Very disappointing Star Wars sequel

Rating: 2/10 (13 January 2016)

I have seen this movie in the cinemas twice now and I think, it is time for me to review it. First of all, I have to say, it is a solid piece of science-fiction action cinema. They tapped into the Star Wars nostalgia very skillfully and I immediately felt like 10-year old boy again. J.J. Abrams and his crew seemed to have put a lot of effort into costume and scene design to make the whole movie look the way a Star Wars movie should look. The actors (as far as a layman like me can tell) did a proper job and the score, although not as compelling as the epic soundtrack to Episodes I-VI, was good.
Unfortunately, this is about every positive thing I could get out of The Force Awakens. The main storyline seemed dreadfully uncreative. Nearly every element of the plot of Episode VII has already been seen in Episodes IV, V or VI which felt like slothful screen writing and was a disappointment to me. From a movie that cost an estimate of 200 million US Dollars in production costs, I definitely would have expected a more powerfully written storyline rather than a plain recapitulation of the Original Trilogy's main plot elements such as the crucial information which is trusted to an astromech droid, the masked villain with the robotic voice or the trench run to detonate the evil organization's planet-destroying space station.
Regrettably, the rather unimaginative plot wasn't the main issue I had with The Force Awakens. At various points throughout the movie, I felt like J.J. Abrams and his entourage completely ignored the lore established by George Lucas during the course of Episodes I through VI. Some of these inconsistencies were merely minor inaccuracies which might be clarified in a lore-friendly way during Episodes VIII and IX. The question how Luke Skywalker's Lightsaber ended up in the basement of Maz Kanata's castle or the question how the First Order were able to become so impressively powerful in the limited time since the downfall of the Galactic Empire are good examples for those minor imprecisions. A handful of these inconsistencies however could be seen as downright illogical considering the canon of Episodes I through VI and I can't possibly imagine the screenwriters coming up with any convincing explanation for those paradoxes. Kylo Ren's admiration for Darth Vader despite his redemption at the end of Return of the Jedi or Rey's sudden mastery of both the Force and lightsaber combat in contrast to both Luke Skywalker and Anakin Skywalker needing years of training to acquire comparable skills are the strongest examples for these ambiguities. Furthermore, I felt like the arguably unworthy death of Han Solo was yet another sign for J.J. Abrams lack of respect for the artistic production at hand.
Ultimately, I have to say that I did not like The Force Awakens because of both its absence of imagination and its inconsistency with the previous movies of the Star Wars franchise. Although undoubtedly a sound science-fiction action movie, Episode VII is a terrible Star Wars sequel for several reasons. I was looking forward to another epic space adventure, in which the struggling hero ultimately prevails over the forces of evil as a result of determination, willpower and collaboration. Instead I got a fairly predictable and awfully unoriginal story about a hero who makes all the side characters as well as Anakin and Luke Skywalker look like total failures.