Good, not great

Rating: 7/10 (21 December 2015)

Not as good as IV, V and VI. Better than I, II, and III. Didn't come close to capturing the magic of sitting in the theater during the first Star Wars film.
Too many scenes were stolen from Episode IV. Giant, evil space cruiser crossing the screen at the start of the movie, droid with a hidden message being hunted by the bad guys, bar full of aliens, good guy turned bad guy by the Dark Side, another father-son confrontation on a ramp over a seemingly bottomless pit, rebel fighters flying through shafts trying to destroy a planet-killing mega-weapon.
The way the old characters were reintroduced just didn't work for me. There was no build-up to the reappearance of Han, Chewie, Leia, Luke, and R2D2 - they just suddenly appeared on screen. The only old character with a surprising and fun introduction was C-3PO.
There were times during the movie I was actually bored and wondering when the good stuff was going to begin. But the people I went with, none of whom saw the original Star Wars in a theater, seemed to like it. At the end of the movie a handful of people in the theater were applauding.