Star Wars: The Force Awakens delivered on much of its promise; a tight, focused story, good fan-service, awesome crowd-pleasing moments and great new characters who we actually give a damn about. The problem is that for as much as we received, there remain some glaring omissions from the film in terms of context, subtext, action sequences and character arcs. The opportunity for more well-rounded subplots and characters was there, though; all that was needed would be to trim some fat from elsewhere in the film, like Rey's involuntary exile on Jakku earning food, or - whisper it now - give us a longer runtime. Considering the fact that we waited three years for this movie, and that it'll be another year and a half before we get Episode VIII, it can't be too much to ask for just a little more time spent with The Force Awakens; it's not exactly like people would decide not to turn up to the latest Star Wars due to a lengthy runtime. If there were perhaps concerns that a longer runtime would affect the pacing of the film, I'd argue that J.J. Abrams is good enough at his job to bury those concerns. Regardless, here is a list of some of the things that should've been included in The Force Awakens, had the film only had a bit more time to spare.
Cinephile since 1993, aged 4, when he saw his very first film in the cinema - Jurassic Park - which is also evidence of damn fine parenting. World champion at Six Degrees of Separation. Lender of DVDs to cheap mates. Connoisseur of Marvel Comics and its Cinematic Universe.
