TFA is Marvelous in both Fan Service and Plot

Rating: 10/10 (18 December 2015)

When the credits rolled, my immediate reaction was hell yes! That was a fun mesmerizing, immersion into the most beloved franchise in history. After 12 hours of letting this sink into my nerd IT brain I am ready to throw in my $.02. I have some thoughts on the negative fan reviews that are currently sweeping the galaxy...
1. The haters are gonna hate, no matter what. Period. There is no winning here no matter who/what/how it was done.
2. If Star Wars is your religion, you will not be happy, no one likes it when there idea of canon is wrong and worshipers always hate what God "dictates" to them.
Now that we got that out of the way. I was a 9 yr old boy in 1977 when I saw my first scroll on opening weekend of this movie called Star Wars. My father took me to see it and told me that I was going to love it. He was not only right, I became obsessed over it and it sat high above as my favorite movie as a child. I got all the toys, even the preorder 4 figure set from Kenner that I got for Christmas and had to wait 8 weeks to receive in the mail. Wish I hung on to that one!!
Jump forward 39 years, and I had the privilege of taking my 9 year old son to our local luxury multiplex here complete with reserved seats and cocktails and food to see his first Star Wars movie in the theater. We were not disappointed at all, from the glorious second the music blared and the words Star Wars enveloped the screen to the credits rolling we were both mesmerized and transported to the Star Wars universe.
The movie sets out to refresh and reboot the franchise and the script, plot, and all the trimmings hit the mark on all cylinders. Many are complaining that it is "A New Hope.1" and I can not deny that the formula is there, but isn't that how every Star Wars movie has always worked? " I got a bad feeling about this?" sound familiar? A major character dies? Interesting dysfunctional family twists? That is not Abrams ripping off a New Hope, that is him continuing the Star Wars we all know and love. Don't hate the player, hate the game. This is the grand space opera, the stories and characters all connect. It is a story about good versus evil, morality vs. selfishness and most of all it is about family. It tells us that our family is not just our blood relatives, but those that share our beliefs and faith in goodness through the light side of the force.
Abrams makes an entertaining and marvelous achievement in his treatment of TFA, but more than that, he sets up the storyline that we all knew was coming.....the story of the Post Trilogy has always been the restoration of the light side of the force to return the balance and order to the Galaxy that once existed. It is just not coming so easily as we all might have expected after Episode 6. Luke is the last remaining Jedi Knight and the hope of the galaxy rests on him to restore order by training a new legion of Jedi to maintain balance in the Galaxy. It his destiny....TFA, just gives us a heck of a familiar ride in setting up that inevitable journey to restoring order.....and it does so with all the trimmings, action, humor and twists that every true normal Star Wars fan wants and expects.
They killed it with this movie. It is thick with all kinds of interesting things that happen quickly and that will require many return viewings to get all the chunky detail out of it. This is a triumph to the most beloved franchise in history. Star Wars is back and there are many new stories coming in Rogue Squadron and Young Han Solo that all Star Wars fans should be looking forward to enjoying for years to come!!
Thank you Disney for bringing back Star Wars for us, for our kids and our children's children to enjoy. The hype is real!
P.S. John Williams crushed the soundtrack. Best work he has ever done for the franchise.