A complete rip off

Rating: 3/10 (23 December 2015)

Warning this DOES contain Spoilers, they are necessary to justify my score rating.
I paid £17.50 to watch this movie in Imax, after all that is the only way to watch a movie of this scale, right? Wrong!!!! Just because a movie breaks box office records does not necessary make them good movies, Titanic for example was a well made movie SFX wise, but ultimately it was rubbish.
This movie is a complete and utter rip off on a New Hope and in some respects Return of the Jedi. How so? Well here is a list...
There is a new Death Star of sorts, and it is destroyed in pretty much the same way as all the other movies, yes they use a trench. lol They are far too many references to those movies, although some are justified as part of a generalised recap as seen in the trailer, but it doesn't end there.
There is technically a new kind of Yoda and that is Maz Kanata. I actually liked this character in all honesty, but I didn't need another Yoda so soon.
Before I go into a further rant, I want to offer a gleaming of hope and talk about where the movie excels.
The opening 20-30mins were excellent, we get to meet Poe Dameron who in my opinion saves this movie with one other character. He comes across like a merger of Luke, Han and Wedge Antilles from the original movies in his character, he is both enjoyable to watch and someone you can get your love around. We also meet Finn, Kylo Ren and Lor San Tekka in a very gritty opening sequence. This was completely unforeseen and very refreshing. Captain Phasma seemed to fit the roll of commander of elite troops really well and execute in the literal sense orders without question.
However things start to tank very quickly and its here when the old references are used in overused quantities. Seeing the Falcon, Han and Chewie brought about a little cheer.
The dog fight sequences are exceptional and put together well.
As for the second character that saves this movie...... Chewbacca. My word does he kick ass in more ways then one. I felt in some respects that this was his movie in some cases as there was a lot of focus put on him at certain points and this was welcome. He is a favourite and sometimes deserved more screen time then he would normally have got. Here he does, and oh man he is amazing.
I don't want to rant to much, but here are three specific issues I have.
1: Kylo Ren didn't the fear of god into me like Vader did in the original movies, in fact I would go as far as to say he is actually incompetent. The acting of Adam Driver is appalling and very hammed out, much to what people hated Hayden Christensen for in eps 2 and 3.
General Hux however was a much more dislikeable character and very evil, and well acted by Domhnall Gleeson. Potentially another saviour of the movie, although in fairness he was surrounded by poor actors.
2: Captain Phasma is hardly in it and in principle is a really poor character and in spite how good she might be in GoT Gwendoline Christie did not convince me at all.
3: Luke Skywalker - OK the good news is he hasn't turned to the dark side, but his screen time is two minutes, and the amount of dialogue? Zero. The man fans turned up to see doesn't even speak. This was the biggest let down ever after all the hype about why he isn't in the trailer or the movie posters he doesn't even speak.
OK rant over.
I think this may need to be watched at least twice to perhaps get some love but I am in no desperate need to watch it now.
Thanks for reading.