Boring, Predictable, Disappointing

Rating: 3/10 (26 December 2015)

I've never been a huge fan of the series, but I definitely remember enjoying the first three that came out back in the 70's. For what it was, it was amazing. This new one fails on so many levels.
Warning: Spoilers!
1). The Characters: The new characters (Fin and Rey) are not well built, and the story does very little to give us any emotional connection to these guys. Everything is really fast paced, and there was so much focus on the action, that the character development lacked big time. The other new guy, Poe, with all of his 15 minutes of air time, failed to connect as well. They all seemed to be best buds and super close, but with little dialogue and story to support it (like when Lea was hugging Rey at the end... they barely met). The hero characters were very poorly done, and where I don't dislike them, there's no draw to them either.
Then there's the bad guy, Kylo Ren. I was completely disappointed when he finally decided to remove his mask. He's just an Emo Kid... So lame, so very lame. I want more from the villain perspective than some whiny twenty something goth kid.
2). Predictability: The story and action are completely predictable. Although the graphics (especially 3D) were amazing, there was zero suspense due to the complete predictability of the script. I knew Hans Solo was going to die when Kylo Ren walked out onto that bridge with no side bars (poor design on the Death Star 3.0). I found myself bored, and counting down the minutes when I could leave the theatre.
3). Overtones of Disney Feminism: As a disclaimer, I will say I support equal rights and treatment amongst all races and gender. With that said, the last few Disney movies I've watched (Frozen being the other one) have a strong theme of stupid male lead character, and a strong heroic independent woman character. And thats fine to an extent, we can do away with the damsel in distress theme, but I have a hard time buying the whole thing, or at least how it was executed here. In this case, a scrawny female orphan, who has been getting scrap parts from wreckage all these years, can all of a sudden fight off stronger men, shoot with amazing accuracy when she's never really used a gun, pilot and fix the Millennium Falcon without training and better than Hans Solo (yeah right), and be an absolute master of both The Force and the Lightsaber. It was a disgrace to the old films, where Luke spent a long time in training to master The Force. Some how, our new female hero here just gets it, and beats Emo Kylo Ren in a Lightsaber battle... even though Kylo Ren spent time training under Luke Skywalker... just so unbelievable, even in a fantasy setting. Horribly executed. I guess it was more important to portray women just as capable, if not better, than writing a believable script.
So in conclusion, it was fun to watch for the 3D action, but very little else. The only characters I liked were the old ones, and they killed a few of those off. So I will probably wait for the DVD release of the next one, before running to watch the second installment of this now horrible series.