The complete dismantling of everything Star Wars, that spits in the face of logic and fans of the franchise

Rating: 1/10 (2 January 2016)

Not sure why one would have to warn about spoilers when a written review is supposed to dip into aspects of a film but okay.
As a long-standing fan of the Star Wars franchise, I saw the early rave reviews and went in with high hopes for this film, which were quickly dashed. The first 15 minutes are good, then it just goes south from there. Anyone writing positive reviews is either paid, too young to understand what Disney did to Star Wars, or will retract their review when the brainwashing of mass-marketing, nostalgia and pretty CGI x-wings wears off, and they realize they were severely short-changed. Same thing happened with the prequels. So much hype at the start, then everyone calmed down and saw it for what it was. The prequels were flawed but much deeper than this film was.
Standalone I might give this film a 5/10. It is a watchable action/thriller, but since it was branded Star Wars, it's held to a higher standard, and falls horribly short. It is not the fault of the cast this time around. They are mostly likable. They just have nothing to work with. The whole thing is just rushed. Too much action hammered into 2 hours, allowing for no development, so the plot suffers badly, makes no sense, and is full of holes. Old stars were signed and no thought was given to any of their backstories, so they're just utilized to make the old fans happy, and it doesn't work for many, because of how poorly and cheaply presented their characters are.
Many of the 1/10 and other negative reviews cover the flaws of this film pretty well. Not sure if some other things that make no sense were addressed. In A New Hope Leia, threatened by capture, jettisons the droids on a mission to find Obi-Wan and get the death star plans to the rebellion. Through a believable turn of events, Luke falls upon the droids first and takes them to Obi-Wan. In Force Awakens, BB-8 (who, while cool, was obviously created to sell remote control orb toys) is sent running randomly into the desert of Jakku, where he conveniently runs into the only potential Jedi in the galaxy in the middle of nowhere. There were multiple events like these in the film, where instead of foresight, events are just randomly triggered to nudge the protagonists in the right direction. The heroes can do no wrong here. Except Luke. I'll get to that point shortly.
The evil force, the First Order, is terrorizing Jakku and other planets,from the only planet in the galaxy they control. The only ones fighting this are "the resistance".. even though the Republic in control of Galactic order controls a fleet, they just sit there. No action, no information, no characters, no story. They sit there for 30 years apparently, while the only threat in the galaxy builds a goliath cannon visible from space unopposed.. to blow the Republic up, and give the resistance, that for some reason already exists, a reason to exist...
On top of Han Solo's lazy backstory, being a 70 year old smuggler still, we have Luke. Apparently although knowing better, that a Jedi should only have one apprentice, Luke decided to train an entire order of Jedi simultaneously and was, of course, betrayed.. then exiles himself to a mountain far away to stare at the sea for years.. to let the traitor do as he pleases, and not give a crap or seemingly feel anything when 5 planets are destroyed, an obvious huge disturbance in the force we know. Leia is a general, and there's no indication she decides to utilize her gifts in the force.
How the force and what we knew about it being ruined is covered well in other reviews. It's obvious that the writers didn't consider any remotely interesting possibilities of how the future might progress for the franchise. They just played it safe, rushed the product to the screen, and pretty much just regurgitated Lucas's tale, badly. Everything Lucas did wasn't always perfect but it was ambitious. This is neither perfect nor ambitious. It couldn't be much farther from it. I'm totally disappointed. I waited 30 years for Disney to ruin it all in 2 hours.