Great Step Toward Closing the Story

Rating: 7/10 (1 January 2016)

If you are a Star Wars fan, you absolutely need to see Star Wars: The Force Awakens. I rated this movie a 7, but I understand why others rate it higher. Below I'll explain what I like about Star Wars, which will tell you why I rated The Force Awakens a 7, but anticipate rating its sequels higher.
I grew up with the original Star Wars (IV, V, & VI), but only saw Return of the Jedi in the theater. What I like about Star Wars most, is the transition of Luke Skywalker from a teenage farm-hand to a Jedi.
In A New Hope, we learned that Luke Skywalker was to become something more, but at the end of the movie, we were left needing the next step. He grew in The Empire Strikes Back and he had become something much more by the beginning of Return of the Jedi.
Luke Skywalker's entrance into Jaba's fortress in Return of the Jedi and the scenes that followed, particularly, when he offered Jaba a final chance to release Luke and his friends, were the most exciting parts of any movie for me. We waited for what seemed like an eternity from The Empire Strikes Back to see the sequel, and when it opened we saw how powerful Luke had become.
My appreciation for Star Wars lies in the character development, and much less in the large scale battle scenes. Luke's transition, the relationships between Luke and Obiwan, Luke and Yoda, Han and Leia, Vader and Luke, etc. made the movies for me.
Scenes such as the Rebellion's attack of the Death Star in A New Hope and the battle on Endor in Return of the Jedi, were necessary but they were not highlights for me.
The Force Awakens followed the flow of A New Hope. The problem is that we know what happened in A New Hope and in the follow on movies. I found myself wanting things to happen, but I knew that they couldn't happen because two more movies are on their way. At one point, I kept thinking, if Luke Skywalker appears now, it will make the movie. It didn't happen, but again, I didn't think it could happen given that there are two remaining films. I also felt that some of the action was too similar to scenes from the prior movies. I understand that some logical repetition helps tie the old to the new, but it was simply too "close" for me. Those issues, along with the larger battle scenes, caused the movie to be rated a 7.
That said, the final scene, which some people may find uneventful, had such a build up for me, it was difficult to contain myself.