5 Takes About "The Force Awakens"

Seth Opeil
Dec 18, 2015
2 min read

In a galaxy NOT so far away.... the anticipation for Star Wars: The Force Awakens hit it's all-time peak, as the new movie in the popular movie franchise was released Thursday December 18th. The past two weeks, Star Wars mania did it's best impression of the evil Empire as it took over the universe of pop culture. Here are five takes from the reign of Star War's conquest...

If anything can be said about Star Wars hype, it's that Disney knows how to transform the marketing of a movie into an event! Airing the first full length teaser during the half-time of Monday Night Football, dropping new teasers and pictures from the movie throughout the weeks leading up to the release, and signing countless endorsements featuring Star Wars in retail products' commercials, shows Disney's brilliance in marketing... repetition, repetition, REPETITION!
Due to the success and acclaim surrounding other renowned movie franchise sequels released this year, such as Jurassic World (sequel to the Jurassic Park series) and Creed (reboot/sequel of the Rocky series), Star Wars has much less room for error. Surely die-hard Star Wars fans will always be ciritical, but regular movie fans, not engulfed in the Star Wars expanded universe, might judge Star Wars: The Force Awakens side by side with these other movie franchise sequels, especially with Jurassic World since Star Wars will be competing with it for highest grossing film of 2015.
Star Wars fans have dedicated themselves to rewatching the previous movies leading up to the new release. Although the rational order to watch the previous 6 movies would be chronologically from 1 through 6, fans have posted theories of different orders to watch the previous movies, which they state enhances the viewing experience of the original six. One example is to watch the movies 4, 5, 1, 2, 3, and 6. So you would watch The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, and Revenge of the Sith, between Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, which inserts an extended flashback of the journey of Anakin Skywalker from a good Jedi to the evil Darth Vadar.
JJ Abrams is a huge Star Wars fan, and in several interviews, he highlighted the stress of making the new movie for this iconic movie franchise... not only from the fear of fan backlash from one of the largest fan bases, but as a fan himself, he did not want to ruin the movie franchise he loves. This has to be assuring for Star Wars fans, who are worried about this new movie suffering a similar fate as the prequels.
Star Wars has already earned a $248M opening weekend, so the question is not whether this movie will perform commercially, but whether Star Wars: The Force Awakens does the franchise justice... true Star Wars fans will certainly prioritize the quality over any box office haul the movie draws.