An insult to storytelling... original audiences were blinded by nostalgia and special effects

Rating: 2/10 (9 May 2020)

Many people act like this is some kind of generation defining masterpiece for reasons I didn't even quite understand when I left the theater going 'meh'. But as each day went on, the rottenness of the Force Awakens stung my mind more and more until I completely despised it. Well, at least it only kept the status of 'movie of a lifetime' until the equally execrable Avengers Endgame came along. (And it also convinced me that the 1001 Movies to Watch Before You Die book is defective and I will have to make my own).
There are many problems with the Force Awakens, too many to name, but I will only mention the ones that bothered me the most, in no particular order:
A). The New Republic blows up and nothing changes. Gee, JJ Abrams, I know you didn't want to fall into the same trap that the 'boring' prequels did by including intergalactic politics, but then why are you acting like it's such a catastrophe when the New Republic gets exploded? The heroes aren't affected at all by this event! They just continue on and there are no repercussions whatsoever when what should be the dominant force in the galaxy is wiped out. We still never learn what the New Republic is, or what it's for; and since no one mourns it at the end it must be even more useless than Robert Mueller and Adam Schiff combined, and probably an even bigger waste of taxpayer's dollars.
B). What did they do to Han Solo? We know JJ was nostalgic for the days when Han Solo was a cheating rogue, but he should have directed the Solo movie if that's what he wanted to show. What he does in this 'sequel' is retcon Han Solo's ENTIRE character arc from the first Star Wars onward, cheapifying the original trilogy and then not even bothering to give Han any kind of redemption at the end. An ugly shadow of what they would do to Luke in the next movie.
C). Little did I know when first watching this that Adam Driver would go on to be the only good thing about this trilogy, but I still don't believe that someone looking like that could be the product of Han and Leia. It's too unbelievable. (By the way, Finn was my favorite character in this one, and I still feel bad for John Boyega the way his character was treated in the next episodes.)
D). They actually did Death Star 3. I mean, I have heard and made many good jokes about the fact that the Empire (or First Order, whatever, just someone explain the difference between the two, please.) tried a THIRD time to build a Death Star with the SAME weakness that the other two had! This is just beyond ridiculous-yes, I know it's bigger and solar-powered and destroys more but it's still a Death Star. Giving it another name doesn't hide that fact. On top of that it's the easiest one to blow up! Kind of like the Holiday Special, this is comedy gold but not some kind of thrilling stakes or epic battle.
E). The *Resistance*. What are they *resisting*? They are supposed to be the dominant force in the galaxy, how did they lose that? What have these idiotic sickle-snoots been doing, playing video games in their basement and allowing the Empire to come back and build another Death Star? What's going on in this galaxy anyway? Oh, yeah, JJ wanted to redo the original trilogy so he had to make them a rebellion. Right. We can't go around imitating those 'boring' prequels, remember that. Besides, I for one am completely sick of a 'resistance' being in every other sci-fi property. The trope got old I don't even know how long ago.
F). Han Solo: "How to we blow it up? There's always a way to blow these things up." If even the scriptwriters cannot take this looney-bin plot seriously why should we? It's the same problem I have with many of the Marvel movies.
G). "I'm being pulled towards the light" Kylo Ren confides in fear. What is this? It's a direct betrayal of the entire moral fabric of Star Wars done with complete ineptness. Oh, sure, it makes Kylo's character more *interesting* because he's a self-doubting villain, but it makes no sense in the context of the series; this isn't some kind real-world drama. It's mythology. The whole point of the Dark Side was that it was "easier, more seductive...forever will it dominate your destiny". That's why Luke's journey in the originals was so impactful, he was tempted with having more power, more Force tricks; and anyone with a weaker will would be scrambling to join the Dark Side...But not here. Now the villains are afraid of turning good again for no other apparent reason than they just have good feelings. This cripples the story severely, even more so because Rey doesn't seem to have motivation for being good or evil; she just does whatever she wants and doesn't counterpoint the conflicted Kylo Ren at all. The rest of the trilogy would expand on these themes and as a whole it never really recovered. It shows that JJ and Rian know absolutely nothing about mythology or what makes stories engaging, unlike George Lucas, who made certain things in Star Wars the way they were because he did his research. All that these uneducated Disney buffoons have are lens flares and pretentious movie references. Well, I guess it's not to surprising since many of them didn't even graduate college, who knows how much they actually know.
This and the entire sequel trilogy is nothing more than billion-dollar corporate fan fiction. It has just as much claim to being canon as the Star Wars Holiday Special does. (After all, the Holiday Special had all the original actors also...)