A mixed opinion

Rating: 5/10 (23 December 2015)

To begin, the CGI and practical effects are what USUALLY nauseate me in the failures of epic film making (e.g. The Hobbit). Surprisingly, Star Wars: The Force Awakens did quite well in this respect in both their use of CGI and practical effects. This makes the whole setting of the star wars universe much easier to accept and digest.
In addition to the CGI/practical effects, another thing that this film did right (that I believe many hard core fans appreciated) was the re-casting of Han Solo, Princess Leia and Luke Skywalker with the original actors of the movies from the 70's. While at times it felt like they basked in this element for a little bit too long, the over-all effect was that it felt like the same world and the same people as the original. For me, the acceptance of the setting and background is one of the most important aspects of epic fantasy film making, and this film did that correctly with the practical effects, the setting and the casting of the original actors.
Now to the not so good aspects.
Kylo Ren, the son of Han Solo and Princess Leia is the main antagonist (villain) of this film. He is the apprentice of a new Sith Lord (Supreme Leader Snoke). His first appearances makes him seem menacing and a truly scary guy. Yet somewhere in the middle of this film he takes off his mask and has.. personal moments. Temper tantrums and a temporary soft moment when his father Harrison Ford confronts him and tells him to come home because he is loved. The whole sequence of seeing his weaknesses make him seem like a naive and troubled teenager (the baby face of the actor didn't help with this either). This caused me to lose almost any respect for him as a leader or a villain.
Additionally, the main characters of this film (the disaffected Storm Trooper Finn and the girl Rey who discovers she is strong with the force) both have fights with the Sith Kylo Ren. The Storm Trooper is a sanitation specialist and he holds his ground against the Sith for a few minutes showing Light Saber skills on par with a Jedi knight (This insulted my intelligence as just a few minutes earlier he was trying to figure out how to turn the thing on), and the girl who has just discovered that she is strong with the force also defeats this Sith in both her use of the force and a Light Saber (She also was unfamiliar with the use of the Light Saber and this insulted any respect that the audience has for Sith, or at least for this particular Sith).
And now to the final aspect that was, in my opinion, not done well. The story line was exactly the same as the story line from the original 70's movies. It was like taking all three movies and squeezing the entire plot into a single movie. While I (and probably the audience) enjoyed the nostalgia of seeing the old characters and actors from the 70's, rehashing the exact same story line made this film painfully unoriginal. There was another death star, but this time it was as big as a planet (it was a planet), and you guessed it, the rebels have to destroy the thing again, for the third time in this franchise, so that the new "First Order" doesn't win and destroy the rebels.
Overall the movie was enjoyable. The true Artists, to include the actors and the practical effects & set teams, made this film an enjoyable experience. The lack of original story line and implausible fights between rookie characters and Sith insulted the intelligence of both myself and I think much of the audience. Turning the Sith Knight from a respectable leader, at the beginning of the film, to a teenage drama king made the second half of the film more difficult to digest and accept. This is another example of passionate artists and storytellers working on the same team as money groveling directors and studios who are only interested in catering to the bottom line.