A review from a hardcore fan.

Rating: 10/10 (19 December 2015)

Now sad to say I'm one of those star wars fans that got owned by Disney after they made all of the expanded universe a different timeline. I have read, watched, and played, everything star wars. Here is my review for the movie.
The reason I'm not giving this a 3 out of 10, is because I realized last night that you shouldn't group this movie in with the other 2 trilogies, yes it does use some of the characters, but so much has changed and nothing is really told about how it happened.
Why is the first order around? How did they build that death star planet? Who the hell is Snoke and how did he turn Ren? We are left with way more questions then answers by the end of the first movie, and honestly we are given very little about the galaxy we all know and love.
As for the characters, I didn't really feel invested into any of them besides Han Solo and his son Ben Solo. The new characters didn't even seem to be star wars and just a Disney ploy to make the movies more accessible. Ray for example shouldn't of been able to do any of those force moves or light saber techniques without learning from a master. That and she is very, very old, in padawan standards. Her natural ability would of been behind those who started at a super young age. Still J.J skips over all that and makes her a bad ass. Which is fine, but that's not how the force works. Still the only legit explanation this could have is if she's Luke's daughter. Which while never said is highly likely.
Kylo Ren on the other hand was great, yeah I didn't expect him to look like that without a helmet, and his rage fits are a little bit too emo. But I enjoyed seeing his force powers and ruthless light saber combat. Each and every blow was meant to kill or maim, unlike the prequel trilogy. Also I can explain his chest thumping a little better, since most sith use pain and anger to increase their powers in the dark side. Hitting his chest like that could of been him increasing the pain since he did start bleeding more.
Overall it was enjoyable, it let me down as a continuation of the star wars trilogies, but it was a great movie by itself.