Totally loved it

Rating: 9/10 (31 December 2015)

I actually grew up with Star Wars, starting with the first one (IV) in high school. I had heard the Force Awakens has basically the same plot as IV, and thought I'd find it average. Turns out I loved it! I was amazed. The thing that gets you really involved in any fictional movie or TV show or book is the characters and the relationships among them, and that part was excellent. I had no idea Adam Driver is the bad guy, and was thrilled to see him when he took off his mask – he's such an unusual actor, and it looks like he's going to have a great career. What a leap, from Girls to Star Wars. Rey was quite good, and Finn I guess was the comic relief. Han did fine, and Chewy was just the same as 37 years ago – I guess that's easier when you're covered with fur. Leia (sp?) was okay but too low key – none of her old fire, and she didn't talk or sound like herself. The dialogue was very good, and often funny in just the same way the original Star Wars was funny. The droid was adorable.
The visuals were mostly excellent, except that the TIE fighters looked like little toys to me. I supposed they ARE little toys, but they LOOKED like little toys. Something was missing there to make them look real. I do wish Kylo had kept his mask on more. He was menacing and scary until he took it off, but if he'd put it back on and kept it on it would have been fine. When he had it removed for most of the rest of the movie he started to seem like a regular guy, especially when an 80 pound girl was kicking his a**. I'm hoping he was just thrown off by the aforesaid girl and will get more consistently menacing as the movies continue.
But all in all, I loved the movie so much I didn't even care that it was mostly the same plot as IV. Didn't care! Want to see it again! It's already 9000 times better than the first and second prequel.