We've seen this droid before...

Rating: 5/10 (20 December 2015)

It's a good film, but it's not really Star Wars (I'll explain that in a sec). It's a complete copy of Episode IV.
To wit: there's a droid with plans to a space weapon; there's a black-clad bad guy hunting it; the droid crashes on a desert planet; there's a character on this desert planet who (later) discovers the force; there's a resistance (rebellion); the heroes end up on the death star and disable it, allowing the resistance to bomb the single glaring weakness in the space weapon's design; there's a light sabre fight between the good guy(s) and the bad guy.
Does that sound exactly like Episode IV - A New Hope? Did it feel like you'd seen the story before? You betcha it does, and you certainly have. Unfortunately it's also the plot for this new film. Clearly Disney wanted to try and position this new film to create a new story-line (and money). JJ Abrams is just Disney's b*tch here. Creatively bankrupt. However, in order to do that they had to discard all of the original story line, as well as the extended Star Wars universe.
So the prequels sucked. The acting was terrible, the dialogue was terrible, the directing was terrible. But the underlying story was fantastic. It told the story of how we ended up with Episode IV. This new film throws that away entirely, and doesn't really give us anything new to think about. Because of that, it's not really a Star Wars film. It's just a film that is similar to Star Wars.
Apparently Abrams was asked "Who is Luke Skywalker in 30 years?" Great question, but Abrams doesn't know the answer. Luke shows up at the end, but doesn't do antyhing. Force Awakens? Are you kidding me? The Force didn't awake in this film. The only thing that awoke was my disappointment.
The original trilogy ended with The Return of the Jedi. You'd never know it from this film though, since the Jedi apparently never actually returned. Oh, there's some throwaway line about Luke starting a new Jedi academy that Kylo Ren (not a Sith) destroyed, but that's just lazy writing.
The universal praise for this film is really just misplaced nostalgia. Don't get me wrong, it's a good film, but not an actual continuation of Star Wars. Disney clearly want the kiddie's money, and in order to do that they needed to throw out Lucas' story. No more Sith, thankfully no more midicholorians, but also less Star Wars.