Oh what we might give right now for a little Force vision, the power of precognition exhibited by Obi-Wan Kenobi, Yoda and (not so successfully) Emperor Palpatine throughout the original Star Wars movies and their ill-considered prequels. For with just over two months to go until JJ Abrams’ The Force Awakens hits cinemas, fans find themselves blinder than Han Solo after a bout of carbon-freezing when it comes to the plot of the much-hyped reboot. Until. Now.
For deep in the recesses of the blogosphere – and now “confirmed” by IMDb – comes the staggering news that the first new Star Wars movie in more than a decade will stretch to a running time of 136 minutes. Surely then, we can pick up a few clues to The Force Awakens’ storyline by cross-referencing a number of other iconic (and not-so-iconic) movies, which – with a level of serendipity that even the wisest of Jedi would be foolish to ignore – also ran to exactly two hours and 16 minutes. Thus solving some of the greatest movie mysteries since Darth Vader revealed Luke Skywalker’s uncomfortable lineage, and finally putting the much-loved Star Wars Rumour Generator out of work.
The Matrix (1999) – runtime 136 minutes
Trapped in a humdrum droid repair role for the evil First Order, listless stormtrooper and part-time hacker Finn (John Boyega) is rescued from his prosaic everyday existence by sexy leather-clad rebellion leader Rey (Daisy Ridley) and brought before prophecy-spouting mentor Luke Skywalker (Laurence Fishburne) for training. Discovering an uncanny prowess for lightsaber-wielding single combat after R2-D2 uploads a millennia’s worth of battle instincts straight to his cerebral cortex – “I know Jedi!”– Finn embarks on a series of “blaster-time” battles with the nefarious, endlessly multiplying Kylo Ren (Adam Driver and his 13 identical twins) before finally bringing balance back to the force as the long-prophecised “One”. The sequels are rubbish.
A Clockwork Orange (1971) – runtime 136 minutes
Violent little twerp Kylo Ren and his friends love to break into the houses of rich toffs on the galactic capital Coruscant and commit evil acts, until one day they are captured by the scary First Order and forced into rehab. There, Ren finds himself forced to listen to John Williams’ stirring Star Wars score over and over again while being fed repeat images of Jar Jar Binks and angry whiny teenager Anakin Skywalker (Harry Enfield) from the prequels until he is driven to insanity. JJ Abrams quite rightly bans cinemas from screening the movie for three decades as a result of horrified public outcry.
Waterworld (1995) – runtime 136 minutes
General Hux, leader of the First Order’s Starkiller Base, unleashes the full power of a new Death Star-like weapon on the desert planet of Jakku. But this time something goes wrong, and the entire globe is transformed into an aquatic paradise rather than blasted to smithereens. A young wannabe Jedi of mysterious lineage named Rey (Daisy Ridley) is forced to convert her glider into a sea-going vessel, and soon finds herself developing gills and a big fishy tail as she becomes the only hope of survival for a small community of floating scavengers vying to fight off the attentions of the evil pirate Maz Kanata (Lupita Nyong’o), an entirely CGI-created villain who’s looking for a map to dry land. Han and Chewie turn up in a retrofitted amphibious Millennium Falcon, renamed the Scurvy Seadog, to save the day. Han reveals he is Rey’s long lost daddy, and Admiral Akbar (Tim Rose) persuades her that life as a sea-dwelling creature need not be such a terrible existential trap, while training her to jump through hoops for the entertainment of the Rebel Alliance troops.
Finding Forrester (2000) – runtime 136 minutes
Young prodigy Finn hopes to leave his working-class origins as a First Order stormtrooper behind for a more cerebral existence at one of the top Jedi educational institutions. Luckily for him, he finds himself living in the same cave complex as a wizened, hermit-like old writer, Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), who once penned the legendary opus “How to Defeat the Evil Empire in Three Easy Episodes” but has published nothing in the intervening decades. With Luke’s help, Finn succeeds in his academic ambitions, but is visited by a lawyer for Skywalker (Matt Damon) who reveals the old man died of ancient wounds sustained in his many battles. His last wish was to thank Finn for restoring his faith in the Force and saving him from an existence voicing supervillains in endless animated straight-to-DVD releases.
