A Knife In The Heart.

Rating: 1/10 (4 January 2016)

Forgive my pretentious summary but thats how I felt after seeing The Force Awakens on Friday the 18th of December 2015 at the IMAX theatre next to the science centre in Glasgow.
Why do I mention the location? Simply because this was where I slowly felt the beginning of the end of my enthusiasm for future Star Wars films. I love the original trilogy and I like the prequels to an extent, the problem with The Phantom Menace, Attack Of The Clones and Revenge Of The Sith is that the dialogue was quite bad, the acting was wooden and there was a superabundance of Computer Generated Imagery. Also, as with Episode I, George Lucas clearly thought that Jar Jar Binks was the most interesting and important character in that movie instead of someone with a fantastic presence like Darth Maul. Likable and audience appealing characters are strangely underwritten and hardly feature in the Star Wars Universe. Weird. But I STILL like the prequels, remember folks, to keep grounded, George Lucas was making this up as he went along. Its the only way to accept all the plot holes poorly linking Prequel to Original. Entertaining nevertheless.
Anyway, The Force Awakens is directed by JJ Abrams, a man who is a competent enough action and TV director, but mostly makes films that are copies of better works from more extremely talented film makers. Nicholas Myer who directed the classics Wrath Of Khan and The Undiscovered Country is a far better director than Abrams. Why didn't they ask him to direct The Force Awakens? I bet he would have made a more interesting and engaging film.
The plot is the same as A New Hope except for different names. Poe Dameron is Han Solo. 'Rey' is Luke Skywalker. Finn is Threepio/Luke/Han/Lando. Kylo Ren is Darth Vader. BB8 is R2 D2.
The Story: A young woman teams up with an on the run rogue who protect a droid carrying vital information to help in their defence against the evil galactic FIRST ORDER.
Han Solo and Chewbacca make a solid entrance later on in the film. Then Han Solo is murdered by his son who it is revealed is none other than Kylo Ren who was once 'Ben Solo' Its actually a good scene ruined when Solo is thrown off the bridge and discarded as if he were a ten minute extra or star trek red shirt. That was a knife in the heart, one of the greatest and most beloved science fiction characters of all time and he is killed off as if he were nothing.
Update. As over two years have passed, I watched this on Netflix and it is an absolute failure in terms of new characters and storyline. A bad rip off of everything that has went before.
Carrie Fisher as General Leia was a little disappointing, shes just portrayed as an ageing rebel fighter in command of a section of the 'Resistance' that looks exactly like the Rebel Base Headquarters on the planet Yavin, with the same computer looking billboards etc etc.
God, I'm getting bored typing this up, what should have been a Triumph for all of us Star Wars Fans is at worst badly written character development at best an 'ok' remake of A New Hope, which for many on here is unacceptable.
The ending is a brutal, spirit crushing disappointment. Rey, having acquired Jedi Knight usage in the space of an hour and a half confronts an Obi Wanish Luke Skywalker on what looks like Middle Earth (A Lord Of The Rings Crossover??? Nooooooooooooooo!!!!!) He in turn, stands looking at her, she takes out his lightsaber from her satchel and holds it out to him, he looks at it, does absolutely nothing and they stare at each other before a Helicopter POV shot spins wildly round the two figures before breaking into Star Wars end credits and the show is over.
I cant even be bothered to type about the mega Death Star which is a planet with a laser in it and is SO original. After it was destroyed I found myself yawning just wanting it to end. The film is a major disappointment, I don't care if it earns 5 Billion, that is the result of blinkered fan-boys refusing to admit that they've been had by a Coporation that wants a return on their 4 Billion investment and doesn't really give a HOOT what the public want in a story and Adventure.
Ill be waiting for the next two films to come out in cinemas and my plan is this: If they are worse instead of better than The Force Awakens then the only films ill be buying in the future regarding Star Wars will be the Original Trilogy Theatrical Versions on Blu Ray. I can't see the spin off movies being brilliant, the film here isn't really that great, its merely passable because people are blinkered to the Truth which is this: THE FORCE AWAKENS IS A REMAKE OF A NEW HOPE. THE CHARACTERS ARE MORE OR LESS STEREOTYPES ON WHAT WAS BEFORE. AND THERE WAS NOTHING DISTINCTIVE FROM JOHN WILLIAMS THIS TIME.
This gets five out of ten simply because I refuse to hate on a franchise that is the benchmark for all modern adventure fantasy cinema.
A very disappointing start to the new trilogy.....heres hoping it gets better.