I Can't Believe Darth Vader was Luke Skywalker's Father!

Rating: 8/10 (26 December 2015)

It's going to be hard to write my thoughts on this movie without actually revealing any spoilers (which is why I use the spoiler tag), but I have to say that while it was a good movie, and there were some great elements in it, it is going to me nowhere near the original trilogy (if that is at all possible). It goes without saying that it was one of the most anticipated movies of the year, and it was hard to hide from the fact that there was a new chapter in the Star Wars saga opening up, especially since Star Wars has literally been dominating social media all year. Fortunately, when the movie hit the big screen, there was a huge 'no spoilers' movement which meant that many of us did end up seeing the movie knowing little to nothing about it (except for one major part that a friend of mine posted on Facebook – though as it is with him, it was quite subtle).
Look, I'm not going to say that it is a reboot, or a remake, of the original movie, but if there is one thing that did let me down quite a lot and that was that it came across that way. Mind you, unlike most reboots, the film starts thirty years after the end of Return of the Jedi, and the actors from the original movies return to reprise their original roles. Yep, you get to see all of the main characters at least once. However, as I said, it does borrow heavily from the first movie.
For instance, the movie starts off on a desert planet, with an orphan finding a robot carrying a secret message. The orphan then manages to escape the planet to find herself apart of a galactic rebellion that is fighting against an evil empire. Hey, there is even a remake of the Death Star. I guess this is what really ended up dragging it down for me. In fact there were quite a few elements that had been borrowed from the original trilogy. However, the interesting thing is that there are no lose ends, though you could say the same thing from the original movie.
If there is one thing that I did like it was the bad guy Kylo Ren. The character was actually quite deep in parts, and as was suggested, he is not one of those light/dark characters. Not only do we have this internal conflict with him but unlike Darth Vader from the original movies there is quite a degree of immaturity in him, which I have to say that I really, really liked. However, despite that, I have to say that his light-saber was nothing short of annoying.