Hopefully 8 will be better

Rating: 4/10 (19 December 2015)

I was 11 when episode 4 came out. I rate the movies from best to worst IV, V, III, VI, I, II. Where does this one fit in? Id say maybe better than episode I. The whole time is just to set up the characters for a hopefully better episode 8. There is not much meat on the bone, but enough to give hope. What it needs is development of a theme - there is a fantastic father/son/good/evil vibe about the first movies which George Lucas invented (by cobbling together bits from other movies he'd experienced), and something further needs to be developed and not just rehashed with slight twists on the theme. There needs to be real character arcs and genuine thematic progression.
Compare it in your mind to "Frozen" (which I really liked, but which was also part of a Disney progressive rewrite of past stories) and you see this hits slightly fewer original notes and the notes this hits are not quite as bang on-key.
My son who is 9 likes episode V best, and is showing his age by saying that they should have left it at six episodes. The prequels are actually pretty good, at least they had strong themes and reasonable action, and were part of a grand vision. Hope this doesn't fizz out like Lost.