Don't follow the blind nostalgia

Rating: 3/10 (20 December 2015)

Let me just say that this is not a good movie. At all. This was more of a really bad remake with washed up characters that should have had cameos instead of pivotal roles. It is a fan service that relied too heavily on the familiar and brought basically nothing new to the franchise. People tell us not to compare to the OT, but that's exactly what they did with the PT and that's exactly what I'm going to do here. Why should the TFA come under less scrutiny just because George Lucas is not at the helm?
To start: the sheer amount of coincidence felt extremely forced and did not flow like the previous 6 movies did (Rey, a force user, just happens to be on a planet where the Falcon is stored, runs into a droid who coincidentally has the whereabouts on the last Jedi known, and miraculously finds the most significant lightsaber in history in a basement).
The dialogue: People harp on the prequels all the time due to the sub-par dialogue but I argue the conversations between Leia and Han were worse than Padme and Anakin ever were. By this virtue alone, the prequels are better due to the sci-fi factor that it brings vs. the non existent innovation from The Force Awakens.
The plot was basically the same: vital information stored in a droid / go to a cantina / kills a main character with lightsaber to enhance connection to the dark side / fly through a trench in order to destroy weapon capable of destroying planets. Homage is one thing, blatant rehash is another, and this movie does the latter in spades.
In summary: why do you come to watch STAR wars? 1) Characters: Check. 2) Space battles: no, not really, even death star 3 was a planet converted into a weapon, AKA not in space. This movie literally had no wars in space. It was Planet Wars. 3) Cool spaceships that stir the imagination: not at all, we get rehashes of the TIE fighter, X Wing and the Falcon. Say what you will about the Prequels but at least they delivered something new every. single. movie (ARC-170 star fighter, Republic Gunship, Jedi Starfighter) 4) Character development: that's a stretch. How did Rey magically learn all these force tricks and become adept at the same level of saber dueling as Kylo who's basically trained his whole life? 5) Storyline: So. Many. Plot holes. But the biggest, most burning one: What is the Republic? What were the effects when the planets were destroyed? It seemed like a side piece with no repercussions. Prequels and OT alike had their story lines influenced by government (prequels arguably a bit too much) - this was just there as a placeholder for SFX.
When we look back at this in 10 years and the fanfare has died down, we will see rate this at the same level as the prequels, if not lower; and the critics who reviewed this as baby boomers blinded by nostalgia. The biggest faults that the prequels had was the forced, unnatural dialogue, but at least it had amazing, grand scale sequences to balance out the bad. This is just an overall bad remake with the exception of excellent chemistry between Rey and Finn.
For all it's flaws I will say this: TFA is an excellent set-up movie and raises more questions than it does answers. I just hope Episode 8 will actually bring something new to the table and not recycled characters/starship designs/plot.
(Full Disclosure: I made an IMDb account just to write this review - this is how much TFA disappointed me)