Many of us got our first introduction to the Star Wars franchise as children. It’s this nostalgia, as much as anything else, that built the films into the massive juggernaut that they are today. Today there is a new generation of children who have never seen a Star Wars movie on the big screen. For them The Force Awakens has the potential to be as groundbreaking an experience as the original film was nearly 40 years ago. Director J.J. Abrams seems to understand the power that this movie can have on today's kids and hopes that they see themselves, and their own potential, on the screen.
While Abrams is still very tight-lipped about what’s in the movie, he has begun to finally open up about what the movie is about, at least in a thematic sense. When Good Morning America asked him what he wanted kids to take away from the movie, he fell back on the words of the man who started it all.
What I hope is that they see a movie that tells them that life is full of unlimited possibility. That there's an incredible sense of, to use a George Lucas term, hope in the world. And that they feel better when they leave than when they got in there. … I'm looking forward to kids seeing this movie and seeing themselves in it, and seeing that they're capable of doing things that they could never imagine possible.
What little we know about our two leads in the film certainly fits with this grander idea of hope and possibility. Daisy Ridley’s Rey is a salvager on a planet on the outskirts of the galaxy. Everything about the previous films is only a story to her. John Boyega is a Stormtrooper. One of a thousand faceless, identical characters. Somehow these two characters will distinguish themselves and become more important to the fate of the galaxy than either could have imagined. It sends a message that anybody can be important regardless of how they may feel like they’re not.
Abrams himself saw the original Star Wars as an 11-year-old child, so he has a special understanding on what that means. He talks about how real the world of Star Wars felt when he experienced it. Check out the full interview below.
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We expect many of those first showings will be full of Star Wars fans of all ages, including the youngest ones. Are you excited to bring your sons and daughters to experience their first big screen Star Wars?
