic) who fled to the outer rim and then re-emerged years later. I think that the writers tried to hard to make it obvious that the New Order was completely evil, they committed atrocities in the first scene and then ruthlessly destroyed a Star System for no other reason then, we hate everyone. What I liked about the Empire in the original series is that it made sense as a totalitarian regime that wanted to rule the galaxy. I didn't sense this from the First Order, it felt like they were driven by the need to be bad a##, and Snoke didn't seem to be all that enamored with taking over the galaxy as he was in finding and killing the last of the Jedi. Because of this the First Order to me was basically that fierce dog on a chain being used by its owner to create havoc. It didn't make much sense. The Resistance is basically that, they're not officially part of the New Republic which sounds like the UN of the galaxy, so Leia is probably viewed as a zealot.

Anyways, back to the Story the Resistance has to take out the Super Duper galaxy gun, and they send Finn, Chewie and Solo to do it, but Fin also wants to save Rey.

We see an interrogation scene between Rey and Kylo where Kylo reveals his face and he tries to strip the map out of her head, instead he finds out that she is strong in the force but untrained and she rips secrets out of his head. At this point I believe that Kylo is frightened and this heightens his decisions to fully go dark so he can gain more strength.

Anyways Rey escapes in a scene made more hilarious by the cameo of Daniel Craig, and we head towards the major confrontation that we know is coming.

Now a couple of things. I think that the movie did a poor job in terms of reducing the shock value by continually letting us know that Kylo Ren was actually Ben Solo, so when we had that confrontation, it was missing a bit of weight, it was still an emotionally powerful scene made powerful by the two actors. But what was supposed to have been the I am your father scene of this movie, we got a sense that we know this all. Anyways Han confronts his son and basically begs him to come back to the light, and we see that indecision from Kylo without the mask, but in the end the dark and the desire to be powerful like his grandfather wins out and Kylo cuts down his father.

Now at this point I want to talk about this. I love the concepts of the Jedi and the Sith, and I will say that Kylo is not a Sith, he's a trained Jedi who has fallen to the Dark Side, but he desperately wants to follow in his Grandfathers footsteps. With the Jedi, I've always thought that their path to power was through enlightenment and knowledge. With the Sith I've always found that their path to power is through suffering and the willingness to sacrifice everything dear to them for that power. We saw with Anakin that he made that sacrifice very quickly when he slaughtered the Jedi and tried to kill his former friend. With Kylo killing his father was his sacrifice and his suffering which allows him to seperate himself from what he used to be. When his father fell off of the bridge and died, Kylo Ren finally accepted the Dark Side fully.

Han Solo's death was necessary, they really positioned him as the Ben Kenobi of this movie, the kindly guiding figure that set Fin and Rey on the right path. But it was tragic that Solo died like he did and we saw that his link to Leia and her love for him was incredibly strong as she felt is sectors away.

Anyways, Chewie goes nuts and hoots Ren with a shot from his Bowcaster seriously wounding Ren. We then get a partial explosion that is exploded by the Resistance who destroy the weapon in the nick of time.

Meanwhile in the forest Ren tracks down and confronts Finn and Rey, he knocks out Rey and attacks Finn and even though he was wounded badly Ren doesn't have any problems disposing of Finn. But try as he might he can't pull Luke's lightsabre out of the snow, which to me was strange, because the force isn't an Authorian thing, but Rey manages to get the lightsaber and duels Ren and shows that she's a Force natural as she slashes Ren across the hip, and arm and rips a long cut into his face. at that point the heros flee and return to the resistance and the Star Killer collapses. Snoke mentions that Ren can finally complete his training which goes back to his sacrifice and his willingness to commit to the dark side. Meanwhile Rey says goodbye to everyone and finds Luke at the first Jedi Temple where the movie ends with them starring at each other while she holds out his lightsabre.

Now I know I've missed a lot of plot points. But at the end of the day, from a new concepts plot, this movie is basically a mirror of the first movie with a more ham handed foe, but in a lot of ways it was executed better then ANH. The pace was frenetic at times, but there was still time to take a breath and laugh at bit. I really think that this movie was an extended way to build mystery towards answering the questions of who is Rey, What turned Kylo, and who is Snoke, and what Lukes place is in all of this.

I thought the plot and the dialogue was amazingly well done, and I can ignore the Superweapon 365 in the Star Wars universe because it was a necessary plot device to develop that the First Order is a viable enemy and ruthless enough in its goals to use it.

To be continued tomorrow, I want to talk about the theories and questions that have come up in this thread and throughout the Star Wars verse.