A massive opportunity missed

Rating: 3/10 (21 December 2015)

Well, where to begin. I must admit I didn't get on board the hype train about this film as the recent spat of remakes in 2015 have been let down after let down. I also wanted to go see this movie without getting too hyped up and reduce the excitement factor. This has been hard considering the massive marketing campaign stuffed down our mouths at every turn.
OK so just to warn you this review will contain spoilers. Although I wont be spoiling anything as this movie is a direct remake of the original three star wars movies.
Firstly let me begin with the First Order.... a new dominating force in the galaxy which replaces the empire. I mean come on in star wars the VI return of the jedi the empire is defeated and left in tatters. By means of this rebel victory the galaxy was freed from the empires reign. The rebels would form a new governing body and the empire would become the rebels. But no hang on in the force awakens they are immense with an entirely new death star 100 times bigger and more powerful than the death star mk2. How on earth would they be able to build this?!
And here we go again the rebel attack this massive attack ship, disable the shield and blow it up with a few x wings.... sound familiar?!
Whilst on the dark side subject the new villain Kylo Ren. This is Darth vader MK2. A son turned evil. He went to the dark side whilst training under the jedi and killed his classmates. Sound familiar?! Well yes the story of Anakin skywalker.
Now on to Rey the new hope and future jedi. A scavenger found on a desert planet. She doesn't know her powers yet until near the end of the film. Sound familiar? This is the story of Luke Skywalker....
It was great to see the old actors back again. Han was funny but his untimely passing is a major point in the film. Extremely predictable and very strange as none of the cast seem to really care that much and seem to get over their grief very quickly.
There are so many references to the original movies I could write for 3 hours because the entire movie is just a reference to the old story.
The bar scene with the alien band, the all powerful sith lord controlling everything in the background (Who by the way is a 50 foot Golem from lord of the rings?!?!? WHAT THE HELL with all the best character designers to hand they came up with him?) The struggling rebellion who have no support from the rest of the galaxy even though they won the war. The old cast brought back in a vein attempt to win us over with lack of new storyline. A new R2D2 which in my opinion is the best cast in the movie. A single amazing x-wing pilot that blows up the deathstar, the black masked villain. I could go on and on.
So in my opinion Lawrence Kasdan J.J. Abrams and Michael Arndt have missed a really good opportunity here. They call themselves writers but unfortunately their creative writing ended back in the 80's. I felt a lot more focus should have been put on the search for Luke Skywalker, the rebuilding of the empire from a weak army to something more evil over the term of the next two films could have been used more.
The visuals and special effects were outstanding. But to be honest these days its pretty much expected from a movie with the software studios have to use. I give this movie 3/10 as some parts were rather funny and it was entertaining from a mindless action film perspective.
You could also argue that they did their job. Made a new movie with minimal writing effort and created a monster £4 billion dollar money train.
Hats off Lucasfilm you've done a great job. Shame it was at the cost of the saga yet again.