My Star Wars: The Force Awakens Review (SPOILERS)

"Everything's changed and nothing's changed."

Mark Hamill said this in a behind-the-scenes video for Star Wars: The Force Awakens released six months before the film's premiere. Hamill was referring to all the real sets, practical effects and other pre-digital techniques of film-making that director J.J. Abrams and Force Awakens crew had been using in order to give fans the Star Wars movie they'd been waiting to see for the past 30 years. For those of us who have seen The Force Awakens since it's release last week, Hamill's statement takes on a deeper meaning. Once again, we've been taken back to our beloved galaxy far, far away, where everything has changed and nothing has changed. We've collectively familiarized ourselves with the history of this fictional galaxy since childhood, so it should come as no surprise that its history, like ours, is doomed to repeat itself.

If there's a real world-applicable lesson in The Force Awakens, this is it. History is a cyclical animal, and as a result, so are the mythologies we create in our feeble attempts to give some kind of meaning to our existence. Conflicts come and go, the players change, but the story—for better or worse—stays the same. Everything changes and nothing changes. This is the reality that the Star Wars universe shares with our own.

So what's the point? If history is doomed to repeat itself, what can we hope to ever achieve? What can our mythology possibly teach us about ourselves? Is there any hope in breaking the cycle? These are the philosophical questions that The Force Awakens asks—and in classic Star Wars fashion, all while showing us one hell of a good time.

Which is why I say to all the naysayers out there who have decided that The Force Awakens is just an inferior rehash of the original Star Wars: A New Hope—you missed the damn point. Yes, the new movie shares many plot beats with the original Star Wars film. You noticed this because it was a clear, deliberate choice on the part of J.J. Abrams and co-writer Lawrence Kasdan. In evoking the narrative of the 1977 original, Abrams and Kasdan are working within the mythology that's in front of them and weaving a new chapter into the mix. Everything that's the same is the same for good reason, and everything that's different is different to great effect.

If there is a problem with The Force Awakens, it's not that it covers familiar ground, it's that it speeds through it a little too quickly. This is a fast-paced film in every sense of the word—so fast, in fact, that there are a number of moments—both visually and narritively speaking—that never get a chance to reach full potency. Some of the most beautiful shots in the film run for about a quarter of the time that they should, and a few key emotional moments don't quite resonate as strongly as they could have. This isn't a huge problem, and for every shot or scene that moves a bit too quickly there's one that really works, but there are still enough blink-and-you'll-miss it moments in the film to make me wonder what an extra five, ten, even fifteen minutes of extra run-time might have done for the final product.

That being said, the film's fast pace is just as much a strength as it is a weakness, and J.J. Abrams does a miraculous job of squeezing everything he can into this one to make it feel like a "real" Star Wars movie. The humor, heart, and dazzling effects are all intact, and they all work together in transporting us successfully back to the galaxy far, far away. There's a certain Rip Van Winkle effect to The Force Awakens. When you watch it, it feels like you've been asleep since the battle of Endor in Return of the Jedi and you've woken up 30 years later. You recognize your surroundings, but you can't quite pin down exactly what has changed in the decades-long interim. Then the story progresses and the pieces start coming together. Some questions are answered, many are not, but along the way you are treated to sights and sounds that make you say "Yes, I know this." There's a moment early on in the film when BB-8—the adorable new droid on the block—rolls along the top of a sand dune on the desert planet Jakku. A puppeteered alien with glowing red eyes pokes its head out from under the sand and grumbles something at the droid, who beeps and bleeps like he's startled and moves quickly out of the frame. It's a great little moment, full of the same brand of humor, environment, and practical effects you saw 30 years ago. You know this. This is Star Wars.

And for the most part, the rest of the film follows suit. Much has been said in the months leading up to the film's release of the practical effects and old-school techniques Abrams was implementing to make The Force Awakens feel authentic. The end product mostly lives up to the hype in this sense, and the CGI that does make it into the film appropriately augments the analog stuff (with the exception of Andy Serkis' CG rendered character Supreme Leader Snoke, who looks more like he belongs in Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter than he does in Star Wars).

But all the practical effects and real sets would be for not if they weren't inhabited by an incredible new cast of characters. As a fan, my biggest fear was whether or not I'd be able to love the new characters as much as the old ones. Thankfully, Abrams and Kasdan have written some wonderful new characters that have been brought to life by a brilliant cast of young actors. Hot off an impressive run of performances including the Coen Brothers' Inside Llewyn Davis, HBO's Show Me a Hero, and and new sci-fi classic Ex Machina, Oscar Isaac charms up the screen as hot-shot resistance pilot Poe Dameron, who the A.V. Club's Ignatiy Vishnevetsky aptly describes as "the swashbuckling pulp hero that the Republic-serial-indebted Star Wars cycle has, for some reason, never had before." Then there's John Boyega as rogue stormtrooper Finn, the likes of which we've never really seen before in a Star Wars film. His origins—a lifelong First Order soldier, trained from birth—grants the character a lovable sense naivete and other-worldly innocence that Boyega infuses with humor, wit and affability. Rounding out the new trio is Daisy Ridley as Rey, the scavenger-turned-force prodigy who, over the course of the film, secures her place as the hero of the new trilogy. It's astounding that this is Ridley's first movie role, because she throws down a mature, commanding performance. Rey is important to the future of the series for many reasons. It's great that the central figure of Star Wars is now a woman, and it's a relief that she's written and portrayed with the authority and dimension she deserves. Any hanging notion that Star Wars is a boy's thing flies out the door with Rey. In case you haven't figured it out already, Star Wars is for everyone.

The Force Awakens features some tremendous players on the dark side as well, among them Domnhall Gleeson as the weaselly General Hux, Gwendoline Christie as Captain Phasma (who looks and sounds so cool it's a shame she didn't get more screen time, even if she ends up playing a larger role in Episode VIII), and lead villain Kylo Ren, played with emotional gravitas and scene-stealing severity by Adam Driver, this generation's Brando as far as I'm concerned. Kylo Ren is no Darth Vader, to be sure. In many ways, he's the opposite. Where Vader is cold, calculated, and distance, Ren exists in the moment, and nine times outta ten, the moment is rage. A few months after it was first announced that there would be a Star Wars: Episode VII, a friend and I were discussing the predicament of creating a villain to succeed Darth Vader. We both agreed that the best move would be to create a villain that was unstable, unpolished, and rash—the Id in every way that Vader was once the Ego. Thank God we were right.

Speaking of Kylo Ren, let's talk about the death of Han Solo. Let's face it, the deed had to be done. Han Solo is a big deal. In fact, he's the biggest deal of any Star Wars character (with the exception of Darth Vader probably). Had he stuck around for Episodes VIII and IX, he would have cast too large a shadow over the new cast. He was so sorely missed in the prequels that he had to come back, and he had to go just as quickly in order for the series to move forward in a meaningful way. Han's death at the hands of his son also makes for some weighty storytelling, giving the film an authentic sense of loss while adding new dimensions to the whole light side/dark side dynamic. Ben Solo/Kylo Ren is, in many ways, the anti-Luke—a glimpse at what Luke Skywalker might have become had he killed his father and turned to the dark side in Return of the Jedi—making his future in the series excitingly difficult to predict. Is Kylo Ren beyond the redemption that was granted his grandfather? Only time will tell, but right now I'd venture to say he is. Anyway, Kylo Ren will probably never be as iconic as Darth Vader, but he's certainly on his way to becoming the most compelling villain that Star Wars has ever produced.

In my last Star Wars blog post, I mentioned that the final trailer for The Force Awakens gave off the vibe that the interactions between the old characters and the new ones act as a metaphor for the way new generations of fans continue to discover the original Star Wars trilogy. For the most part, this ended up being the case. When Rey and Finn first meet Han and Chewie, for example, there's a great moment where Rey and Finn argue about whether the legendary Han Solo was a general for the rebellion or a just a smuggler. It sounds just like a conversation any of us in the real world might have about Han Solo. What we share in common with Rey and Finn is an inherited mythology. Names like Han Solo and Luke Skywalker mean the same thing to them as they do to us. The only difference is that Rey and Finn actually live in the same universe as their mythological heroes. Is there any hope in breaking the cycle of history? Even if we can't, the mythology of Star Wars teaches us that the mere hope of breaking it is enough.