I'm very saddened to see this.

Rating: 5/10 (1 January 2016)

I'll give J.J. Abrams props that he has co-written and directed a decent movie. The acting was alright, though a bit wooden. The action scenes were OK, for what they were. Daisy Ridley actually seemed to be the only one in the entire cast who, at some point in her life may have actually SEEN a light-saber duel and attempted to make her performance fit that image.
Now, to get to the meat of this comment: J.J. Abrams should be charged with attempted murder of a Space Opera icon. This is an example of a decent Hollywood movie. It is a less than desirable example of a Star Wars movie.
It seems quite obvious to me that J.J. Abrams is a much bigger fan of Star Trek than he EVER was of Star Wars. Considering that his take on Star Trek actually made me like the new Star Trek, and I don't know if I will ever watch another Star Wars movie, especially if he is the director.
Now, I know a lot of you are thinking, this guy just wants to rant, and that may be partially true, but now comes the reasons why I say this isn't a Star Wars movie.
SPOILER ALERT.
I'm sorry, I don't care how angry you are at Harrison Ford, you don't have a Legend like Han Solo get killed by some whiny little brat who is SO intent on emulating his grandfather that he literally cries about it. If you absolutely MUST kill Han Solo, you bring back Boba Fett, or some other character that is just as Legendary.
And I'm sorry, Darth Vader would have KILLED his "grandson" for being such a weak, whiny, pathetic creature. In fact, he's so weak and pathetic, I can't even remember his name to put it in this comment. The Sith lords of old must be rolling in their graves.
Another thing. The storm trooper turned "good guy". I guess it's plausible, but these guys are raised from childhood knowing only "follow orders and die". From everything we've seen throughout the Star Wars Universe, these guys are as close to robots as humans can get, yet this one guy, on some distant backwater desert planet suddenly relearns his entire belief system and way of living, just because one of his fellow cannon fodder gets killed and puts three bloody streaks on his helmet? There are so many other user comments that say what I'm trying to so much better, I'll stop here by saying one last thing. If this is what Star Wars is going to be from now on, I will keep my Episodes 4, 5, and 6 and dream of the good ol' days when Star Wars was a great movie franchise that I could sit down with my entire family and we could all enjoy a great movie with a great story.