Great Movie, Recycled Story

Rating: 8/10 (23 December 2015)

It's true. The movie is good. It's also true that all of the complaining people on here upset about the recycled copy of a storyline as it applies to the other Star Wars movies have a point. Let me first of all touch on a fact that everyone knows by now: it's a good movie.
The pacing in this movie is basically spot on. When I say spot on, I mean that from the minute we finish the vanishing text wall at the start of the movie, SW starts you on the edge of your seat. At the end of the movie one quickly realizes that the edge of your seat is where most viewers potentially spend the majority of the film. There are few lulls or downtime in the film. As far as pacing goes I am going to say 9.5/10 well done.
The acting is decent. Not great, but definitely decent. Harrison Ford convincingly and expertly pulls off his character as Han Solo. From the minute he enters the story until the bitter end Ford uplifts the quality of the movie. In fact I think that if Ford were not in this movie, the overall score for this movie would suffer. Daisy as Ren does a good job and is interesting. Fin played by Boyega was decent. As the series continues he could excel or fail depending on how his character develops. Kylo Ren by Adam Driver has the opportunity to become a legendary actor if he can pull it off in the sequels, but I felt he just didn't get enough face time (no mask) to provide a solid review on Driver. Leia, General Hux and the other supporting characters did their job of supporting. That said there was something about Hux that fell a bit short in my books. Leading the entire army he should have a more commanding stage presence than he carried. Lupita playing Maz Kanata was top notch for a CG character, and I felt that Supreme Leader Snoke was poorly done played by Anthony Serkis. I believe Serkis was a victim of poor CG combined with poor on-screen acting presence the result of his character being a 40 foot tall hologram. So acting overall for this movie 7.5/10
The story was most notably copied from their earlier SW episodes, as if JJ just took the parts that seems to work from the other six films and copied them into Episode 7. While this seems to have infinitely angered many a fan boy, the fact of the matter is, is that it was still well done. I am going to give the story a 6.5/10 because of the recycled story.
Special effects, creatures, equipment, scenery, and backdrops were top notch. SWVII managed to capture all aspects of the dirty, greasy, used equipment look that the original films did so well. 9/10 on CG, cinematography, practical effects.
Canon, lore, plot holes and impossible moments: The mistakes like how could Kylo sense a non-force users presence like Han Solo's? How was Ren able to learn to use the Force abilities at such high levels with ZERO training? I was particularly excited to see Snoke on screen, but quickly let down as he neither radiated wisdom, nor the type of sinister dark side presence compared to Darth Sideous, Darth Maul or even Vadder. For the guy that is likely to turn out to be the ultimate mastermind of the dark side being that he is probably Darth Plaguis "The Wise" what a let down...thus far. 7/10 on Canon, plot holes and things that just don't make sense.
Flow, overall impact, impression 9/10 Grand Total for SWVII is 8/10 Not perfect by far, but it's still a great movie