Why not?

Rating: 8/10 (31 December 2015)

The movie is very fast paced and the story line/characters are a bit (tiny bit) hollow. Let's face it, it is a sci-fi family friendly movie as it should be. Some of the negative reviews are just a matter of people being fans of the franchise too long and expect too much out of it (especially this being the first movie)... It is a very entertaining movie.
A lot of people complain about the lack of originality of the movie and it is too similar to episode IV. I take it as the new director paying homage/ sending us a massage that he knows what the Star Wars is...
As for the lack of character development complains... I think the new characters just make about the same amount of important/ dramatic decisions in the new movie as the original... I actually enjoyed quite how the two new main characters always seem like they didn't know any better. Maybe people do not like that they aren't as determined as Luke and Leia are in the original...
The returning characters are somewhat disappointing, they all seemed dispirited but there may be good reasons for that... The bad guys are very disappointing... They showed the new Ren person is very strong with the force, but they didn't come close to giving us something as iconic as the force choke...
If you have been living, eating, sleeping star wars all these years, you would be a little disappointed. I considered myself a somewhat middling fan and I enjoyed it quite a lot. I see more of a build up to something bigger in this one.