Was this supposed to be a SEQUEL....or REBOOT? Failed miserably at both....

Rating: 2/10 (16 December 2015)

A small droid carrying classified data crash lands on desert planet. Meets teenage characters. Rebel Alliance needs the data to fight the Empire's new planet-destroying weapon. Rinse and repeat.
Sound familiar? That was the plot to both Episode IV: A New Hope, and Jar-Jar Abrams latest calamity that just found its way onto cinema screens across the country.
I REALLY REALLY REALLY wanted to like this movie-- but alas, we got yet another one of Abrams' typical mind-numbing explosion-fests. It has ALL of Jar-Jar Abrams normal movie failings:
* A cast of characters almost entirely made up of pre-adolescents trying to play adult roles.
* Dialogue/screenplay that seems like it was written by an 8-year old.
* Nothing that even slightly resembles a plot. I am surprised Abrams didn't put "Red Matter" in this movie to fill in all the gaps between his weak story-telling and the plot loopholes it creates, like he did with Star Disaster XI.
As is the case with most of the reboots he has done to date-- Abrams lacks the creativity and writing ability to come up with an original and compelling plot on his own, so he just plagiarizes an existing story and makes "some changes" to better fit his "vision" (as in LSD-induced) of it. He props up these mindless stories by inserting a bunch of unnecessary homage moments to famous lines and clichÃ©s from the previous established films in the mythos to try and give his creation validity ("He's dead, Jim").
Really? Another movie about destroying a death star? A droid carrying the plans that the Empire wants to stop from falling into Alliance hands? How original....
He doesn't care if his stories makes sense or not, or if he breaks his own rules; in Star Trek XI, like when the Enterprise could not beam up Spock's mother (because she was falling), but later in the movie, Scotty and Kirk beamed onto the Enterprise from another solar system while it was moving at warp speed with no problems! The Force Awakens had PLENTY of these "Abrams' moments".
A wise man once told me-- "The litmus test for good and bad storytelling comes down to this: do the actions of the characters in your story fit the background and motivations you gave them in your story history? If not-- it is GARBAGE." For instance, a Romulan captain, so enraged his home planet got destroyed-- would not sit on his hands for 25 years, waiting for Spock (who, given the complexity of time travel-- might NEVER have appeared) to show up, so he can blow up the entire galaxy (obviously Abrams does not understand interstellar distances) just to show everyone just how mad he really is!! Now there is a story that will be remembered over the ages....
The actors in this movie were so poor-- it was difficult to tell what exactly their motivations, passions, and driving ideals were. They all had about as much emotional content as Hayden Christiansen (little or none) from the prequels.
* Explosions and guns ablazing, pretty much from the moment the beginning credits close until the end credits start rolling. By the time you are 5 minutes into the movie-- you are already bored and desensitized to it.
I am not surprised to find that many of the people who thought Star Trek XI and XII (the one with a Caucasian Khanoonian Singh) were good movies, also think this movie was in any way memorable (other than the humongous sense of disappointment I walked out of the theater feeling).
Jar-Jar Abrams should be banned from ruining any more legendary movie franchises. The fans themselves could have written a better story and backdrop for this film.