Star Wars: The Force Awakens Review: Broken Promises Force Choke A New Beginning Rich With Potential

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When Star Wars: The Force Awakens was released ten years ago, it revolutionized the Star Wars franchise. As Disney’s first Star Wars film, it launched a new and previously unseen era within the Star Wars story.

Facing huge expectations, The Force Awakens had the challenging job of bringing the Star Wars franchise back to life without its original creator, George Lucas. Looking back at the entire sequel trilogy, it’s hard to judge The Force Awakens on its own merits, separate from how everything turned out.

Looking back at The Force Awakens ten years later, it’s clear the film wasn’t setting up the entire trilogy for failure. Instead, it was a fresh, promising start with a lot of potential—potential that unfortunately wasn’t fully realized in the following movies.

The Force Awakens: A Promising Start, With Unfulfilled Potential

Right from the start, The Force Awakens captures the classic Star Wars feel. It doesn’t feel overly polished or changed by Disney. Kylo Ren, though a bit like Darth Vader, is genuinely frightening, and the movie quickly showcases an impressive display of Force power – he stops Poe Dameron’s blaster shot in mid-air for a sustained moment.

Within the first few minutes of the movie, viewers are introduced to a new red lightsaber with a distinctive design, see the return of stormtroopers, meet a new villain with a hidden family history, and learn about a quest for a map leading to the legendary Jedi Master, Luke Skywalker.

While The Force Awakens introduces new elements, many story beats feel overly familiar. This is particularly noticeable with the planet Jakku, which strongly resembles Tatooine, and the character of Rey. Like Luke Skywalker before her, Rey is a seemingly ordinary person stuck on a desert planet, unaware of her incredible potential.

Despite criticisms that The Force Awakens relies too much on elements from A New Hope and the original Star Wars films, the movie introduces a lot of exciting new possibilities. A prime example is the character of FN-2187, known as Finn, and his story.

The idea of a stormtrooper realizing the terrible things happening in the war and then joining the side fighting against it – even becoming a key player – is incredibly clever. The fact that he initially appeared to have a connection to the Force and the potential to become a powerful Jedi made this storyline even more interesting and promising, though that potential wasn’t fully realized.

Considering just The Force Awakens, the ending sets Finn up nicely to continue developing as a character. While Rey clearly has a stronger connection to the Force – as Kylo Ren points out to Snoke – Finn bravely confronts Kylo Ren, even while holding Anakin Skywalker’s lightsaber.

John Boyega, who plays Finn, is quickly becoming a fan favorite, and his on-screen connection with both Daisy Ridley (Rey) and Oscar Isaac (Poe Dameron) is clear. However, it’s his scenes with Harrison Ford, returning as Han Solo in The Force Awakens, that are particularly memorable.

Harrison Ford’s comeback was exactly as memorable as everyone expected, but the scenes where Han Solo truly stands out are those with John Boyega. Boyega’s performance brings a side of Han we haven’t seen in years. The now-famous line, “That’s not how the Force works,” perfectly captures the spirit of those moments and explains why it’s become so popular.

John Boyega wasn’t the only star who emerged from The Force Awakens. Adam Driver also made his Star Wars debut in the film, and his performance as Ben Solo/Kylo Ren was a definite highlight.

While The Force Awakens draws heavily from the original Star Wars films, the connection between Kylo Ren and Darth Vader feels the most natural. This is because the story intentionally establishes Kylo as Vader’s grandson, and he’s clearly fixated on his grandfather’s legacy.

Kylo Ren’s obsession with Darth Vader is obvious, whether it’s through dramatically praying to Vader’s helmet or constantly trying to copy everything about him. His dark clothing, cape, and even the way he alters his voice all point to one thing: he’s essentially a child pretending to be a powerful Sith Lord.

What makes Kylo Ren a compelling character is his internal conflict. He uses the dark side of the Force, but isn’t a fully trained Sith Lord. This lack of proper training makes him unstable and unpredictable in The Force Awakens. This instability is even visible in his lightsaber; its flickering, uneven blade shows he hasn’t mastered control, symbolized by his damaged kyber crystal.

Everyone acknowledges that while The Force Awakens introduced some great new characters, it didn’t fully utilize the return of the original Star Wars heroes – Carrie Fisher as Princess Leia, Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker, and Harrison Ford as Han Solo. It was a missed opportunity to really showcase them.

As a huge Star Wars fan, I always felt a little let down by how The Force Awakens handled the return of Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, and Princess Leia. It was so frustrating waiting the entire movie just to see him for a few moments at the very end! Mark Hamill was right to joke about it feeling like a silent film for him – he barely had any lines! It just didn’t feel right to keep such a legend hidden for so long.

Simply put, this felt like a huge mistake. With all three original actors returning to the Star Wars universe and the fresh start offered by The Force Awakens, a truly amazing story seemed within reach, but it didn’t happen.

Throughout the sequel trilogy, including The Force Awakens, the three main heroes are never reunited as a group. Even more disappointingly, Luke Skywalker is a far cry from the optimistic, heroic Jedi we remember from Return of the Jedi. In The Force Awakens, he’s almost a completely different person, not only in appearance but also because he’s lost faith in the galaxy.

It’s hard to deny that the story continuation for Luke Skywalker didn’t live up to expectations, and many fans believe the problems started with his portrayal in The Force Awakens. This is arguably the film’s biggest weakness.

Even with its flaws, The Force Awakens is generally a successful film on its own. It’s an exciting and energetic movie in the spirit of the original Star Wars, featuring compelling new characters and a return to what fans loved about the series.

Even though some argue J.J. Abrams took the story in a different direction than George Lucas intended, this sequel actually feels the most like a classic Star Wars film. It’s likely because it closely follows the structure of A New Hope, but the humor and way the characters talk also strongly resemble Lucas’s style, especially in The Force Awakens.

The biggest problem with The Force Awakens isn’t the film itself, but rather that it set up storylines the following movies in the trilogy weren’t able to deliver on.

Much of what made The Force Awakens so promising relied on the following two movies delivering on that potential, but sadly, they often fell short. A major point of contention with the sequels was the underdevelopment of Finn’s character, and the fact that the films never explicitly showed him using the Force, despite hints to that effect.

Perhaps the biggest letdown of The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker compared to The Force Awakens was how they handled Rey’s story. The Force Awakens hinted that Rey, a powerful newcomer from a desert planet, might be a completely ordinary person – someone with no special lineage or connection to the wider Star Wars universe.

Instead of telling a truly original story (though The Last Jedi did try), the sequel movies delivered a surprising twist similar to the famous reveal in The Empire Strikes Back – Rey was revealed to be the granddaughter of the main villain, Emperor Palpatine.

Looking back on The Force Awakens now, after learning that reveal, it honestly takes something away from the film for me. It makes Rey’s journey feel a little less meaningful, like it doesn’t quite have the impact it originally did.

I have to say, even with all the Star Wars movies that came after The Force Awakens, and looking back after ten years, I still think it’s a fantastic film and doesn’t get the credit it deserves. If you just watch it on its own, it really holds up beautifully – it’s a truly great Star Wars movie.

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2025-12-18 16:01