Ugh...Hard to Believe that my 6 is being Generous

Rating: 6/10 (30 December 2015)

Wow. My 6 is actually looking really generous. That's really only because I'm too nice a person to give movies 4's or below. I save those for movies that I think are truly unwatchable. Unlike the majority of these reviews which rarely breach 5 stars (which raises the incredibly suspicious question of how in the world this movie currently has an 8.8. I smell something fishy.) Anyway, my overall impression of this movie is that it's really...really, fanfic-y. My brother (who was one of the seemingly rare souls who actually liked this movie) yelled at me all the car ride home from the theater (about half and hour), for this opinion, but this movie was just really fanfic-y.
My main reason for this is in Kylo Ren (or Ben Solo, or whatever), the incredibly annoying and underwhelming villain of this movie. The second that they revealed him as Han and Leia's son with no build up or suspense whatsoever was when this really descended into fanfiction territory for me. Having the child of two pre-established characters seemingly randomly become the villain of a sequel just because "drama" (without playing any of the drama that could have been there)is just nauseating. That's how Kylo started to make me feel every time he was on screen. Nauseous. And that is a serious problem.
Maybe if he had had a good character I could have forgiven and tolerated this fanfiction-y nonsense...but he didn't. When you make a character, even a villain, there's got to be something to like about said character. Whether it's a mysterious and intimidating presence, charisma, pure baddassery, doesn't matter,there needs to be SOMETHING. This villain has nothing. He's whiny, annoying, what I already said about his "backstory", and throws a temper tantrum WITH EQUIMPMENT when he doesn't get his way. Any other sith lord or really any villain would have taken out their frustrations on their underlings. Wrecking equipment just makes you look childish and stupid.
All of the underwhemingness of this character boiled down to the ending scenes of the death of Han (something I can't say touched me emotionally, just because it was so forced and obvious), and the final "lightsaber fight". I use quotes there because this wasn't so much a well-choreographed sword fight, more of two-sorry three- inexperienced children whacking each other with toy swords. Kind of justifies all the fear of the lightsaber design. It reflects everything that was wrong with the fight. Instead of a graceful and refined weapon based of the katana of samurai, it's a claymore used for fighting with strength alone.
OK, that leads into the second reason that this is fanfic-y. The girl. I forget her name, which is NEVER a good sign about a character. I hate to say this about characters, but it did drift into my thoughts that she is a Mary Sue. Meaning, for you that aren't a part of the fandom world, an overpowered main character who has no apparent flaws, has no real reason to be a part of the story, and has some love story just for good measure. Usually a relationship that has little to no real chemistry.She learns how to Jedi mind trick people and fight a supposedly-trained-by-Luke sith in the course of one movie. I honestly can't recall if she was even told what it was a Jedi could do, or even what the force was (from someone more credible than Han, I mean). Another staple of the movies, the Jedi, and that is screwed up as well.
Apparently everything about the Jedi want to be ruined in this movie, because the third biggest fanfiction-y thing in this was what was done with the Force. No longer the center of a religion, that reflects the good and evil in the world, it's really just more of a cool weapon that's thrown around whenever that would be "cool". Ren uses it for mind reading, and torture, and holding laser beams in one place. And lightsabers can call to people and give them intense flashbacks, now, apparently. Basically for a lot of things that no one ever said that the Force could do. There's no Force choking, very little moving objects with the Force, and the one usage of Jedi mind tricks is gag-worthy. Honestly, based on what the Force does and how people use it, I don't think Finn was too far off in thinking that it could find a way to destroy the Star Killer.
Personally, I was fine with Finn and the Supreme Leader (I kind of wished that he was the main villain instead of Ren. At least then there wouldn't be this shoe-horned in drama), and I do find it more watchable than the first two prequels, at least. But the huge issues with shallow (and slightly nonsensical, are you telling me that after all of that work to defeat the Empire, NOTHING HAS CHANGED? Plus Luke and Han running away from their failures and responsibilities?) plot, and fanfiction-y treatment of characters, this isn't a good movie. It also doesn't seem to respect any previous lore or world-building (they blew up Corascant without much of a word. An entire pre established planet system just gone and no one seemed to care. Plus, Nakku, or whatever, was a carbon copy of Tatooine, just minus a sun. Disappointing), especially considering the Jedi, so I can't say that it does too well as a Star Wars movie, either. Eh, worth watching on DVD, maybe, but I wouldn't suggest seeing it in theaters. (Made the mistake of going to see it in very-pricey Omnimax. And there weren't even that many space battles, the one thing that might have made the price worth it)