Flawed, but it's still Star Wars

Rating: Null/10 (18 December 2019)

J. J. Abrams couldn't have had it easy. He had to bring back Star Wars for the diehard fans, had to appease those that didn't like the prequel trilogy, had to take into account the new fans... all the while working for the Black Mouse of Disney, who's notorious about keeping it clean and family friendly.
And keeping that in mind, this is a pretty good movie. Borderline great. Is it as good as the original films? No, it's not. But there's a very small chance that it ever could have been. The planets simply weren't in alignment.
The things I like about this film are the characters and the atmosphere. This feels like Star Wars. Everything is dirty and falling apart. We have these fantastically futuristic gadgets, but they're rusted, filled with sand and need a good kick every now and then to work. That's Star Wars in a nutshell. The cinematography is also gorgeous and this film has some of the finest shots seen so far in the franchise. I especially like the shot of a humongous Star Destroyer battleship half buried in the desert. Gives the whole world gravitas and history.
And the characters are great. From John Boyega's Finn to Daisy Ridley's Rey to Oscar Isaac's Poe Dameron. Quintessentially Star Wars these characters, while also exploring new ground.
But, let us not forget the returning cast. Ford, Fisher and Hamill slip effortlessly back into their career-defining characters and we couldn't have been happier.
The one major thing I don't like about this film is the fact that's it's pretty much a retelling of Episode Four: A New Hope, the original film. We have an orphan on a desert planet hearing the call of adventure, we have a droid hiding secret information, we have the evil empire, we have a masked bad guy in black, we have the reluctant outlaw ally, we have the scene in a cantina/bar, and so on and so on.
An admiring nod now and then would be fine, appreciated even. Paying an homage would be expected. Telling the story all over again, beat by beat, is simply lazy.
Sure, there will be those that tell you that it's supposed to be this way, that it is intentional and that they wanted to introduce Star Wars to a whole new age group. But, tell me, how many people are going to see this as their first Star Wars film? Not many, I tell you. The original film is such a huge cultural milestone that there's no way the majority of people in the future are going to see this film before that one. Which makes this whole shtick of doing it all over again simply pointless.
Nevertheless, it's a good film. A bit aggravating, true, but still good.