‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ Still Holds Up 10 Years Later

It’s hard to believe that it’s been ten years since the Star Wars sequel trilogy kicked off with 2015’s The Force Awakens. It means that 11-year-olds who were sitting in the theater, likely watching a Star Wars film for the first time, are now 21.

Although there was a lot of criticism that The Force Awakens was too similar to A New Hope, the 2015 film was a juggernaut at the box office and created an online frenzy as everyone debated Rey’s origins and the mystery surrounding Luke’s disappearance.

Unfortunately, things took a bit of a tumble with 2017’s The Last Jedi. Rian Johnson took an ambitious swing by focusing on the Force connection between Rey (Daisy Ridley) and Kylo Ren (Adam Driver), delegating former Stormtrooper Finn (John Boyega) and Resistance pilot Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) to minor subplots that barely served the story.

Although Johnson seemingly set up Kylo Ren to become the villain in the final installment of the trilogy, Emperor Palpatine’s surprise return completely walked back Ren’s descent to the dark side. After a confrontation with Rey, he returned as the redeemed Ben Solo to take on Palpatine. He passed away at the end of the film, using the last of his power to resurrect Rey, and seemingly faded into the Force.

Unfortunately, as the only son of Han Solo and Leia Organa, this meant that the Solo/Skywalker bloodline has seemingly disappeared. Although Rey was revealed to be born from a clone of Emperor Palpatine, she uses the name “Rey Skywalker” at the end of the film, stirring more controversy among fans.

But this isn’t about The Rise of Skywalker, which was actually the very last Star Wars film to appear in theaters way back in 2019. On the tenth anniversary of The Force Awakens, fans had one thing on their minds: hope.

During the six-year run of the prequel trilogy, fans highlighted a fair share of disappointment and controversy. Whether it was Jar Jar Binks and a study of how high taxes and unchecked corporate power led to the Galactic Empire in The Phantom Menace, to the melodramatic lines and unpolished CGI sequences panned in the seven years following Revenge of the Sith, there were many missteps fans hoped to forget.

Fans were feeling hopeful about the future of the franchise when Disney bought Lucasfilm in 2012, and the announcement of the sequel trilogy had them eager to see more Star Wars on the big screen and see what happened to Luke, Leia, and Han after the Battle of Endor. Unfortunately, the sequel trilogy ultimately fell flat due to the lack of a cohesive vision and absolutely no outline for where the story would go after three films.

That being said, The Force Awakens started off strong. John Williams’ iconic score and the parallel beats of A New Hope certainly helped the story feel like Star Wars, while introducing a new generation to a new band of heroes to root for. The characters are interesting enough, and Oscar Isaac’s Poe does a great job bringing the humor early on to balance out the fact that the sequel trilogy basically opened with a massacre. It’s not overly violent, though, and is certainly more interesting than starting a movie with a debate about trade policy.

Finn later frees Poe from the First Order, and they crash on Jakku. It is here that Finn runs into Rey, and the story really begins. Although Finn and Rey spend a fair amount of time together, Rey never meets Poe until the very end of the film, and even then, it’s just a quick introduction. Fans hoping for a new “trio” were quickly disappointed, as Rey heads off to find Luke and they aren’t united again until the end of The Last Jedi. It makes their scenes together in the final film feel more forced than earned, as the audience barely had any time to see their chemistry develop on-screen.

John Boyega gets plenty to do in the first film, where he even wields a lightsaber against Kylo Ren. While it would have been poetic to see a former Stormtrooper become a Jedi to take down the First Order, Rian Johnson relegated Finn to a side character, and his Force sensitivity was treated as a running joke that never landed the punchline in the final film.

Likewise, Kylo Ren makes a fine villain, if that’s what he’s supposed to be. It might have been more dramatic if he hadn’t shown his face so early on in the trilogy, as it would have allowed the story to play with the mystery of his origins a bit longer.

Still, The Force Awakens did give fans plenty to talk about, and although most were not happy with the direction that the trilogy took, it did introduce a new generation to a cast of interesting characters that could have told a truly compelling story with a unified narrative vision.

Now, ten years later, it’s clear that the film set up the right mix of hope, humor, and action that fans have come to expect from a Star Wars movie. Taken on its own, it is still a good film… as long as you don’t focus too much on how the trilogy ends.