Eco-friendly Star Wars: Successfully recycles both previous trilogies

Rating: 7/10 (19 December 2015)

Rehashing Star Wars:
Â•Bigger badder Death Star absorbs stars and uses their energy to destroy planets
Â•The even more "old piece of garbage" Millennium Falcon
Â•Droid carries secret but vital information that changes the fate of the galaxy
Â•Orphan in a desert planet
Â•Main villain killing one hero, just in time for the others to see
Â•Main character falling to death in a chasm in the Death Star
Â•Main villain venting (EpII). This time Ren vents anger on computers, to remain politically correct.
Â•Same ending as EpIV: Group of starfighters assaults a heavily guarded trench on the surface of Starkiller Base to hit its vulnerable spot just seconds before it can destroy the Resistance's base. It even echoes the second Death Star and the ending of Episode I by having a starfighter enter the vulnerable point and attacking from the inside.
Â•An infant villain aspiring to be just like Darth Vader, even wearing a costume with a helmet, just out of spite this time
Â•Said infant villain channeling Hayden Christensen's Darth Vader, culminating with Anakin's loud line "Traitor!"
Â•Kamino, in the form of an incomplete map to find Luke
Â•Torture scene from EpV
Â•Cantina scene (EpIV, EpII). Maz Kanata is reminiscent of Dexter Jettster and his droid WA7, with just a twist of Yoda.
Â•A hero hanging from the wall of a chasm (EpI)
WTF Moments:
Â•Incredible coincidence: Rey, Finn, and BB-8 run away from a First Order airstrike, towards a ship that is promptly and efficiently destroyed by a TIE Fighter's blast. They are forced to run towards a very, very, very old Millennium Falcon and the TIE Fighters become suddenly too incompetent to destroy it. The Falcon is perfectly functional of course, despite having been abandoned for many years. Rey is not just a starving scavenger; she is also the perfect pilot for the Millennium Falcon, defeating trained fighters and pulling incredible stunts the first time she pilots it. Solo and Chewbacca inexplicably find them, just in time to find Luke Skywalker!
Â•A woman that has no idea of what the force is and is too afraid to find out, and according to Joda's standards would be too old to even begin training, is suddenly able to use Jedi mind tricks and is now on the quest to become the best Jedi badass of the galaxy.
Â•The most powerful Sith Lord of the whole galaxy is able to stop energy blasts mid air, kill with the force, read people's minds, and detect subtle tremors in the force like the presence of his non-force-user father from millions of miles away, and is a lightsaber warrior with years of training and experience is somehow the same incompetent guy that is later unable to sense that his father is in the same building, and is later unable to instantly win a lightsaber duel with a guy that had never used a lightsaber before, and then is not only unable to instantly win a lightsaber duel with a woman that had never used a lightsaber before but he is also defeated.
Â•Luke goes into hiding but gives a map with his exact location. Reconstruction is unnecessary, as the small portion contains the names of the star systems. And if it does not, then its position in a complete galactic map can be determined by the sizes of the portion's stars or their spatial configuration.
Â•Once again, the Death Star was destroyed by shots from one single one- manned starfighter.
Â•Finn, an unimportant sanitation stormtrooper among millions of stormtroopers, knows just enough about the First Order in order to destroy its most powerful weapon.
Â•Han Solo, the greatest and most beloved hero of the Star Wars universe dies without a fight, but with a whimper and is then just discarded like a piece of trash.
Â•Now you can go into hyperspace and pass through shields and hulls. This technological advancement is standing right there with Star Trek's superblood and interplanetary teleportation.
Sad, just sad things from this movie:
Â•Zero mystery. I bet the makers tried the concept of having the reveal of Ren as Han and Leia's son to a later part of the movie as a Big Twist, but they realized it wouldn't work and now it comes across as a non-twist. Also, Han's death was totally predictable, and the moment of the end titles was totally predictable.
Â•No villains. Zero complexity. Zero character development. Zero motivation. Forgettable. Who cares about Snoke and Ren?
Â•Star Wars Battlefront, a video game without a plot, feels a lot more like Star Wars than this film.
Â•I can't believe that this film has absolutely zero original ideas. At least the prequels had original ideas despite the fact that everybody knew where were they heading. Oh wait, I was able to find an original idea, that you can go into hyperspace and pass through shields and hulls. Which is a terrible idea.
Â•For this movie's worth of originality, creativity, and action, it might as well have been made by Michael Bay on CGI and digital medium. At least he would bring more explosions to it.
Â•This film played it safe with the designs for new creatures, vehicles, technologies, worlds, costumes. The OT and PT had a lot of creative, inventive, versatile and totally incredible designs.
Â•Suddenly the prequel trilogy doesn't look that bad
Â•Leia was so busy with the resistance that she couldn't make the time to accompany the party that went to see her brother Luke
Â•The next Death Star will surely destroy the entire galaxy
Â•Leia could have been replaced by another character. She was totally inconsequential.
At least this film passes the Bechdel test with two named women.
I think I prefer to dwell in the past. I'll stick to the Old Trilogy.