What cinema is for (but why not just call it a remake, and have done with it?)

Rating: 7/10 (26 January 2016)

I saw this movie in 3D IMAX, and it blew me away. You surely can't get any nearer to taking part in space battle than this. It was so captivating at the time that I didn't really think about the plot, or the back-story, or the acting. I came out of the cinema wanting to go straight back in and watch it again, and it's not very often I can say that. In fact, if it wasn't so stupidly expensive (£60 for a family of four? Sheesh!) I might have done just that. This is exactly the kind of thing that cinema was invented for.
It's a good thing that I saw it in the format I did, however. Having had chance to think about it, I believe that if I'd watched it for the first time on DVD, I would have been shockingly disappointed. It's essentially a jumble of plot elements from the original Episode IV, held together with cardboard-cutout acting (not you Mr Ford -- you were OK). I guess claiming this to be a sequel to Episode VI allowed the film-makers to recruit all the old gang (those who are still alive, at least) from the original movies. It's certainly interesting to think about where Han Solo, Princess Leia, et al., would be thirty years after the fall of the Empire. There are plenty of back-references to the original movies ("Is there a trash compactor anywhere?") to amuse the middle-aged and nerdy.
But a new story surely demands a new plot, and it's not clear to me that we get one. The plot of Episode IV was pretty strong, for a fantasy, and the movie clearly placed the action in the context of wider politics and history. But it wasn't so strong that we needed to see it used as the foundation for a new movie with the same characters.
In short, this is a movie that demands to be seen on a hundred-foot 3D screen; anything less engaging will allow the viewer to see the flaws all too easily.