I tried to like it

Rating: 2/10 (28 December 2015)

With an 8.6 rating at time of writing, I expected better. I expected something better than the prequel movies. I was wrong. I'm beginning to think that Disney has been paying people to write positive reviews on various movie review sites. Yes, THATS how disappointing it was. I can still feel nauseous, as a star wars fan. Half the theater booed at the end of the film, and I wished there was someone I could hurl my rotten tomatoes at.
***Spoilers***
I'm not sure how to best organize my thoughts. I'm traumatized. I almost feel like I've been violated by Walt Disney's money-grabbing hands.
Let's start with the good. The best parts of the movie were the handful of scenes where Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, and Daisy Ridley are interacting. Particularly in the middle of the film, on the Falcon. Ford and Fisher are proved, and Ridley is definitely promising. They also had Gwendoline Christie as a badass storm trooper captain which I thought was cool, until she was suddenly killed off without even putting up a fight. The only speck of originality in this films was snuffed out without any explanation, or sense of satisfaction...
Now, let's focus on the absolute worst aspects of this cinematic abortion. The PLOT, the VILLAIN, and the horribly crafted roles of John Boyega and Adam Driver. I'm not sure whether to blame the script or the actors, but Finn and Kylo Ren were... underwhelming additions to the franchise. Finn felt like some random guy teleported right out of the USA, not someone from a galaxy far far away or anything like that. He seemed unable to get into character. And Kylo Ren, despite his impressive force powers, was an idiot and felt like more like an angsty teenager than a sith apprentice. The scenes where he starts slashing the ship with his own lightsaber are so stupid that it feels like I'm watching something out of Austin Powers. He's so hilariously underwhelming compared to darth vader that I almost found myself laughing during the scenes where he was supposed to be menacing.
Nearly half scenes throughout the movie feel as if they'd been ripped straight from the previous films (as outlined in other reviews), implying that the producer just wanted to play it safe. Indeed, you will feel some nostalgia when you watch the movie. But that doesn't mean much when there's no plot to support anything that's going on. You'll see some vague space-Nazi empire, the destruction of a few planets (unexplained), and the invasion of some jungle world, but you won't be able to follow any of it. There's no sense of continuation. It's almost as if Disney forgot how to tell a story.
Jeez, there's so much more I want to include in this review but I just want to put this movie behind me. It feels more like a star wars parody than an actual movie. I haven't felt this hurt, and ashamed of Star Wars in a very long time. Spending money to go see this movie is probably my biggest regret in 2015.