I'm sure there's better fan-fiction out there.

Rating: 1/10 (5 May 2016)

I meant to watch this in a cinema. Missed it, so bought the DVD instead. Now I wish I had gone to the cinema to actually hear people laughing. Not due to good humour but because of the absurdity of the entire movie.
I wish I could say that just one aspect of it was bad. Believe me, I wish I could say that. Unfortunately, I can safely say that all of it was bad beyond description. Maybe the only thing they got right were the explosions in space but even those seemed slightly lackluster, desperately trying to distract from the absurdity of it all.
The main female protagonist seemed to only have a couple of separate facial expressions, switching randomly between them, any connection between said expressions and the script being utterly coincidental. Not to mention that, while in motion, the seemed to be having trouble keeping her balance, needing to over-compensate with very wide upper arm movements.
The rest of the cast wasn't of much help either, the only redeeming character being BB-8, who has only been present in the first half of the movie, being utterly ignored during the second. As if they have completely forgotten him.
I do however have to admit that the actors didn't have much acting to go through because, throughout the movie, the script remained dull beyond belief, dumbing down the entire star wars universe with every single line it contained. I could go into detail to exemplify, but I prefer not to spoil, even though there is very little to spoil since the whole movie was nothing more than a bad re-make of episode VI.
Throughout the movie, I couldn't shake the feeling that this movie was created in the following fashion: one random group of middle-age guys, copious amounts of beer or other beverages, crackers, popcorn or both. Suddenly one of the guys asks the others: "Hey guys, you remember those awesome cool movies we watched back when we were kids? You know the ones I mean, the ones with the Skywalker guy who learned to use some freaking awesome force?". While his mates look at him utterly confused, trying to find some sense through the haze of beer or other beverages, another of the guys suddenly slaps his thigh: "Oh man, that was SO cool. Remember those awesome dogfights? They rocked. And the light swords, I remember I tried making one, I thought I could use a neon to power it. I still have it somewhere in the garage." Then, as the other guys present walk further down memory lane, another adds: "Oh oh, omfg, remember when they blew up that awesomely huge star thingy the bad guys had? That was SO cool." After some consideration, the fourth guy, the brains of the group, wonders silently: "I wonder why they never made more movies to continue the story and all that. They gave us the prelude and it was pretty OK and all, but I wanna know what happens next." Here he takes a break, as if trying to locate his courage to make a bold proposition to his fellow guys. "Hey guys, I have an awesome idea!" Naturally the others' curiosity is piqued and they ask: "What what what? Come on dude, we're dying over here, what is it?" At long last, after the suspense has peaked into tense silence and expectancy, the brains guy goes: "How about if we continue the story?" Shocked silence and then loud cheering and clapping random body parts against each other. One of the other guys: "Wow how cool is that, dude. And maybe we could use that guy, Solo again. And maybe the hottie too, that princess girl, remember how cool she looked?" Another one, to continue the spontaneous beer storm... oh sorry... brainstorm: "And how about they blow up something big again?" One of the other guys high-fives him: "Oh my god, and we could have another cool dogfight, right?" Another storm of clapping and the brainiac of the group is about to come up with a brilliant idea but a voice brings them all back down in the basement: "Boys, do you want mini-pizzas?" Before answering, three of the guys roll their eyes at the fourth, who had been searching various cardboard boxes for his neon light sabre. "No mom, we're good. How many times should I tell you that we don't want to be disturbed while we're down here???" Unfortunately, someone heard their conversation, maybe they forgot they had a skype open somewhere, and whispered the world-changing idea to someone else and so on, until somehow the studio heard of it and decided not to let down the creators of such an originally world-changing idea.
On a serious note though, there is no possible excuse for the existence of this movie, if I could, I'd give it minus stars, about a truckload of them. Back when SWTOR was released, I thought thank god for the movies, at least they get it right. But here comes number seven of nine... (I think the Star Trek reference is intentional here) to shatter my high hopes for the future of the franchise. If number eight of nine turns out to contain furry little guys, I just might give up on sci fi in general, if the current generation of authors continually fails to come up with new ideas.
I don't normally read fan-fiction but I am pretty sure that if I did, I would find scores of stories that would make this movie look about as imaginative as... sorry... I can't seem to be able to find a term of comparison, I mean, I did think of a number of other movies I considered lacking but even those had some redeeming qualities. This movie is completely devoid of them. BB-8 might be funny in a non-verbal manner, but if I wanted a cute robot, Wall E gets 10 out of 10.