So far, so good for “Star Wars: The Force Awakens.”
J.J. Abrams’ seventh installment into the much beloved-much maligned “Star Wars” saga is a very risk prospect. On one hand, you’ve got fans who are vehemently opposed to the idea of new “Star Wars” films. They don’t want to be burned like they were with the prequels. On the other hand, there are a lot of fans who are keeping an open mind. As of this writing, the early returns are proving the latter group correct.
“First up, over the summer when they were filming The Force Awakens, I never really heard a bad thing,” Jason Ward, Editor-in-Chief of MakingStarWars.net, wrote. “The most critical anyone from the set got with me was that it was reusing a lot of old elements from the Original Trilogy and was somewhat derivative in design but everything else was extremely pleasing. That’s a fair criticism, too. Eventually they would go into a great defense of the movie about how on track it feels and how it has good spirit. That was incredibly encouraging to me as a fan slightly fearful of Star Wars without George Lucas.
“Now, we are starting to hear from people I am hesitant to call ‘sources,’ but they have seen the movie. These are people in various walks of the industry around our favorite galaxy and it is thumbs up all around from them. I am hearing the same thing from friends of friends as well. Another section of friends at NYCC I trust have heard nothing but positive things about the last few cuts of the film.”
This is great news, especially for an entertainment writer who wrote a “3 Reasons J.J. Abrams Won’t Let Us Down” article a few months back. Although Disney is known to be particularly stringent about their shared cinematic universes (cough, Marvel, cough), it sounds as if they are letting Abrams make the movie he (and, by extension, the fans) want.
It doesn’t mean much until fans worldwide actually see the picture and make their own judgments, but it is encouraging that “The Force Awakens” is being met with such positive hype so far.
