Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens

Ever since I was a kid, I loved this franchise. Even episode 1, by far the worst in the series, had that "star-wars feel". Mostly thanks to great casting of Liam Neeson and Ewan McGregor, awesome new dark side character and dual light saber. So despite extremely high expectations, the series wasn't ruined and effectively picked up in dark episode 3. Then Disney followed up with this one, with J.J.Abrams at helm, which once again rose the expectations. Well it's not good. Especially the casting and acting of younger stars. Even Harrison Ford and Chewy can't save this mess. It may be a blasphemy, but unfortunately Ford can't pull off ' "the cool". Sorry guys, he's a bit too old, so some action scenes look out of place. The casting of young stars was atrocious. Simply bad. Bad chemistry, Bad looks (ecpecially the Kylo Ren character), badly choreographed fights, Bad everything. On top of which, Abrams took the period as a remake of original which should not be touched! At all. Due to stunning (as expected) visuals, and a personal love to the universe, this movie can be watched, but if this awful trend continues, even special effects and millions of fans won't be able to save the series.

I'm not sure i have spoilers here but - BE WARNED SPOILER ALERT.

This movie is a bad rehash of the first 3 movies With REALLY bad dialog, average actors (at best) no memorable events except for the ending - literally the last few minutes of the film (no spoiler here).

Whats Good: 1 they went with the old style full sets and it works , its been a long time since i felt i was looking at a real location somewhere out there in space. 2 The tried bringing star wars back.

Sadly , thats all the good i really want to scream at JJ for doing this to star wars.

Whats Bad:

1 Shallow back story - no immersion , people just pop up (Han solo). 2 Really bad dialog , i mean really bad , feels like a teen drama. 3 Forcing a female role for no reason ( i like good female roles) . 4 No new memorable characters , not a single one - i literally wanted to talk about the characters and found myself talking about han leia and sywalker again . 5 A bad guy that seems to have NO REASON to turn bad . 6 A bad guy that seems like he is a teen with a tantrum rather than an evil sith (a literal cry baby) . 7 The entire movie felt like they were trying to introduce as many new characters as fast as they can without telling us anything about them other than their name and occupation . 8 no sense in the plot:

• How is the republic destroyed in seconds . - Why are the rebels (resistance - sorry) are still rebels , they create the republic again . - Why don't they evacuate a planet about to be destroyed while attacking the "new order" planet killer (THERE IS NOTHING BLOCKADING THEIR PLANET). - HOW is an untrained uneducated (in the ways of the force) person (i don't care she is a girl) easily defeats a TRAINED Sith with ease?.

This entire movie feels like a teen flick , WHERE IS STAR WARS?.

to sum up : bad plot , bad writing and dialog , no back story or lore ,no sense in any of the core aspects , copied rehashed and generally bad.

i love star wars so for that reason alone im giving it a 4 (but it really deserves a 1).

In short, this could have been good, perhaps great in its own right as it has been over 30 years since ROTJ. It fell short on all fronts: character introduction, depth, development, empathy and purpose. Some veteran actors did well with what they could with what they had (remaining). Yet interactions of known characters were so short and shallow when passion was needed most. Every scene was quick and snappy with zero time for the viewer to soak in the world or situation, just pushed around to the next scene. Even panned shots and close- ups of vehicles were rushed and the fights predictable. I won't comment on the plot at all or the lack of story depth. This was only a sci-fi motion picture going through the motions. What you heard is true...all of it. A shame.

In essence a remake of 'A New Hope' as opposed to a proper sequel, the check-box resemblance this long-awaited revival shares to its franchise's debut is genuinely uncanny and sadly staggering since this was the perfect opportunity to try something new considering that the 'Star Wars' moniker is a powerful enough box-office draw to recoup any budget, apparently no matter how exorbitant, and withstand more than a few bad apples (*cough* the prequels *cough*). What's here in 'Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens (2015)' is based on nothing more than nostalgia, a series of slightly sickening "remember this thing"'s and "this guy still looks the same but he's grey now"'s that become incredibly tiresome increasingly quickly. If you take away the franchise underlayer you're just left with a hollow, characterless piece that gives you no reason to care and very little actual information despite all its endless exposition. In the end, I was honestly bored even during all of its high-flying fanfare. 5/10

Currently this movie is sitting at an 8.4 on IMDb. Even with the "new movie effect", that score is pretty ludicrous.

When I left the cinema, I said to my wife, "I wouldn't give this movie anything more than a very generous 7". Since then some of the post-theatre-euphoria has worn off and the more I actually think about this movie, the lower the score becomes.

There are several reasons for this: the plot is derivative, I didn't care about any of the new characters, the characters that I DID care about, I only cared about because I know them from the original series, there were far too many convenient "coincidences" in the story and not enough background for any of the major factions (New Order? The Resistance? What happened to the Republic?). I also felt like overall the tone of the film was too comedic (lacked any real sense of drama, seriousness, or anticipation) and that the pacing was much, much too frenetic.

Now I find myself wondering if I had never seen the original series-- i.e. if I were a blank slate -- would this film even make sense? I'm not really sure. It certainly doesn't stand up well on its own, and neither does it fit particularly well within the scope of the Star Wars universe.

I tried my best to like this movie. I really, really wanted to; but in the end I think there was too much lazy writing on display and too many poor script choices.