So I went to see Star Wars this afternoon with Cal and Nick and frankly we were very impressed. That’s not to say we couldn’t gripe – because god knows we could – the dialogue is as bad as it is in all the other films, the plot (such as it is) is swamped by episodic diversions, some of the characters aren’t doing what they should be doing (when did Obi Wan get so bloody lame and were Mandalorian Warriors all as naff as Jango Fett) and the whole thing could have been twenty minutes shorter (and each individual episode within it – particularly the battle scenes could have been correspondingly shorter as well). But despite all this, it was really not a bad film at all.
Of course the horror of the event is that before it had even started the nostalgia kicks in. You think you’re going to be immune, but you’re there in the cinema and the 20th Century Fox drum-rolls sound and then the Star Wars music kicks in and the logo appears and you’re ten again, Star Wars forcibly inserted into your DNA – your reactions as formulaic and robotic as if you were a puppet on a string. Which a lot of men around my age must feel like to be honest. And as you sit there, you’re always overwhelmed by hope, expecting it to be shit but unable to accept that it will be.
But even stripped of decades of obsessive love, this is still a film that you can actually enjoy. There’s action and drama and interesting and well-designed aliens and a real look and feel that inspire you to want to believe, and much less offensive ethnic stereotyping and a few (mostly but not exclusively ill-judged) jokes and Yoda…. Well, Yoda kicks butt…