Lack of originality and planet sized plot holes

Rating: 1/10 (30 December 2015)

One of my mentors, the late Bill Stock, once told me "John there are two kinds of people in the world. There are carnies and there are marks. The purpose of carnies is to take money from marks. The purpose of marks is to give money to carnies. Always be a carny. Never be a mark."
I saw "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" tonight and I was reminded of that advice as I left the theater. I'm sorry, Bill. Tonight, I was a mark.
It's going to take a while to get the taste of shame out of my mouth.
I realize that I'm swimming against the tide of popular opinion on this, but SWTFA is a swindle. A sham of a movie lacking originality with one purpose and one purpose only which is to dupe marks like me into giving up their hard earned cash to go see JJ Abrams blow things up.
SWTFA is basically a remake of episodes 4 and 6 only with plot holes big enough to drive a death star through (or its contemporary equivalent, whatever that planet was called). It features a villain so weak he can't even defeat someone who's never handled a light saber before, with a name so forgettable I had to go to IMDb.com to look it up afterwards. It suggests that a civilization that developed faster than light travel hasn't advanced, scientifically speaking, an inch in 20 years, except in the ability to destroy several planets at once instead of only 1 at a time.
This film not only required the willing suspension of disbelief it required the willing suspension of common sense. Science fiction often asks us to accept the improbable, but SWTFA goes way too far down that path.
If you haven't seen it yet, do yourself a favor and wait for the $5 special, or better yet, wait for it to show up on Netflix. It isn't worth any more than that.
I hate being a mark.