polar opposites

Rating: 1/10 (5 January 2016)

I've waited a while to write this review because I wasn't really sure how to word what I wanted to say. I saw the movie the night it opened and like everyone else in my cinema walked out in stunned silence. No applause, just complete silence. My husband asked me if I liked it and I still couldn't find the words so I asked him what he liked about it and he struggled to come up with something.
As a die hard fan I wasn't one to give up so I went to see it a second time to see if that would help but...nope. It was marginally better but that was it.
To me this whole thing boils down to opposites, as follows: George Lucas always had a story to tell. He built worlds. He populated them with animals and birds and history. He respected his characters and new the audience wanted to see them triumph. Disney and Abrams had no story to tell (they just want to make money) so they took ANH. The worlds are just empty. I never felt transported anywhere, most of the time it just looked like England. They shattered the lives of the main characters and to me this is unforgivable.
Vader was intimidating. No one made fun of him (certainly not his prisoners). Kylo Ren is being made fun of right from the start.
Han, Luke and Leia had chemistry. The new characters do not. The relationships are too forced and too quick to develop.
Rey is great at everything. The original characters were not.
Leia was a more balanced character, she needed help from time to time but was still independent and a leader. Rey doesn't need anyone for anything (she certainly doesn't need jedi training). Unfortunately in an attempt to elevate Rey, Leia's character has now been dismantled. She is just a shell of her former self, unsuccessful in all her endeavors and relationships.
Han was fallible. Poe apparently is not. I think he must have used his superman cape to get off Jakku. But Han is not a politically correct character anymore so Disney is busy undermining him and rewriting his history. Needless to say I won't be going to the Han Solo movie when it's released.
George Lucas had a sense of history to his story. This one does not. Despite it being a remake it undoes the history that came before it including all the victories we watched in the previous films.
The EU books and comics were great on the whole (yes I read them). I will never understand why Disney just threw that whole universe out. The characters were so much more balanced.
As many have said, this isn't Star Wars. It doesn't have 'fresh new elements' as I have read in other reviews, it's just a bad remake. Once people get over the novelty of this they will realise how bad it is.
I'm not a hater or a troll. This movie was just bad...and the Rebellion is growing. Don't give Disney anymore of your money.