Missing George Lucas

Rating: 3/10 (14 December 2017)

George Lucas had silly creatures and crazy CGI in the prequels, this movie has all that. But what is missing in this film is the lore, mythology, dialogue and long term character arcs. The Force Awakens was an enjoyable greatest hits of Star wars with two mysteries that were genuinely enthralling - Who is Rey and what is her connection to Skywalker / Kylo? And who is the mysterious Snoke?
Major spoiler here!.
Rey just turns out to be no one, with no connection to anyone. That's literally the explanation in the film. So much for weeks of analysing her Force dream in TFA.
Snoke - no explanation of who he is, whats his connection to Palapatine, How he witnessing the Clone wars. Nothing. And he gets killed off just as he was becoming interesting.
I guarantee that George Lucas chapters 7-9 would have made these character arcs far more fascinating and fully thought out. This was just very lazy script writing.
I am awarding three stars simply for Adam Drivers tormented Kylo Ren. They almost get this bit right and when he is on screen the film lifts considerably.
Comedy - the first 20 minutes totally remove any of the gravitas and methology of the film. Stupid gag after stupid gag. When Leia floats through space I looked at my brother and we both laughed and then put our heads down in shame, shame for our love of star wars and shame for George Lucas. We will never get to hear his true views on the film, but I know his heart must be cramping up in his chest. Crazy sub plots, silly casino wrecking horse / camel things, the slowest psace chase ever, the AT-AT attack was just them walking in a straight line, no proper light saber fights, Yoda turning up and talking absolute non sense.

There is some enjoyment here, but few and far between. Possibly it might get better on subsequent viewings a la "Crystal Skull" and your expectations are low. The mythology is not there, so I doubt it will be watched too many times. The prequels have silliness and bad acting, but strip that away the three film arc of Anakin to the Dark Side and Palpatine to power is genuinely fascinating and is what draws you in to repeated viewings. That is missing from the new sequels.
We will never get to see George Lucas vision for these sequels. That is a true shame as I fully believe he would have done a much better job. These sequels are a Disney / Marvel churn out. Big on CGI but no story, spat out for the popcorn masses, whoc can't focus on a long term story. There is a reason George left 3 years between sequels and 20 between trilogies. He had the whole story though out and planned in his head.