Spoiler-free Star Wars: The Force Awakens review roundup

It's happened, Star Wars: The Force Awakens has released in various places and has yet to release in plenty of locations. The biggest question that fans have about The Force Awakens is whether or not the film is any good. There's a solid mix of excitement and trepidation from Star Wars fans, there's a fear that the film will be the prequels all over again and the anticipation that it will be like the original trilogy.

Fans can rest assured, if there's one film that The Force Awakens has been compared to the most and that's Star Wars: A New Hope. In fact, the common thought of The Force Awakens is that it's A New Hope with different characters and a different director.

Whether or not you'll find excitement in the fact that The Force Awakens is very much like A New Hope is entirely up to you, but it has definitely been a reason that the film has garnered such glowing reviews.

Below, you'll find a bunch of reviews that won't spoil the ending, character actions or relationships – just thoughts on the film itself.

The Guardian (5/5)

Star Wars fans are going to love the new Star Wars, because it’s basically the same as the first Star Wars. Nearly every story beat in The Force Awakens has its roots in what we now call A New Hope, with a few key exceptions that are cribbed from The Empire Strikes Back or Return of the Jedi. As a work of independent art maybe this is a shortcoming, but as a product designed to distance the franchise from those odious prequels, and to push the sentimental buttons of children and the emotionally stunted adults who wore out their VHS tapes of the original trilogy, it’s just good business.

USA Today (no rating)

The Force Awakens leans heavily into shades of Star Wars past and isn't shy about that in the least…Abrams comes close to overdoing it with the nostalgia but pulls back.

The Force Awakens reveals surprising connections, begins a few bromances, solves mysteries while digging up others, and sets a strong tone for what comes next in Star Wars lore. Best of all? It’ll make you feel like a kid being introduced to something truly special once again.

Entertainment Weekly (B+)

It’s so tempting to get swept up into the fizzy class-reunion nostalgia of The Force Awakens that it’s easy to ignore just how closely the story mimics the plot of A New Hope. But the sense of déjà vu is undeniable. The First Order has built what amounts to a bigger, more lethal Death Star. And the Rebels’ game plan to blow it up is pretty much cribbed from the same playbook they used back in 1977.

Doesn’t the Resistance’s playbook have more than one play?

It’s a tad lazy, but you may recall it worked pretty well the first time. Like Abrams’ Star Trek reboot, The Force Awakens is funnier and has a lighter touch than the previous Star Wars films.

The Washington Post (3/4)

The Force Awakens” strikes all the right chords, emotional and narrative, to feel both familiar and exhilaratingly new. Filled with incident, movement and speed, dusted with light layers of tarnished “used future” grime, it captures the kinetic energy that made the first film, from 1977.

The Wrap

Stepping into the pilot’s seat on the gargantuan “Star Wars” franchise, director and co-writer J.J. Abrams has adopted the relatively cautious strategy of essentially remaking the original “Star Wars” (or, if you must, “Episode IV: A New Hope”), which allows him to delight fans by bringing back the original players while at the same time laying down the groundwork of the new good guys and bad guys that we’ll get to know over the course of the next several sequels.

The pacing could certainly be tighter [some scenes tend to drag on]…Fans will be most relieved to know that there are no Ewoks, no Jar Jar Binks, no midi-chlorians, no “Yippee!” Abrams had the benefit of learning what didn’t work in Lucas’ prequels, and he’s gone in the opposite direction.

Salon

Whether Abrams’ obsessive-compulsive relationship to George Lucas’ 1977 original works for you is a subjective question, of course. You can choose to understand “The Force Awakens” as an embrace of the mythological tradition, in which the same stories recur over and over with minor variations. Or you can see it as the ultimate retreat into formula: “Let’s just make the same damn movie they loved so much the first time!”

There are moments when it feels like both of those things, profound and cynical, deeply satisfying and oddly empty. This is the work of a talented mimic or ventriloquist who can just about cover for the fact that he has nothing much to say. He has made an adoring copy of “Star Wars,” seeking to correct its perceived flaws, without understanding that nothing about that movie’s context or meaning or enormous cultural impact can be duplicated.

IGN

Star Wars: The Force Awakens is the movie it was promised to be, with great new characters, a respect for the original trilogy and a strong understanding of what makes this franchise click with fans. The new additions to the Star Wars universe work best, though there is some over-reliance on tying things to and making nods to the classic Star Wars films. Overall, this is a great way to reboot the franchise and open the world up for a new generation of fans.