Are critics and consumers that dumb ?

Rating: 1/10 (25 December 2015)

When I learned that JJ. Abrams was going to lead the new Star Wars project, I was rather pleased given the quality of some of his previous works (Lost TV-show in particular, even though most of the kudos should be credited to Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse).
Therefore, I went to the theater with good hopes to see a great movie. However, it took me 10min to understand that the creative team of The Force Awakens has slaughtered the franchise by making a reboot of Episode IV.
How come $200m and several years of work could end up in a lame movie such this ? It is crazy but it seems Disney's creative committee was like : "Hey guys, what if we do a real scenario?", "Nah, let's copy-paste and go to the beach instead, people will buy it anyway".
Many things have been said by other IMDb users, I am not going to repeat all but just synthesize my thoughts:

Plot is the same than episode IV, piece by piece.

No explanations regarding the fall of the Republic and its Clones army during a 30 years amount of time...

Transitions between sequences are poorly executed and dramatic events such as the destruction of several planets including the core of the current Republic are treated as non-events. No one cares.

A non-force trained girl and boy bet a Sith Lord in a laser saber battle. Sure.

Kylo feels Han when he is 2km from him but can't feel his presence when he is just behind his back. Please...

I had not realized that Gollum was part of the Star Wars franchise, he grew up a bit though.

3D is useless.

Dear JJ. Abrams and fellow scenarists, many of us think that you could have made as much money with a decent movie, Disney's shareholders would have been even more happy to see that the dividends they get are linked to a good piece of art. Besides, you could have seen yourself in a mirror without feeling shameful.
Last but not least, I am shocked by the amount of people loving this episode, are they bots ? Or maybe they have not seen a single Star Wars episode, that could explain a lot... Regarding the professional critics, I understand that the franchise war machine can have an influence, but reminder that you are supposed to be independent. Most of you failed on this one.