Reviewed through the eyes of a fan

Rating: 10/10 (19 December 2015)

I'm a real Star Wars fan; seen all of the films a lot of times over a period of 35 years (there's not much I don't know), so for me, Star Wars, The Force Awakens, is viewed through the eyes of a fan and not just a film-goer. If I was reviewing the film as a standalone, I'd probably give it a score of 8 - fast paced, easy to follow, great effects, sound, decent enough story from start to finish and the actors all carried off their roles.
The problem I have, hence giving it a score of 5/10, is that a real Star Wars fan would pick this film to pieces, so why weren't real fans involved in the script at least as advisers - how else could JJ Abrams deliver something that is so un-Star Wars like in its plot and the fact that it is a rehash of some the first three films that were made (IV,V and VI) but mostly IV.
I've briefly touched on the good bits and could go into detail, but the film is flawed from a Star Wars perspective because of the bad bits.
We're looking at a 30yr gap where Leia and Solo have a son, fall out, get separated and meet up again. We are given no back story to fill in the missing pieces and understand what happened between ROTJ and TFA. Would have been good to know some of the detail, but there was very little character development in the film. When you think that the best Star Wars film, The Empire Strikes back, was also 2 hours long, but whilst managing to take us from Hoth, through space and in tandem to Dagobah and Bespin, it beautifully developed characters and relationships. In TFA, it feels like it tries to do too much at once and is very action-based but weak on story. The time goes quickly, but there are so many unanswered questions that in the others films, would have managed to get answered as we went along.
We have this new bad-guy, Kylo Ren, who ***spoiler alert*** is Han and Leia's son, but we don't know how or why he went to the dark side, to end up as such a pathetic Sith Lord (presumably, with his lightsaber) that Rey can kick his butt the first time she ever picks up a lightsaber, and manages to become Jedi-standard without any training. Look what Luke and the others had to go through? Would George Lucas have allowed that? No.
So this new and useless Kylo Ren is allowed to ***spoiler alert*** kill his father, the much loved Han Solo, in a bit of a wet and wimpy way, is a tragedy. The best-loved Star Wars character being killed off by a noob that we don't know much about, though he wears a mask for some unknown reason, which he's quick to take off. At least Vader wore a mask to stay alive but Kylo Ren doesn't look menacing so they had to do something I guess.
I couldn't believe I was seeing a 3rd Death Star in 4 films - do the bad guys really have no other ideas on how to fight? The fact that each Death Star appears to be much easier to destroy than the previous one is a bit of a joke. Takes two people to plant some charges after crash-landing under the radar and then a couple of minutes later, it's all over as the rebels get their X-Wings in to fire at the key installation and blow up the entire First Order plant. As Darth Vader would say "All too easy".
For me, the story is too rehashed. Let's just say that in every scene, you will liken it to a scene in one of the previous films (mainly A New Hope), so in effect, it had no new good ideas. I could list at least twenty things, but you only have to watch the film as a fan to see it all readily thrown at you.
C3PO and R2D3 were just in it for nostalgia, but the cynic in me says that the only reason C3PO has a red arm was to sell new toys. Leia's role was pointless and she basically was a cameo, with Luke getting a non-speaking 30 seconds of screen time. Not quite what we were expecting.
The star(s) of the film, for me, were Han and Chewie - it was meant to be Rey and Finn, but their roles were too forced and unrealistic. A Stormtrooper turning good and it just so happens to work out perfectly for him to play a role in bringing down the First Order. And Rey is this exceptional talent, who was clearly benign for all of her life until this one day when she can single-handedly pilot the Falcon, use a lightsaber and do mind-tricks on Stormtroopers, without each form of tuition.
I liked Poe Dameron by the way and he could have had more of a back story and screen time. Same with Captain Phasma – a new idea to have someone in charge of the Stormtroopers, though he (she?) was hardly difficult to persuade to shut down the shield and let the rebels blow up the final (I doubt it) Death Star.
If they developed the characters, put some originality into the plot and let us get some back-story, this film could easily have been split into VII and VIII all on its own. It didn't feel like Star Wars and if it didn't have some familiar faces (perhaps this is why they were recalled) and Stormtroopers, no-one would have been any the wiser.