Good-looking, but unoriginal take on Star Wars

Rating: 5/10 (30 December 2015)

First of all: This is an enjoyable movie. It feels like Star Wars and it is in my opinion the best episode in the saga since Episode VI: Return of the Jedi.
The area where the movie really shines is the visuals. The photography and the special effects are the best we have seen in any Star Wars movie to date. The Star Wars universe has never looked as good as here, and the visuals are by themselves worth the price of admission. Apparently, the filmmakers have given an effort to make this one look more like the original episodes. They did this by using miniatures and puppets rather than excessive CGI effects, and by giving the production a dirtier, grittier look than Ep. I-III. This has really paid off in my opinion. The sound design and music are also excellent. The director is also great at making very fast-paced, engaging action scenes.
As to plot and story-telling: It's not bad, but there are a number of weaknesses. First of all (and this has been pointed out in many other reviews), the main plot line as well as many smaller plot elements are extremely similar, in parts even identical to previous episodes, especially Ep. IV. This was certainly done intentionally by the filmmakers, as a homage and to "quote" the classics, and appears to be something that the director/writer J.J. Abrams specializes in. Yet it feels a bit like a cop-out. It's almost like the makers of Ep. VII didn't dare, or lacked the ideas to do something new. To mention just the major recurring themes (ATT: SPOILERS!): We have a droid which holds crucial information that both sides seek to obtain, the droid is lost (and later rescued) on a desert planet while the storm troopers are looking for it there, we have Han Solo getting in trouble for unpaid debts, we have the heroes hiding inside the millennium falcon, we have the shady space canteen with weird aliens and a funny alien band, we have the bad guys constructing a gigantic space weapon which can destroy planets, we have the plan of the resistance to destroy it by a) sending a commando to disable the shields on the ground, b) sending X-Wings to bomb it from close by, and we have a shocking "family revelation". Many characters are also obvious reincarnations of previous ones: A new R2D2 (BB-8), a new Darth Vader (Kylo Ren), a new emperor (Snoke), a new Watto (junk dealer on a desert planet), and Rey is of course very similar to Luke in the original episodes. The only really new character is probably Finn. Kylo Ren is an interesting character, and I like the choice of a young actor, but his fate is all too similar to Anakin/Darth Vader's.
The character development is also fairly weak. The best new character is BB-8, who is funny and charming, but ultimately fails to make a lasting impression as he is all too similar to R2D2. The two main characters, Finn and Rey, are not badly done, but stay rather bleak. We don't learn much about them except that they are the "good guys" and make the morally right choices. We get only a glimpse of character development from them. Admittedly, this episode was to introduce the new characters, and hopefully there will be more room for character development in the following episodes.
As for plot holes, we shouldn't judge the movie too hard on them. It is after all a space opera and has some elements of a fairy tale, which resist logical analysis (light sabers which are 1m long? explosions in space? Pulsating lasers?). However, even from a fairy tale we can expect that it is in itself consistent, and I feel that in one important point, the plot of this movie is not consistent with previous episodes: How come both Finn and Rey are able to use a light saber and stand their ground against a (still young, but apparently trained) Sith? It makes no sense, especially considering how Luke had to go through a lot of Jedi training in the original episodes to reach that level of skill. It just feels wrong and makes you think that they did it only because they felt that a Star Wars movie "needs" a light saber duel. (Actually, the movie would have worked quite well if the heroes simply left on the falcon with Chewie after blowing up the shields of the oscillator. That would have avoided the problem mentioned above, as well as a couple more stupid "movie coincidences", like Chewie just happening to find and rescue the heroes in the few seconds before the planet blew up.)
We also barely get to explore the galaxy any more than we did previously. The plot takes place on a desert planet, in space, on a densely forested planet, and on an ice/snow planet - all places which we have seen before. Are there really no other interesting planets to explore in this galaxy?
All the problems I have described so far are with the script / plot. Originally, it was planned that Michael Arndt would work on the scripts for the three new episodes. However, after J.J. Abrams was signed as director, he took over as writer as well, together with Lawrence Kasdan. I think the script could have turned out better if Michael Arndt had been allowed to take the time to finish the script.
The acting was overall fairly good. It was nice to see how Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher slipped into their old roles again smoothly. The new, young actors all did well too, although I felt that Daisy Ridley acted a bit wooden at times. But it was definitely right to cast new, unknown actors for these roles, so let's give her and the others some time to grow into their roles.