Episode 64 - Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Two years ago in a studio not far away.... J.J. "Jar-Jar" Abrams
rebooted yet another franchise with "Star Wars: The Force
Awakens." It's Disney's cynical ripoff of the original 1977 "Star
Wars" plot, but it has a spherical R2-D2, an angsty, millennial
Darth Vader with a slightly different lightsaber and a female
Luke Skywalker. All of these decisions were unquestionably made
in order to manipulate a whole new generation of children into
begging their parents into purchasing a bunch of plastic toys
made from earth-destroying chemicals (who needs the Death Star?).


Daisy Ridley plays Rey, a character whose family abandoned her as
a child on the desert planet of Jakku without even a last name.
At the beginning of the movie, she's selling space junk for
scraps of bread, but, by the end of the movie, she's inexplicably
beating up a 6'2" lifelong warrior who knows all kinds of Dark
Side tricks and was trained as a Jedi Knight by Luke Skywalker
himself.


Adam Driver plays Kylo Ren — Han Solo and Princess Leia's
tantrum-throwing, Darth Vader wannabe of a son. He has somehow
managed to become a high-ranking official in an evil interstellar
organization known as The First Order, despite the fact that he
demonstrates total incompetence in everything he does.


John Boyega plays Finn, a Stormtrooper who defects from The First
Order after he is asked to massacre a village on his first
mission. This was actually an interesting introduction to this
new character, but the movie never even slightly develops him and
instead merely makes him Rey's sidekick and occasional cheesy
comic relief.


Oscar Issac, the highly-accomplished, Juilliard-trained actor who
should have been nominated for an Oscar for his role in "Ex
Machina," plays Poe Dameron, a happy-go-lucky resistance fighter
pilot who spends most of his screen time making bad quips while
flying around and blowing stuff up. 


Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Mark Hammill, Peter Mayhew and
Anthony Daniels play old Han Solo, old Princess Leia, old Luke
Skywalker, old Chewbacca and old C-3PO respectively.


Join us as we wonder why the humans in this movie have either
American, English or Scottish accents, what "force-sensitive"
actually means, and whether the First Order's ships have
toilets. 


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This episode is sponsored by Ingrate & Barrel. 


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