A Poor Remake Of A New Hope.

Rating: 1/10 (22 December 2015)

Like so many I am a massive fan of the original 3 movies and although the prequels didn't measure up to the first 3, they did stand on their own in terms of story line and character building, but The Force Awakens was, I have to say a real disappointment. With J.J Abrams, Disney's budget, the original movies writers all involved in the project there was so much hope for this movie, but at the end of it you realise the only hope was a poor politically correct remake of the original A New Hope.
Spoilers below. The Empire has re-emerged but is now called the "First Order". The Rebels are no longer the rebels but are now the "resistance". There is a new Death Star, only this one is called the Star Killer Base, to add to the lack of imagination the weapon they use to wipe out planets is called "the weapon".
Almost from the opening scene we are set for a rerun of Star Wars episode IV, instead of a woman loading up the plans into a droid, as Leia did in the first one, we have a guy called Poe, who has a map with the whereabouts of Luke Skywalker. The droid escapes the ship with the map, just before it gets boarded by the Empire, sorry "First Order" and lands on a Tatooinesque planet, where the droid finds its way to "Rey" who is the female version of Luke Skywalker from the original.
Kylo Ren played (poorly) by Adam Driver is our new "Vader", he wears a mask to distort his voice for no other reason then to wear a mask to distort his voice.
In the original, Darth Vader needed his mask to regulate his breathing because of the injuries he had sustained with his final battle with Obi Wan, but Kylo wears it as a fashion accessory to make him look the part of the villain.
He plays the conflicted ex pupil of Skywalker, who has been seduced by the "Dark Side". He is completely unbelievable as the Dark Lord, no where near as menacing as Darth Vader and he plays the part like a rebellious teenager with daddy issues who likes a mask.
He then "hunts down and kills his father", who happens to be Han Solo taken straight from the New Hope scene when Luke meets Obi Wan for the first time and Obi Wan tells him how a young Jedi he trained turned to the dark side hunted down and killed Anakin. The way Han Solo is killed, by Ren (also called "Ben" by Solo) meet on the new Death Star / Star killer base, is almost an identical way as when Darth killed Obi Wan.
There are far many more similarities to A New Hope, from going onto the Star Killer base to rescue Rey from Ren, having to lower the shield so the rebellion, sorry resistance, can blow up the Death Star, oops, I mean Star Killer Base.
Domhnall Gleeson who plays General Hux is so over acted and completely unbelievable that it makes you wonder how he even got the role. Peter Cushing, who played the part of Grand Moff Tarkin in the original, played the part with class. He was cool, calm and collected and very believable as the head of a powerful battle station, the complete opposite of General Hux who seems to want to throw a tantrum in every scene.
On top of all the bad acting, poor remake attempt of the New Hope, we have the typical Disney political correctness loaded in to the movie.
We have the "Black Stormtrooper" who is the only good one and refuses to kill all the villagers.
Rey a woman, has now taken on the Luke Skywalker role.
You can obviously see where Disney is going with this, "Rey" will probably end up being "Rens" sister, she will be hunted down by Snook, who is the new emperor, he looked like one of the Orcs from lord of the rings if you ask me. Snook will no doubt either try and turn Rey to the dark side, she will probably find out Leia is her mother, only to be saved by "Finn" the storm trooper who is no longer a storm trooper and Ren will probably kill Snook, when he comes to terms with his conflict of the dark side and returns to the good side of the force.
Female heroine, black hero, hunted by the over acted villainous white male, all they did was try to politically correct the old version to fit in with Hollywood's agenda.
The plot is rushed and has so many holes, there is zero character development, that we have absolutely no idea where "Snook" came from, how the "First Order" came to exist, how they were able to build a massive storm trooper army and how they have all the Empire ships.
This was a great opportunity for a great movie, to pick up after the Return of the Jedi. There were so many more roads they could have gone down, considering this was no longer a prequel they had an open script to play with, but instead they chose to redo the original with an agenda.
Why Hollywood keep messing with originals and trying to remake classics to fit with todays agenda is beyond me. The original 3 were great movies because they were movies made for movie goers, The Force Awakens is a movie trying to deliver a politically correct message dressed up in a remake of a cinema classic, then its aimed at movie goers.
Hollywood needs to stop with the political correctness and go back to doing what Hollywood should be doing and making movies for movie goers and leave the politics to politicians.