Star Wars: The Force Awakens Themes
Good vs. Evil
Star Wars has always been about sorting the good guys from the bad guys. In a film series with color-coded lightsabers, there's not a whole lot of room for moral ambiguity. And The Force Awakens is...
Fate vs. Free Will
The Force is a big stand-in for fate in The Force Awakens (along with God, the universe, and any other grand cosmic concept you can think of). As such, there's always been a question about whether...
Friendship
Neither Finn nor Rey have any friends when we first meet them in The Force Awakens. Cue sad trombone. The good news is, they find each other in the middle of it all. Friendship holds this galaxy to...
Coming of Age
The Hero's Journey is always about coming of age: a young person enters the world and is tested in order to find out who he or she is. Star Wars has always embraced that idea, first with Luke, and...
Spirituality
The Force is God. Or Allah. Or Yahweh. Or fate. Or the grand cosmic hum. Whatever you want to call it, it's a way of talking about spiritual issues without invoking any specific religions. And, bon...
Family
Han had a kid, messed him up, and split. Luke compounded the messing up of said kid and split. Said kid is extra super mad at both of them, and he's going to show them who's boss. Leia gets to be t...