SHUT YOUR GRIPE HOLE. THE FORCE AWAKENS IS GREAT.

My “qualifications”:

I love Star Wars. I was brought up on the original trilogy. My dad took me to see Return of the Jedi in theaters when I was five, and I wrote my own version of Episode VII soon thereafter. I played with the toys and read all the novelizations. We had the movies on VHS and must have watched them all at least once a year throughout my childhood. It never even occurred to me to call them my favorite movies because to me they almost weren’t movies. They were, and have continued to be, something much more.

At the time I’m writing this, I have seen The Force Awakens eight times.

Why I love The Force Awakens (briefly):

(in ascending order of both importance and surprise)

1. As I expected, JJ et al managed to capture all the joy of the original movies that seemed to have been lost (and which, judging from the prequels and “Special Editions,” was largely accidental on Lucas’s part). As even most of the movie’s detractors acknowledge, The Force Awakens knows how to make people who loved the original movies (and were disappointed by the prequels) happy. It opened up our skulls and stimulated the Star Wars pleasure centers in our brains. That’s all it really needed to do.
2. As I suspected, The Force Awakens can be consumed as a rebuke and/or corrective to the prequel trilogy. Here’s how you show somebody going over to the Dark Side! Here’s how you blow up a Death Star! (I mean, seriously, the one thing Lucas could have improved upon from the originals was explosions. JJ et al took Lucas to school.) Watching this movie, it felt that a grievous wrong had been righted…that balance had been restored to the galaxy.
3. As I neither expected nor suspected (and barely allowed myself to dream), JJ et al gave us so much more than a nostalgia trip or a return to form. Other than money (which unfortunately is usually the motive), there is only one good reason to make a sequel, and it’s to add to the joy, to continue it, to make it even better. Take Kylo Ren: that character has more depth and interest than any other character in the entire saga.* The Force Awakens took everything that was good about Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader, and Han Solo and from that family tree created one of the best movie villains of all time. Yeah, you heard me! And hear this, too: The Force Awakens is my favorite movie.

My problem with your problems:

First, let’s reject out of hand all criticisms of The Force Awakens that come from people who prefer the prequels. The complaints of prequel fans remind me of the time an acquaintance of mine told me she didn’t like Amy’s Ice Creams in Austin, Texas, and then, only after a few more minutes of discussion, revealed that she “doesn’t really like ice cream.”

Now let’s just respond to a handful of common complaints:

It’s a beat-for-beat remake of the first one!

No it isn’t.

Yes it is!

No, it isn’t. Put aside for a second that most people saying this are clearly regurgitating clickbait from the Internet (as evidenced by the fact that nobody outside of Hollywood was talking about story “beats” before December 18, 2015). Put aside too that the movie quite simply is not “beat for beat” the same. Instead, be generous to the complaint by translating it into the (somewhat) more reasonable claim that The Force Awakens is “basically the same story.” And here’s my answer to that: no it isn’t.

It is, though! It’s the exact same story!

Two answers.

Answer #1: That complaint is a METACRITICISM. What I mean by that is that it’s a complaint about the movie as a product, not as an enjoyable, immersible reality. Now, I’m not saying “it’s just a movie.” I’m not an “it’s just a movie” guy, because most of the stupid shit in movies that people say “it’s just a movie” about can easily bump you out of that immersible reality. But can you really, honestly be bumped out of The Force Awakens by the perception that the plot is too familiar? I submit that there is exactly one non-metacritical scenario in which that could be the case, and it’s this: if it were unrealistic within the reality of the movie that there might be echoes of the past, such that referencing the earlier movies were the only explanation for that familiarity.

Go through the “beats” and tell me honestly: does it really strain suspension of disbelief to imagine that, twice within a 30-year period of war, someone might hide something of value inside a droid? Come on. People would be hiding shit in droids CONSTANTLY.

Is it really so ridiculous that the inheritors of the Empire’s mantle would build a bigger Death Star? Yeah, because we obviously stopped building bombs and planes since World War I.

Is it really so outrageous that some kind of generational conflict might continue within the Skywalker line? I would argue that the idea that it wouldn’t is pretty much ludicrous.

Answer #2: No it isn’t.

How is Rey able to defeat a fully trained Sith Lord the first time she holds a lightsaber?

Putting aside the fact that Kylo Ren is neither fully trained nor a Sith Lord, it’s clear that Rey is massively powerful in the Force — I’m guessing the most powerful Force user ever — and it’s clear upon a second viewing that she has been using the Force for much longer than she even realizes. Unrelatedly, it’s clear from the original trilogy that there’s a direct corellation between strength in the Force and expertise in lightsaber use. (Here’s how Obi-Wan trained Luke to use his lightsaber: he told him to use the Force. Here’s how Obi-Wan helped Luke blow up the first Death Star: he told him to use the Force. Here’s how Yoda trained Luke to fight: he taught him to pick up rocks with his mind.) The Force guides you. You don’t go to fencing school. Rey defeats Kylo Ren because she’s a natural and because the Force is on her side. Nothing about this is unrealistic except the Force itself, and if you’ve got a problem with the Force itself then your problem is with Star Wars as a whole.

The movie never explains why Kylo Ren hates his father!

That’s because he doesn’t hate his father, and the movie never says he does. He loves his father. That’s why he feels “the pull of the Light.” That’s why he doesn’t know if he has “the strength” to kill him. Rewatch the movie. You took one of the most interesting parts and read it as a flaw. Great job!

Adam Driver was miscast.

No he wasn’t. Adam Driver was perfectly cast and his performance is brilliant.

None of the surprises were surprising.

Did you think you were watching an M. Night Shyamalan movie? This wasn’t a movie about huge twists. Nor did it pretend to be. Darth Vader being Luke’s father is something we’ve known for decades; does that mean you can’t enjoy The Empire Strikes Back anymore? A much greater failure would have been to rely too heavily on surprise: that would have guaranteed that the joy of watching The Force Awakens would be a strictly one-time thing.

I just didn’t like it.

I feel sorry for you. Maybe one day you’ll allow yourself to experience joy. Until then, consider spending less time trying to shit on other people’s joy.

May the shut the hell up be with you!

*For much more on how interesting Kylo Ren is, click here.