Today, I took the teenagers to see the new Star Wars. At this point, I've lost track of the movie titles, but I'm pretty sure this was #8.
Everything I write here will be spoiler-free, so don't get your knickers in a knot. I'm just going to share some general thoughts on this specific flick and the Disney franchise as a whole.
Firstly, it's very long. There are ads, coming attractions, yet more ads and a very long movie. There's even a game they want you to play with an app (both my teens did this), except it's not a game at all. You literally just watch more ads. What's up with that? Weren't there actual trivia questions at some point?
Star Wars 8 is long enough that I thought I could make it through without a pee break, only to realize we weren't wrapping up as I was led to believe. There was a good 45-minutes post-pee. There's lots going on.
These new Star Wars movies feel like the same movie over and over again. The names and faces might change, but the general mythology is all copy and paste. It's a winning formula, and they sure stick to it. Because it's the same pleasing movie over and over again, it's pretty fun while you're in the theatre. Just don't expect to be talking about it two hours later. It's not the type of movie you take home with you.
I was going to map the current characters to the originals, like how BB-8 is R2-D2 and Rey is Luke, but that's a little too close to spoilerville, and I promised not to go there. Just know, there's nothing new under the sun, and that's not entirely a bad thing. After all, Disney is laughing all the way to the bank.
