Star Wars – The Force Awakens – 2015
I would expect nothing less than perfection from the visual effects of a Star Wars film, even though at this point, George Lucas is no longer the owner of the franchise. Disney has now purchased it from him, a transaction from whence both good and bad things came. But one of the things that remained the same was the quality of the visual effects. Only here, we have J.J. Abrams sitting in the director’s chair. Even though there were way too many plot elements repeated from the original Star Wars, visually, Abrams has a very different aesthetic than Lucas.
I can start this off by mentioning some of the iconic, uniquely Star Wars things that got modern make-overs, such as Kylo Ren’s rough red lightsaber, with its two fiery cross-guards, or the new droid design of BB8. The X-wing ships got a new black paint-job. Even the storm troopers got an upgrade in the character of Captain Phasma with her silver armor. So many things were updated thanks to Abrams. But despite all that, it was still clearly Star Wars.
At the beginning of the film, one of the first effects that caught my attention was a clever use of the Dark Side of the Force, when Kylo Ren freezes a blaster bolt in mid-air. Ok, J.J., that was cool. After that, the action kicks into high gear when Po and Fin escape from the First Order in a TIE-fighter. Lots of fast flying and things blowing up. Then we went back to the desert planet of Jaku, where there was a chase, more fast flying with the Millennium Falcon, and things blowing up.
But the next big action sequence was on board Han Solo’s freighter ship where massive, semi-comical CGI monsters with big round bodies, flailing tentacles, gaping maws, and rows of sharp teeth. After that was more action on the planet of Takodana: first a laser-gun ground battle, and then more fast-flying x-wings and things blowing up. I’m starting to see a pattern here. Later, there is the attack on Starkiller Base (another Deathstar), with fast-flying x-wings and TIE-fighters… and things blowing up. And finally, we get a lightsaber duel in a snowy forest at night. The exciting climax where the base explodes and seems to become a star was cool. And that was all the major action sequences in the film.
Throughout the movie, there were plenty of the expected CGI characters, some filmed using motion control technology, like having Lupita Nyong’o as the diminutive alien, Maz Kanata, or Simon Pegg as the oversized Unkar Plutt, the junk dealer on Jaku. On Takodana, there was a cantina of sorts, so there was an even wider variety of digital creatures and robots on display. And there were several well-crafted digital environments, like the surface of Starkiller Base, where the Stormtroopers were lined up like on vintage newsreel footage of Nazi soldiers.
Obviously, the CGI work was noticeably improved from the previous Star Wars films, the prequels. Granted, Episode One came out sixteen years earlier, but it was more than dramatically improved, showing just how far computer generated imagery has come since that time. Well done!