Great and grasping film with some amazing moments but some dependency problems

Rating: 8/10 (20 December 2015)

How I've waited for this movie. Ever since I was a kid I've loved Star Wars and its universe and characters. Me and my brothers acted out scenes from the film in our backyard and my childhood memories are full Star Wars, and that's why I became so excited for this film.
My main issue with the film is that it's very dependent on the previous films in the original trilogy and the movie feels like it's almost built on the exact same ground as Episode IV: A New Hope. The struggle between father against son is practically the same, except now the son is the evil one. There's also a new 'Death Star' which is posing a threat to the entire galaxy (or at least a big part of it) and it's up to the rebels, or as they're called in this movie, 'The Resistance', to stop it. The threat of an evil, powerful villain is also there in the form of Han Solo's and Leia's son. He's very similar to Darth Vader in many other instances too, like being a good man turned evil.
Some other issues I had with the film was that Rey (and Finn) was surprisingly good at handling a light saber, against a very experienced and trained villain no less. Neither of them had any training that we know of, which, in my opinion, makes it very unlikely for them to be that good. Rey's ability to "shut Ren out" of her mind is also something I find very unlikely. She might be a Jedi, but she doesn't have any experience or training. It feels like the movie skips a few steps of her actually becoming a Jedi, something that the Original Trilogy focused more on with Luke's training.
I also didn't like the way that Han and Chewie were presented. It felt very, very unlikely that they just would've stumbled across the Millennium Falcon in the middle of the universe, but maybe I'm missing something.
But the movie wasn't all that bad, these are just things that I didn't like about it. The movie gave me a great feeling when I watched it and I had goosebumps many times during it. The script, actors and music was great and the jokes didn't feel forced in any way. It had many great moments that I think that we can enjoy for a long time. Even though it has a sort of dependency it still feels like a Star Wars movie of its own and it brings some original material to the series. I can't wait for Episode VIII.
It felt like a Star Wars film and performed to its potential. It paid tribute to the series and also brought some new stuff to it. It's definitely a movie you can watch and feel like you're in the Star Wars universe.
John Boyega's performance specifically stood out, he was amazing. The storm trooper gone good definitely grasped me.
I would also like to give credit to the people who made the trailers because they didn't spoil much of the content in the movie and a big amount of the trailer material was taken out of context, which made it nearly impossible to make out what the movie would be about.
Solid 8/10