First rule of marketing: Give the customer what he wants

Rating: 10/10 (19 December 2015)

And that's what The Force Awakens does...over, and over, and over again.
What does the customer for a New Star Wars Adventure want?
Well...first, he or she doesn't want to wait half an hour to see some real action. Soitanly! We'll throw the Patented Star Wars Plot Crawl up on the screen, let two guys lay out a major plot point, then dump a couple hundred Stormtroopers on screen and let them start blowing stuff up. Fantastic.
Fans want to see new things brought into the saga, but they also want to revisit their old friends. Yup...everyone we liked from A New Hope that hadn't died somewhere along the line is in there, and the new introductions are well worth watching. Great.
And then they want a few more battles. Check.
They want a great story. Got one.
They REALLY don't want any stupid characters like Jar Jar Binks or the Ewoks. Gotcha. This movie is completely Jar Jar and Ewok free.
They want Darth Vader. Well, he's dead - how about we give you a replacement Vader who's just as evil?
Hey, why don't we throw even more battles in there? People like battles. We ain't makin' Mockingjay Part 2 here, kids, if we don't kill off a couple hundred extras a minute we simply aren't doing our jobs. You want to see people sit there and talk? Rent My Dinner With Andre. You want to see Stormtroopers get blown away wholesale? The Force Awakens is for you.
They want a new Death Star. Uhh...sure, we can do that, but how about we make the new one a whole lot bigger? You like? Fantastic! And hey, while we're at it we can make the new Empire environmentalists and have them destroy planets with alternative energy!
They also want the new Death Star to get smeared all over the screen at the climax of the movie. Fine. We can do that. Love it!
I loved this movie. Lots of fun and nothing to complain about. Go. Repeatedly.