"This is not how I thought the day was gonna go."

Rating: 8/10 (5 January 2016)

I've taken my time getting to this review, having seen the movie twice and allowing nearly three thousand other reviewers take their shot at the picture. I have mixed feelings about "The Force Awakens". As a stand alone movie I think it works well enough. It's got the CGI enhanced battle action down pat and the new characters add some fresh blood to the Star Wars universe which most of us expected. This is where I think I'll insert the 'but'.....
To quote Han Solo from my summary line above - "This is not how I thought the day was gonna go." Another way to say it is - "Where was the magic"? I think I probably speak for anyone old enough to have been around for the original "Star Wars" in 1977. The first time you saw a land cruiser, or a hologram image of Princess Leia, or walked into the Mos Eisley cantina - man, that was magic. The legend of Obi Wan Kenobi had a mystery to it and you couldn't wait for that mystery to reveal itself.
With this movie, it doesn't feel like the principals involved were interested in exploring a distant galaxy far, far away, instead directing their energy to the land of here and now. There wasn't so much a story here as the next evolution in computer generated special effects and characters created to appeal to a diverse cross section of movie goers. All well and good, but I think most Star Wars fans would welcome some serious character development and a story arc that anticipates an eventful wind up to the Star Wars saga. I don't expect that we'll get that now.
Here's the one thing that did intrigue me out of the whole movie though, and I haven't read anyone else comment on it. When Han Solo follows Kylo Ren out to the bridge of the Star Killer base, he shouts out 'BEN' to which his son responds. See, this is the magic I was talking about earlier. It sounded to me like Kylo Ren was named after Ben Kenobi. If only the rest of the story could have been that cool.