A poor story leads to a poor movie, such a disappointment.

Rating: 5/10 (3 January 2016)

I saw TFA in 3D opening night and left feeling shocked. I didn't really believe what I just witnessed. So I went back a few days later again and watched it in IMAX 3D thinking I must have missed something. Well I didn't. I've since also read the TFA book and it only expands the story slightly, but basically goes hand in hand with the movie, with slight differences. The problem with this story is there is no emotional attachment to draw the audience in. When you watched episodes 4-6 you could feel that emotional attachment. Just think back to when the first teaser trailer came out for TFA, did you get so excited that you shed a tear?....:) Even the prequels had some of that feeling too, as long as "Ani" wasn't on screen whining about something...:) But the prequels had a great story, which I think a lot of people missed due to bad acting or whatever, and that was the story of how Darth Vader came to be.
So a little history of my overall Star Wars history. I've seen all the movies multiple times, read almost all the SW books and even played a few of the SW games, most of which have excellent stories. I was only 3 when SW came out, too young to remember it, but when I was 6 I was taken to the drive-in several times to watch Empire. It was a double feature with Empire and the Dark Crystal if anyone remembers that movie...:) So I went into TFA knowing that they were not going to use any of the previously written books and it was going to be a new story approximately 30 years after Return of the Jedi. So my problem started when i saw things in TFA taken from the the previously written books and inserted under different circumstances. For instance Han and Leia's son Ben aka Kylo Ren. That was Luke's son's name in the books. Also the Starkiller Base. They took the Starkiller name from Georges Lucas original concept of Star Wars. Luke Skywalker was originally going to be named Luke Starkiller. Simple changes they could of made but i think they did that so original fans could feel nostalgia, but it just comes across as lazy writing.
During the movie there are a few moments they put in to give the movie that "cool" factor which it shouldn't have needed if the story was there. the first one was when kylo froze the blaster bolt in mid travel, that was my first audible groan. Or when Finn looks up and sees Poe flying around shooting about 10 Tie fighters down in about 5 seconds, insert another groan.
So lets talk about the new lead villain Kylo Ren now. Pathetic. OK moving on then....:) Now we come to my main complaint about the movie besides the story, Kylo Ren, "Cool" story moments, the story again. Lets talk about Rey. Now first off I have no problem with a female lead character. My problem is with this character's abilities to do absolutely anything she wanted like fly the Falcon, extremely well even, figure out her force powers without training, and of course the light saber....wow. This is by far the most complained about subject about this movie. And with reason.
So lets talk about light saber battles. Back in the day and when I say back in the day I mean the prequel movies and before. both jedi and sith had training academies. At least until the Sith went to the "Rule of Two" strategy before episode 1. And they trained from early years until their adult life. I'm sure you noticed the light saber battles were very different from episodes 4-6 to episodes 1-3. Well that was from all the training. From episode 4 and beyond no one really had much training which helps explain the saber battle in TFA, partially. But, the fact that Kylo had been trained by Luke and should have been well trained. He was still hit by Finn, not a jedi at all, and overpowered by a girl with no jedi training at all. This was the part where everyone like me threw their hands in the air and screamed WTF??????????? And of course the final scene where they find Luke finally, and you see him as if he is a handicapped person in a wheelchair with slobber coming from the side of his mouth. To be fair, by this point I was way done with this movie...lol So in summary, poor story, nostalgia moments need to go, "cool" moments need to go. They knew before they made this movie people had extremely high expectations for this movie and they choose to make the quick buck instead of the everlasting buck.
Thats my 2 cents worth, enjoy it if you can...;)