Its a great movie, but not a great Star Wars movie. JJ failed to tell a story!

Rating: 7/10 (19 December 2015)

I get what JJ tried here, play it safe, don't reveal too much about the events of the last 30 years and have lots of tributes to the original Star Wars. This is not a bad approach, but it doesn't live up to expectation.
This movie lacks character development, why Finn decides to give up fighting for the First Order is really a mystery and Rey's character goes from 'sand person' to 'master Jedi' really fast. The way that Han and Chewie were introduced was rather too sudden, lazily placed and could have been more dramatic. The stories of the Jedi and the Force are supposed to be a myth but Kylo Ren is a known user of the force and I assume Snoke is known to be a sith. Surely, they must have some idea of what happened in the Yoda-era. Also, JJ 'uses' Han and Leia to rescue the movie, which is not too bad but then again this movie depended heavily on the old characters.
The death star should not have been in this movie, together with the many minutes it took to destroy it (again!). More focus should have been put on developing Snoke as a sith and his relationship with Kylo Ren. You are left wondering why exactly they are the bad guys if you don't know their origins and motives. JJ should have surprised us with the fact that Kylo is Han's son, as opposed to just lazily placing it there. It would have made for a great reveal if Han said "Son" to Kylo before being killed by him. And what about Rey, who completely discredited Yoda's philosophy on actually training even the most midichlorian riddled people to use the force. She basically became a bad-ass Jedi in one minute on her own . I say it again, CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT!
JJ was too eager to blow up things and forgot to tell a story. Tell us about how the resistance has changed over the 30 years, a bit more about how the First Order came about and a sneak peak into the Snoke-Kylo relationship. Tell us how the Jedi and the Force became myths, how the Force (light side) was suppressed. Tell us how Kylo was seduced to the dark side and a bit more about Phasma (cool character), her relative rank in the First Order and her origins. Tell us a story please and let our minds wonder.
About Luke - We were all waiting to see Luke. I don't mind the cliffhanger but I think the last scene should have revealed a little more about what Luke has been doing or at least make a suggestion. It would have been nice to see some Jedi training in the background or at least a small camp with a fire to get us guessing if Luke was training Jedi or that its just the native people of the planet Luke is on. The only positive thing other than the old characters is the realism they have brought to how Kylo uses the force. Whenever he used it, I really felt convinced that he is a bad-ass sith apprentice. I did not like the fact that he lost to Rey though. Even after being trained by GRANDMASTER YODA, Luke failed to defeat Vader the first time round, which was a nod to the actual power of the dark side. Here, JJ made a mockery of Kylo who is an ultimate bad-ass in every other scene.
This is great movie, but a lot is expected from it and JJ should have done better knowing that.