Good but disappointing

Rating: 5/10 (21 December 2015)

As a long-term fan of the series back when it first hit the screens in the late 70's, I wasn't too sure what to expect when I sat down to watch this but as The Force Awakens unfolded I couldn't help feeling that I was just watching an amalgam of episodes 4, 5 & 6.
The action starts on planet Jakku, which is basically Tattoine minus the Jawas and Sand People, however the surface is littered with downed star destroyers and old tie fighters. 30 years after The Empire was eradicated, a new military complex called First Order has manifested itself as the new antagonists. Stormtroopers are no longer clones, but captured children, raised and conditioned to take orders without question.
The action then heads to a forest planet Takodana, (which for all intents and purposes looks like Endor minus the Ewoks), and it's here that a newly reunited Han Solo, Chewbacca and Millennium Falcon seek answers from a knowledgeable alien called Maz,(queue Yoda right about now) inside a seedy bar full of weirdos playing equally weird music, (so the cantina from Mos Eisley has now relocated to Endor).
A new emperor like character called Supreme Leader Snoke, is the one behind the First Order and it's new planet sized ultimate weapon called the Star Killer, or some such, and it's powered by having to fully drain the power from nearby suns in order to fire it's weapon across the galaxy and take out an entire star system, not just one planet. The Surface of the Star Killer is snow and ice, so what we have is another Hoth like world.
Han Solo and now "General" Leia have a son, Kylo Ren, who wears a mask (which is just for show) and talks not unlike Darth Vader, whom he admires and also has Vaders burnt mask as a keepsake. How the hell he got hold of that is anyones guess. Kylo was force trained by a now missing- in-action Luke Skywalker before he turned to the dark side. And it's another Obi-Wan versus Anikin back story.
The action, special effects and the reunification of the old stars aside, it's the glaring lack of originality and obvious plot holes throughout that prevented me from loving this. A stormtrooper feels that indiscriminate killing is wrong so he goes against his conditioning and decides to rebel and helps a captured resistance fighter, Poe, to escape. With a new name of Finn, instead of his designation number, he crash lands back on Jakku and teams up with a force sensitive girl called Rey, and a BB8 droid. The droid is holding onto plans that show a portion of a space chart showing the location to Luke Skywalker. That bit looks all too familiar as well.
Rey has never had any formal Jedi training, has only recently discovered that she's force sensitive but somehow still manages to mind manipulate guards into letting her go and also wield a lightsaber well enough to beat Kylo Ren in a fight. Did I suddenly fall asleep during all the training she's supposed to have to learn how it all works? Obi-Wan had training, so did Anikin and Luke, but not this new comer, she can manage it all by sheer will alone. Not only that but she can suddenly fly the Millennium Falcon with her only having piloted basic land speeders before, and manages to out manoeuvre seasoned tie fighter pilots. Impossible? Maybe. Implausible? Definitely.
Leia only turns up in the last half hour of the movie as does C3-P0, (with a new red arm), R2-D2 is only in this for the last 10 minutes and Luke only for the last 2 minutes and he never utters a word. Everyone made such a big deal of Lupita Nyong'o being in this but she's a voice actor only for the new Yoda-esque character of Maz, so really that could have been done by just about anybody. The end of the film is the same as episode 4 - A New Hope; a bunch of X-wings fly in to try and take out the Death Star/Star Killer before it uses it's weapon on the planet where the resistance is based and they manage it with seconds to spare.
So overall while the Force Awakens is good, it's not great and is rather a let down. Considering that this is supposed to be 30 years later and the galaxy was at peace after the empire, there's no real explanation as to how all this started again and no one seems to have ever attempted to prevent it. This started pretty much the same way as episode 4 did, with everything already in place, which would be fine if this were a stand alone movie and we were unaware of what came before. So for me, this is a disappointment.