Review: THE FORCE AWAKENS IN CONCERT, Royal Albert Hall

The stories about the latest entry in the Royal Albert Hall’s Film In Concert series are insane. There was the super-intense secrecy over that death, Daniel Craig’s top-secret cameo, Mark Hamill’s perma-beard and then the issues with Harrison Ford’s long hair and broken foot. With a sky-high budget north of 500 million dollars, the most anticipated movie of 2015 went on to break the $2bn barrier at the box office and JJ Abrams’ Star Wars: The Force Awakens is now the sixth-highest grossing flick ever made.  Feel free to look up the other five then come on back.

Where the Royal Albert Hall’s sublime treatment of these films comes into its own is its use of a dedicated set of classical musicians filling up one of the world's finest concert halls with glorious sound. Arranged beneath a huge screen, the Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra led by Stefan Geiger lifted the impact of legendary composer John Williams’ brand new score (and Lin-Manuel Miranda’s minor contribution) to a completely new level. Chase scenes became immersive rollercoasters, we rolled with the punches in the hand-to-hand battles and hearts soared every single time a callback was heard to William’s music for the original trilogy.

And then there’s the crowd effect: being seated among thousands of cheering and whooping fans who have braved a wet and windy November night felt a real privilege and added to the real joy to seeing arguably the best post-Eighties entry in this seminal franchise.  

Films of this magnitude are always worth a re-visit despite the general mixed feelings when it was first released. Ignoring Herman Melville's maxim that "it is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation", new owners of everything Star Wars went with what is essentially a rehash of the very first film in the series A New Hope with many of the plot beats from the 1977 film present and correct.

Unsurprisingly then, the OG trio of Hamill’s Luke Skywalker, Ford’s Han Solo and Carrie Fisher’s Princess (now General) Leia are called back for another adventure, even if for one of them it is their last and another only appears a few minutes before the many, many credits roll.

To keep as much as possible under wraps, Disney (the spanking new owners of everything Star Wars) went to extraordinary lengths. As well as the usual non-disclosure agreements signed by the cast and crew working on what was known variously as "Project Foodles" or "Project AVCO", scripts were printed on dark red paper to prevent photocopying.

Director JJ Abrams builds the film around younger, fresher and no doubt cheaper talent in Daisy Ridley’s scavenger orphan Rey, John Boyega’s ex-stormtrooper Finn and Oscar Isaac’s swashbucking pilot Poe Dameron. They face off against Adam Driver’s Kylo Ren (a Darth Vader knock-off that looks like he was ordered over the internet from a company with questionable working practices) and Domnhall Gleeson’s General Armitage Hux (who once again proved that his particular apple fell into a galaxy far, far away from the tree).

Harrison Ford couldn’t lose his charm if he tried. Still hanging around with his “walking carpet” Chewbacca, he cracks wiser than all three kings and the camels they rode in on. Filming for him wasn’t as smooth as his manner, though. During one scene, a hydraulic door slammed on Harrison Ford’s leg, breaking his ankle. Abrams rushed in to help and ended up breaking his own back. By the time, Ford was return to set, his hair had noticeably grown so, rather than reshoot the earlier scenes or risk a presumably perilous trip to the local barbers, Abrams used CGI to lengthen the hair in scenes already shot.

Hair of a different kind was an issue for Hamill. The plan was for his character to meet Rey on a forlorn windswept hilltop that is definitely not Ireland’s Skellig Michael. Man plans, God laughs and inclement weather means that the actor was contractually required to keep his beard on his person for much longer than he expected. In early versions of the much-changed script, he was meant to turn up at some midway point but it was felt he would overshadow his younger co-stars. Instead, he got to make his grand entrance - and exit -  in Rian Johnson’s The Last Jedi (which perhaps took Melville's advice a little too far).

If Hamill’s was the most celebrated cameo, there were others too. Daniel Craig was filming Spectre nearby and popped in (as you do) to appear as the stormtrooper duped by Rey’s mind tricks. Pixar composer Michael Giacchino and Clerks director Kevin Smith also suited up as the First Order’s white-armoured soldiers. By the time Johnson’s effort rolled around in 2017, the cameo list for the interquel had grown grander with celebrities (like Tom Hardy and Princes Harry and William) and Gary Barlow lining up for scenes which went on to be scrapped or deleted.

The Royal Albert Hall’s Film In Concert series continues with Home Alone, Interstellar and two weekends dedicated to the Lord Of The Rings trilogy.

(with thanks to Jake Brennan)