Sorry Lucas, you were our only hope we couldn't see...

Rating: 3/10 (23 December 2015)

*** This review may contain spoilers ***
First of all, we must all gather around and apologize from George Lucas. We must beg forgiveness from him. See, this is like a divine story, we cursed on the God and he punished us with this Forced Awakening!
George Lucas is a natural born storyteller. He is a creative writer, a visionary director. He knows mythology, he knows Shakespeare, he knows samurai classics.
On the other hand, Abrams is a very clever man. He is a very good director. Better producer. But he is NOT a STORYTELLER.
Story telling is something else. Storytelling is strong in bearded masters. Lucas has it, Spielberg has it, Coppola has it. Jar Jar Abrams don't have that power.
And without a real storyteller a Star Wars story won't work. You can't make believe a Star Wars story with a script full of plot holes, deus ex machina's and out of character dialogues.
And if you won't come up with a truly wonderful Star Wars movie, don't do it. A mediocre Star Wars movie won't work. And "The Force Awakens" is a mediocre movie which don't work at any point.
OK, Force Awakens has a lot of marvelous stuff in it. Seeing X-wings, Tie-fighters, Millennium Falcon fight in daylight was jaw dropping. BB-8 is the coolest android ever. The opening frame was one of the best in the saga. The battle scenes and stormtroopers were the most realistic in the saga.
And there are some stuff that is "hit & miss". For example: Kylo Ren's story has real potential. Again a father and son trauma but really surprising and psychologically deep. But Abrams let us know only part of that story. Finn's story is clever. But again, we know only a part of it. And he is saying lines and doing things "out of character" a lot! Like: He was into the resistance thing, at last he got close to his love Rey, and suddenly boom At Maz Kanata's place he leaves the table and arranges a flight to outer rim. ??? This is Abram's, Arndt's and Kasdan's deus ex machina working... They wanted this "change of heart" of a character and they just put it there without any script modification.
This is one of the many deus ex machina's in Forced Awakens.
In drama everything must be useful, every line, every object has to be there. So why C3PO has a red arm? What does the story gain from that? NOTHING. Why did Rey get in a weird drawer in the Death Star base? Oh and btw they walk into the base, that was a walk in the park. Remember how you hesitate when watching a master jedi like Obi-Wan walking in the Death Star? There was no thrill in this one. Forget the fear of them getting caught, they captured the badass stormtrooper Phasma and easily made her close the shield. Come on!
Forced Awakening hurries a lot: Death star v.3 kills 5 planets in a row. But which planets? Who are they? The movie has no time for explaining this. But it has to! Why don't you erase some meaningless sub-plots and explain some important stuff? The original Death Star killed only one planet and we still feel sorry for the lost souls of Alderaan. Why? It's Leia's home planet. And you remember how Alec Guinness sits down holding his heart. And says this iconic line: " As if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced." This is "light Shakespeare" which can make the audience sad with just one line.
Where are these iconic lines / dialogues Mr. Abrams, Mr. Kasdan, Mr. Arndt? Now just look at the "quotes" part of the least favorite Star Wars: Phantom Menace's IMDb page and compare with the ones you heard in Forced Awakening.
Have you noticed that all the cool lines in the trailer is a little different or nonexist in the movie. "There has been an awakening have you felt" - "Yes." That's all! Then the dialogue changes! We even can't be sure of the MEANING behind the TITLE of the MOVIE?!
Also the most fascinating dialogue (reminding Hamlet's monologue with the skull of Yorick) where Kylo says "I'll finish what you have started" to Vader's mask is all you heard in the trailer, there is nothing more! We don't know how Kylo got it. We don't know the true nature of his relationship with his "grandfather".
In "A New Hope" we get to know Luke like our best friend. Now who is Rey? Why does she think that her family will come back?
OK, Lucas made some mistakes too. His biggest mistake is to rely on the CGI technology. Now Abrams shoots the movie in 35 mm and use mostly practical effects. How cool is that?! But again this is a "hit & miss" because you have to watch the movie in THREE D! 3D kills the magic and perspective of 35 mm.
I admit my review is a little harsh. But Star Wars is one of the peak points of storytelling art. So at the age of dated / cliché stories we were hoping that Star Wars would save us once again. This "far galaxy" has all the materials a storyteller needs. After this expectation when you face with Forced Awakening the disappointment becomes inevitable.
I think for the future films they need a help from Lucas. And I know it's too late but they can look at what Lucas predicted for the future of Episode 6. Force needs magic and this can only come by great storytelling.