Star Wars: The Force Awakens - 6 Things That Were Perfect (And 3 That Were Disappointing)

2. It Goes So Fast It Overtakes Itself

Star Wars movies always move fast. Even The Phantom Menace, which people constantly moan about for being a bore that gets bogged down in political chat, has serious pace to it. But The Force Awakens blows the rest out of the water. This was a clear decision on the part of Abrams and screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan, who opted for a constantly progressing adventure that goes by at such a pace any of its illogicies cease to matter. It's a nice idea, and does mean that some of those unanswered questions mentioned early don't become a problem until well after viewing, but it has some pitfalls of its own. Because the first act is so tightly focused on the new characters, little of the wider First Order threat is established until later on, meaning that when all of a sudden it's revealed Starkiller base is targeting the Resistance base it comes totally out of the blue, and it takes for the actual attack to start for you to realise we've magically turned up at the film's big action finale. At certain points, such as when Rey runs away from Maz's castle, a bit of slowing down and taking stock, similar to Luke's training on the Falcon in A New Hope, would have been appreciated. As J.J. intended, it doesn't hurt the enjoyment of the film too much, but it does reduce the amount of development certain plot threads get.