More Than You'd Expect To Set Up Episode 8

Rating: 8/10 (27 December 2015)

I have been reading some reviews of this movie by a lot of folks who will get egg on their face when the next one comes out. There are a lot of plot parallels in this film including another son killing his father (which is a spoiler if you know who I am referring too). I have to laugh at people who are trying to critique George Lucas original ideas in this episodes plot.
Harrison Ford does have the starring role to carry this movie.
Meanwhile, back in the galaxy far away, there are some new factors in this one. For instance a cloned storm trooper who turns against the bad guys is new. The action sequences, like the original films, are James Bond type as the good guys shoot a lot better than the bad guys.
As far as intelligence, no this movie is no more intelligent than Avatar as a critic in the LA Times points out.
There are some twists here that make people who want to see the series at the same level as episodes 4,5,&6 angry. It is a lot better than episodes 1 & 2 which included a dreadful remake of Ben Hur with a young boy (too Young to be cast as Anakin) having an adult relationship with a much older teenager. Episode 2 was one of the slowest paced films of the entire series, though it had to fill in the story for Revenge of the Sith.
For those not aware, Episode 6 was originally titled "Revenge Of The Jedi" but then got changed to "Return" before it was released. That is why Episode 3 was titled "Revenge", to get the word into the series.
The writers here are not George Lucas, but at least they had very few dead spots in the film. There were a couple of sequences which were not totally logical but that is the price we pay for modern movies which often do not make the scene totally logical. Still the viewer does not lose the plot here.
There are some interesting questions for the next episode that come to mind. Will Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher get bigger roles? Will Harrison Ford be back? Who are Rey's parents (this episode leaves that open) even though she has Jedi powers. After the destruction of the dark side again in this episode, how will they return and will all the folks on each side remain on that side considering we have a defector in episode 7 for the first time. Nobody ever totally defected before in the other episodes though some like Lando played both sides.
There is still a lot of life in what we have here, it really depends on the next script and how well the movie is handed. The humor between the droids is a little flat in this episode, but that can be fixed easily if some comedian has time to stop drinking coffee and consult the script writers on how to write lines.