1977 again

Rating: Null/10 (1 January 2016)

With the familiar John Williams score, fast pacing, familiar characters such as Chewbacca and R2D2, and some wonderful visual effects, I can understand why many people enjoyed this movie on first viewing.
For myself, the plot and the characterisations did not hold my attention beyond the first half hour.
The decision to bring back Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, and the characters Chewbacca and C3P0 from the original 1970-80s series had the effect of removing me from the film. It felt corny. You know, when the audience cheers when the Fonz walks on in Happy Days?
"Woooooo,Fonzy!" "Woooooo, Han Solo!" No, for me, the nods and winks broke the fourth wall.
I didn't believe the character of Rey in the way I was pulled into the story of Luke. Was it the delivery of the lines? Too chipper?
The character of Supreme Leader Snoke was not a distinctive presence. I'm surprised because I would have expected Andy Serkis to have created someone original and memorable here. Was there more, and it was edited down?
And what an opportunity - with the huge budget, prime collaborators and media attention - to give us something new or inspiring or strange or exotic or challenging. But it was an opportunity missed.
As the elements that we have seen before piled up I quickly lost interest, realising that this was simply retreading the same path: the wisened adviser to the callow youth, the "quirky" cantina, the search for the message hidden in a comedy robot, the showdown on a walkway inside the industrial base, the mission to bring down an energy shield, the junkyard trader on a desert planet, the dreaded laser beam blowing up planets, the dysfunctional Millennium Falcon with its gizmos that short out and stop it accelerating from danger, the familiar 'mission analysis' set-up in the rebel base, the uptight Nazi-like imperial general.
All in all, this didn't bring something new to the cinema apart from some lovely visuals such as the huge scale of the downed Imperial Star Destroyer on the desert planet, Jakku. I enjoyed feeling the sense of a world decayed.
I also enjoyed the theme of a young man struggling with his drift into darkness and the pull of power (Kylo Ren). This must be something that happens in real life, for example to dictators, serial killers, mercenaries, or religious fanatics, and it was interesting to see that on screen.
In summary: disappointingly derivative.