Good not Great

Rating: 10/10 (20 January 2016)

Firstly, I believe this movie has been getting a lot of Bad reviews because people are upset that it's basically a copy of new hope. But after seeing the disaster of the prequels where the director actually tried to be creative, I can't blame Abrams for playing it safe. The film itself was good, with the perfect amount of action that is appropriate to the movie. Abrams was able to create clear, steady shots of the fighting scenes rather than shaky camera shots that ruin the scene, allowing us to really get absorbed in the action. The visuals were absolutely stunning, with many of the iconic ships and items of star wars getting a HD rework. Perhaps the best change from the original sequel is now, the stormtroopers can actually aim! The fact that Finn was a stormtrooper gave us an inside look how the first order(empire) actually found and trained their soldiers that weren't clones, something that had not been mentioned yet.
Daisy Ridley's acting was great and really brought a realistic look into her character. The crying scenes, especially in the interrogation aboard Starkiller base, where it would have been really easy to overdo the emotion. Similarly, the minute that Harrison Ford stepped on screen as Han solo, you captivated me and brought me back to when I first watched episode IV when I was 8.
Now let's talk about Starkiller base. Despite the fact that is basically a third death star, it is f**king cool when that thing fires and the beam travels across the galaxy climatically before destroying 5 planets of the republic.That was maybe one of my favourite scenes and really made say "Holy sh*t, don't mess with the first order". Despite all this, there was still stuff that made me disappointed in the film:
1. Kylo Ren is a terrible antagonist. When he first appeared in the village, killing civilians and stopping bullets mid-air using the force, I finally thought I had what I wanted,a powerful, merciless sith much like that of Darth Vader. But as the film progressed, my sith lord became a teenager with anger issues, removing his mask far too often which begs the question, why is her wearing the mask in the first place? Most of all, this supposed trained sith lord almost get's beaten by a janitor and is beaten by a girl whose never held a saber in her life. When his lieutenants failed him, Vader calmly kills them but what does Kylo do. Smashes his computer -_-
2.The rules in the SW universe according to the force are destroyed. I understand why Kylo Ren can stop bullets seeing as Vader used stopped Han from shooting him in Episode V. But since when can you use the force to read people's minds and put them to sleep. Most of all, how did Rey learn to use the force in a few hours while it took Luke 2 movies. Hopefully, they can explain this in episode 8
3. Everything is too fast. Abrams has us hop from one world to another far too quickly. Before we are allowed to explore that setting and immerse ourselves in that world, he whisks us off to another one. In this respect, StarKiller base was completely underused as Abrams did not allow us to explore it like we did with the death star. Once more, hopefully, this is rectified with episode 8.
4. Characters are underused. The most prominent of this was captain Phasma who was hyped up so much only to come crashing down. She does not do anything at the beginning and at the end is completely overpowered by Han and Finn. Other character include Po, who was thought to be the third protagonist and most of all, Luke Skywalker who only shows up at the very end.
5. The nostalgia is far too much. Again, I recognise Abram's desire to play it safe but there is a line between inspiration and ripping-off and Abram's has made this line incredibly thin. The plot is not original and most of the movie is trying to get a nostalgic response out of those who watched the movies over 30 years ago. The ships are even subtly introduced, the millennium falcon is just standing there while Rey and Finn run from TIE fighters
There are more problems but then again, every movie has them. Overall, I'd say that this movie was a good movie but will not become as Iconic as the original trilogy. I will definitely by paying to see 8.