Credit has to go the Oscar nominated Art Direction team. Technically the film is even more impressive than its predecessor. The confrontation with Luke Skywalker is riveting and dramatic and elevates the film above the level of its predecessor. Darth Vader benefits from this with scenes in the film that add to the mystique of the character. Kershner is very good at keeping the performance naturalistic, but reduces the level of broadness in the characters, making them more complex and interesting. It was time well spent in getting these performances right. This is totally convincing and builds up the confrontation with Darth Vader very well. The same goes for Mark Hamill's interaction with Yoda(Frank Oz). One senses that Kershner, as a director of character driven films, worked very effectively with the actors and gave them the space to develop their characters which meant plenty of choices for the director in terms of their performances. The banter between Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher is highly effective and amusing, operating through the classical love-hate relationship. What makes this film so great though is the involving and effective way the relationships operate within the broader story. There are other characters, but whereas C3P0 and R2D2 were a central part of the story in the previous film, they are more on the sidelines. This relationship is also linked in to the main supporting character in this film, Yoda, who is fantastically well realised by the film crew and performed brilliantly by Frank Oz. The other is the more central relationship between Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker. The first is the relationship between Han Solo and Leia Organa, which is touched upon in a New Hope, but is fleshed out more in this film. The plot moves quickly, from an interesting script by Leigh Bracket and Larry Kasdan, focusing on exploring two key relationships.
(Spoiler alert: One death will hit very hard.Congratulations have to go to line producer Gary Kurtz and director Irvin Kershner in pushing the production to out-perform A New Hope, even though the consequence was a film that came in massively over budget, and almost cost Lucas his hard fought independence from the Hollywood system.
But while younger kids may be familiar with the franchise and its many spin-offs (like the animated Clone Wars), they might not be ready for some of The Force Awakens' more violent or emotional scenes. With little language ("dammit" and "hell" are as strong as it gets) or sex, this is the kind of epic adventure that will undoubtedly appeal to Star Wars fans of all ages. Villains do order the mass murder of countless civilians, prisoners are coerced physically and with the Force, and duels lead to injuries and death, but none of it is bloody or gory. Abrams, the sequel takes place approximately 30 years after the events of The Return of the Jedi, and although there's tons of sci-fi action - space battles, crashes, explosions, lightsaber duels, and more - there's less violence overall than viewers saw in Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. Parents need to know that Star Wars: Episode VII: The Force Awakens is the hugely anticipated seventh installment in the big-screen Star Wars franchise, featuring new main characters as well as beloved favorites like Han Solo (Harrison Ford), Leia Organa (Carrie Fisher), and Chewbacca.