i feel like i should give it an 8 but i don't want to

Rating: 7/10 (18 December 2015)

not flawless, but still very, very good.
what many negative reviews say is that its a "remake" rather than a sequel. it certainly seems that way, but it was definitely done that way for a reason: to appease star wars fanboys. you can see so much of a new hope in this movie that its crazy. but that isn't a bad thing. its just something that will cleanly divide viewers of this movie. some people love it, some people criticize it for being this way. personally, i think they went just a little overboard with the nostalgia, but they did what they originally planned to do: revitalize the series, try to remedy the damages done by the prequels, and start off what looks to be a great trilogy. this movie does a lot of setting up, with plot, characters, and even themes. rage is something i had never seen in a sith but it was always said throughout all of the star wars movies that it was a path to the dark side, and this movie really showed that. it also answered a lot of questions that people had coming into this movie.
one thing i especially liked are the new characters. finn is very charismatic and rey is a strong independent woman, and they can be correlated with han and leia, but finn its as if they took some of hans qualities out of finn and plugged in some of Luke's original qualities in a new hope, and then did the same with some of the leia qualities in rey. overall, I'm really excited for these characters, and new ones to come (benicio del toro). also, I'm now a fan of Oscar isaac, and while his acting was questionable at times, he did a great job as a character who wasn't really based off of anybody.
while we are on the topic of acting, i want to mention that abrams did a great job of taking these D-list actors and turning them into stars.
the main reason i couldn't hate all of the correlations with a new hope is because, well, its star wars, and they copied great concepts from a great movie.