Saw it tonight with my dad and brother. It was ok. Basically it's what I expected upon learning JJ Abrams was directing it: a film almost entirely built upon nostalgia with little identity of its own. Perhaps this is what we deserve, given that Star Wars fans and nerds have been demanding absolute worship of the OT for decades. Well Abrams remade A New Hope for you, enjoy.
It's not a bad film. It's entertaining on many levels. But at the same time it reminds me of a cover band, or one of those rappers people hype as "90s-like." Imitators can be cool but at some point you hit a critical mass of just too much "hey remember this?" So by the time a small group of rebel (err resistance?) fighters raced against time to destroy a mega weapon planet I had had enough.
I like the new characters at least. Finn seems cool, as does Rey. Poe has a lot of potential, but is probably the least developed of the three. Going into the film I assumed Kylo Ren would be Vader 2.0, and suck. In reality that couldn't be farther from the truth. I thought he was the most interesting new character. He's not a badass, or the type of antagonist you'd expect in a film like this. He's a pretty tortured character who seems to have some potential for moral complexity. He's also somewhat sympathetic, even after killing you know who. Legit interested in seeing how this plays out now that he'll be training with the Big Bad.
Perhaps the biggest problem with the film is the plotting/writing. This is a film that presents one coincidence after another. I can buy some coincidences in film/tv/books but again...by the time Han just so happened to lead the party to a bar where Luke's lightsaber just to happened to be...I was done.
Speaking of plotting...there's very little. Even less worldbuilding. The film feels kind of empty. It shows us stuff we've seen before, with the names changed, but doesn't really build on any of it. There's a Republic, and a Resistance for some reason. The First Order arose from the death of the Empire. Ok...well give me some more info on...oh there is none...well nevermind. At least the prequels gave us some lore and expanded on things hinted at in the OT.
Final verdict: far better than the prequels, and there's nothing as bad as Ewoks here. But ROTJ had multiple iconic, amazing scenes from the opening to the Endor battle to Luke v Vader. I'm not sure this film has a single scene or moment that truly wowed me. There's some cool stuff here, of course. But nothing amazing.
