Star Wars: The Force Awakens - 12 Reasons It Lives Up To The Hype

1. It Feels Like Star Wars

It has seemed clear throughout the marketing campaign for The Force Awakens that J.J. Abrams, Kathleen Kennedy, and everyone else involved in the film truly understood Star Wars. That they know what it represents, and what it means to people; that this is far bigger than just a film. However, trailers and words can be misleading. It would take watching the actual movie to fully know whether they knew. And, after viewing The Force Awakens, they definitely get it. This is, essentially, the first true Star Wars film of my lifetime. They understand the existing characters, whose personas have become so much larger than life. They understand this world, which needs to be created with care and precision, fully-detailed and populated and wonderfully crafted and dense. They understand the need to have action, and drama, but that the humour and heart are just as important as the lightsaber fights and spaceship battles. They understand that this movie needed to be referential to the past and look to the future; that it needed to be for the fans; that this was the movie that would bring Star Wars back. Watching the movie, and thinking, reading, and writing about it afterwards, there are a lot of different thoughts going around. It was fun, it was exciting, the new characters were great, maybe there are holes you can pick in it and, as I said right at the beginning, it's far from being perfect. But it didn't need to be. The overwhelming sense that you get watching this movie, from the opening crawl to the closing credits, is that this feels like Star Wars. We couldn't have asked for anything more. What did you make of The Force Awakens? Share your thoughts in the comments below.