More like a rehash than a revival of this series

Rating: 5/10 (29 March 2016)

I love the star wars films especially the originals. I was expecting a lot from this one as it was at last the "newest" episode. I wanted to be amazed and reinspired. I liked the idea of a defecting stormtrooper and I like the new Jedi girl. However the film was spoilt by too many repeating themes...a new and bigger death star? Really? A son/father, one dark side, one good? An old, wrinkly looking alien (like Yoda) who seems to know everything? The Empire basically renamed as The First order. The leader- masked, cloaked and in black (just without the heavy breathing)? Han solo back to being a smuggler for no apparent reason? It felt as though the writers felt they had to do almost a remake of the very first film just to get younger viewers up to speed. There was also no explanation for so many things e.g. why were they all looking for Luke? Why had no-one done anything about the new death star before it became functional? Why do they seem to have gone backwards in 30 years? Why has Han's and Leia's son gone to the dark side and why aren't they together? It was spoilt even more when Kylo Ren took his mask off..he just looked like some haughty student. He just was not scary any more. This disappointed me almost as much as when darth vader was unmasked in return of the jedi (never got over how ugly Anakin was!) Spoiler: and when Kylo Ren killed his father it just seemed so unnecessary and meaningless. Did the writers just think oh yeah we will make it like the opposite of when Luke fights his father. As we had no back-story for it, it just felt like a cheap trick. I have still given the film 5 because despite all this i enjoyed quite a lot of it. Liked the effects, liked the humour and I did like seeing all the old characters again. My kids were thoroughly entertained. Just a pity it did not live up to all it could and should have been.