Feels very derivative

Rating: 5/10 (24 December 2016)

The longer I think about this movie, the more it feels like a carbon copy of Episode IV with some admixture of Episode VI. Genders were swapped and races were changed, but very little is really new.
In both movies, an orphan from a desert planet accidentally encounters a droid with vital information and is dragged into a transparently Manichean civil war. The bad guys cross the moral event horizon by destroying a planet. The orphan visits an interplanetary cantina populated by a bunch of wacky alien characters, is introduced to the Force by an elderly figure, and receives a lightsaber. A desperate attack on a planet-killing space station is mounted and eventually succeeds by exploiting its weak point.
The best things about the movie are the visuals and the nostalgia factor. Jakku with its derelict starships is very intriguing, the battle sequences do not disappoint, and the returning characters are believable.
Probably the worst thing about this movie is the First Order, which is a completely over-the-top stand-in for the NSDAP. One of the scenes is a very faithful recreation of a Nazi rally in Nuremberg, and another depicts a death squad conducting a massacre of an indigenous village. The movie teases the "big bad", Supreme Leader Snoke; his reveal is very underwhelming. Moreover, it is never clearly explained why the New Republic/Resistance is once again the underdog.
There is a cringe-worthy scene of Leia hugging Rey after the death of Han Solo. It makes absolutely no sense. Leia should be hugging her long-time friend Chewbacca, instead of the orphan kid she barely knows.
All in all, this is not a bad movie, but I had greater expectations.