(As per usual this review contains multiple spoilers. You’ve been warned!)

In a recent interview the stage and screen actress Blythe Danner said that part of why she left New York and the stage for LA and the movies was that, after she won a Tony on Broadway, whenever she made a stage entrance the audience would applaud.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens reminded me of that. Whenever one of the old crew appeared I expected the theater to break out in applause, and it seemed to me that director J.J. Abrams slowed these sequences down a tad for these special moments of reverent self-reference.

Because if this movie is anything it is self-referent; it is a less a sequel than a re-make of the first Star Wars movie. I found myself silently checking off references to the first movie (and its 2 sequels). Continue reading →