The Single Best Thing In Every Star Wars Movie
3. The Force Awakens: The Characters, Both Old And New
Although The Force Awakens is overly safe, it's still a rather wonderful film in many ways. It's an enormously entertaining and excellently crafted sci-fi blockbuster with an irresistible spirit.
Furthermore, for all the complaints about it being a nostalgia-fest, in retrospect it's not as nostalgia-baiting as you might remember, especially compared to certain other recent movies (looking at you, Ghostbusters: Afterlife).
The Force Awakens is a film that actually moves the series forward while also echoing the past and the main way it does this - and also, the movie's biggest strength - is the smart way in which it blends the old and new characters and allows both groups to shine together.
The film does a wonderful job of establishing the new characters and it also brilliantly reintroduces the old gang. The film smartly integrates most of these characters into the main story as opposed to just reducing them to fan service cameos like many legacy sequels, and the film handles Luke Skywalker's reduced role very well too.
As for the new cast, although Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) was under-used, Rey (Daisy Ridley) and Finn (John Boyega) were a delightful pair of leads, villain Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) immediately emerged as the greatest Sequel Trilogy character of them all and of course, the movie introduced BB-8. You can't not love him.
Not all of these old and new characters lived up to their potential in this new trilogy, but they certainly got off to a smashing start here.