Jar Jar Abrams, you dun goofed!

Rating: 3/10 (11 January 2016)

If a film maker is inspired by another film, there are 3 options:
1) He can "nod" to the other film
2) He can create a remake of the other film
3) He can rip off the other film
Jar Jar Abrams chose to simply rip off A New Hope (and to a lesser degree The Empire Strikes back). He probably thought that people would just see it as a whole lot of "nods", but the film is a blatant, unimaginative rip-off from start to finish.
A few examples:

R2-D2 becomes BB8

Leia is leader of a small group of rebels (Lucas + Abrams)

Han Solo is a hustler and smuggler who owes a lot of money (Lucas + Abrams)

The Empire (Lucas) becomes The First Order (Abrams)

The Mos Eisley cantina (Lucas) becomes the Takodana cantina (Abrams)

Yoda (Lucas) gets split up into two characters; the orange sage Maz Kanata and the hermit Luke (Abrams)

Darth Vader (Lucas) becomes Darth Emo aka Kylo Ren (Abrams)

Luke flies a landspeeder, ie. a hover car (Lucas) Rey flies a hover bike (Abrams)

Luke (Lucas) and Rey (Abrams) live in the desert and find a robot carrying a secret message

Small alien scavengers try to claim the robot, but Luke (Lucas) and Rey (Abrams) secure it

Luke (Lucas) and Rey (Abrams) in each their own way run into Han Solo and Chewbacca and gets passage on the Millennium Falcon

Luke (Lucas) gets his fathers lightsaber. Rey (Abrams) gets Luke's (who is probably her father) lightsaber

A former jedi, now Vader, finishes the old dude Obi-Wan who is the hero's helper (Lucas), a former jedi, now Kylo, finishes the old dude Han Solo, who the hero's helper (Abrams)

The Death Star (Lucas) becomes the Starkiller Base, ie. a bigger Death Star (Abrams)

The Death Star has a weak point and gets destroyed by the rebels (Lucas), the Starkiller Base has a weak point and gets destroyed by the rebels (Abrams)

AND SO ON! IT CONTINUES THROUGH THE ENTIRE FILM.

This is not the way to "nod" to another film. This is a blatant rip-off, and it is just stupid and unimaginative. Some of the dialogue was good, but considering the story, the script as a whole was a huge failure.
The production itself was pretty good, like what you would expect from a film with this budget. The cinematography was above Hollywood average although not excellent. The sound design was a bit below average (which is bad, because the original films had such a masterful sound design). The acting was okay, but nothing more. Some actors were better than others. Altogether the result was disappointing in light of the budget and the franchise.
Some random annoying things apart from the film being a not so well executed rip-off:

The desert scavenger Rey has an annoying posh accent (probably to "empower" the character)

The elite legion commander Captain Phasma willingly shuts off the shield so her base can be destroyed. Seriously, even real world rookie troopers would not do that. They would simply refuse, even if that meant a bullet in the head. And this is the most bad ass legionnaire???

Carrie Fisher is stiff by botox and her voice sounds like she just smoked 50 cases of cigarettes. She doesn't even try to be Leia. I realize she's old, but they could have made her shine for her two minutes of screen time if they had actually tried

The X-Wing attack scenes were obviously designed to be a video game. That's probably good for the video games, but it's not good for the film.

Rey is a prototypical Mary Sue. She hears about the Force and the Jedis, and an hour later she's suddenly better than Luke was after 1 full year of intense training by a legendary Jedi Master.

Every victory from the original films has been undone. Leia still is only the leader of a small group of rebels. General Solo is once again a lousy criminal like he was 30 years earlier. Even though they won a victory and crushed the Empire, now there's just the First Order.

And why the heck is Darth Emo such a fan of Darth Vader? Darth Vader was redeemed. He turned back to the Light and repented of everything. He even killed the Emperor!!! Darth Emo should hate Vader and call him a traitor! But he just loves Vader.

Nobody learns anything. The evil guys still produce a death star with a weak spot. The good guys still go to crummy cantinas where they are seen by spies, even though they are wanted.

And why did Han Solo want to go to the cantina in the first place? It doesn't make any sense. He didn't know that the girl was a superjedi and that Luke's old (actually Anakins old) lightsaber was there...

It's also pretty annoying that MaRey Sue is so good at repairing the Millennium Falcon (much better than Han Solo) that he wants to hire her. He's friggin' HAN SOLO. Why would he hire some random girl instead of hiring an experienced mercenary? Why would he even hire ANYONE? He's got CHEWBACCA!

Far too much of the film resembles a parody. I'm dead serious: Some scenes seems parodic. For instance the "speech" to the storm troopers seems 100 percent like something out of Iron Sky. And almost every single scene with Darth Emo could be a Saturday Night Live sketch poking fun at Darth Vader.

All in all, far too many problems with this Mary Sue infected rip-off. Jar Jar Abrams, you dun goofed! Consequences will never be the same!