It's the iPhone 6 of sequels

Rating: 4/10 (2 January 2016)

Since the critic reviews had left me hopeful that something new and exciting was brewing with the Star Wars series, I felt disappointment as the final credits rolled in the theater. I'll drop it in easy point form.
The Bad: -The soundtrack. Please just calm down with the music. Are the scenes really that weak that they need constant orchestral support? -The entire story was taken from the recycling bin. All of it. Nothing was fresh. If you fed all of the Hollywood films, from 1970 to 2010, into a computer and told it to recombine them into a random 2 hour film, it would eventually come up with this exact story.
-I felt nothing. My heart rate stayed a steady 60 BPM for the entire film, I am certain.
-Sound in space? This is 2016! In the '70's people perhaps didn't know any better, but in 2016 even children know that sound isn't transmitted in a vacuum. Please just give it up already.
-Robots that speak in bleeps. Come on! It would be a trivial matter for a robot maker to install speech capability, even if that robot had been made in 2010, let alone in... 2300 or whenever this movie supposedly takes place. We had R2D2 and that was enough. He was cute, we get it, but you've already used it up and now it's time to move on.
-An ex good guy now a bad guy controlled by an evil overlord. Perhaps the writers aren't fans of books, because if they were they would realize that they can do something more imaginative.
-The list is ending here, but know that I was SMH throughout the entire movie.
The good (there was some!): +Han Solo died (at least he was still dead at the end). Yes, this is good. It means that the writers have decided to move on with something. Even if he was pretty much the only saving grace of the series. Really, Star Wars needs to kill of main characters more often. It has become like a Marvel series where we don't even worry if the main character is in a bind because we know with 100% certainty that we will survive.
+CG and special effects. These have come a long way. Some people involved in this film know their jobs well. They weren't over done and they didn't take away from the story (ha). Kudos to the special effects people.
+The converted Storm Trooper. Hey, that was different. Something was different! I started by rating this 5/10 but after writing this review I've realized it should only be a 4/10.