The Force Awakens was unpleasant

I did not enjoy watching TFA very much.  In fact, I don't recall ever having such an unpleasant experience in a theater in my entire life.  I wanted to leave several times.

I've also done a page where I compare TFA to the original Star Wars, in case you wanted that cleared up.

## The setup

"Luke is missing" is not a story starter.

"we have a map to find Luke" is not even comprehensible.  It's like an 8 year old wrote that.

## Getting to Han

Everything before Han shows up was a very perfunctory rube goldberg series of events just to get the people here and there.  It felt very empty to me when Rey and Finn were running through the airstrike, maybe because the whole foundations of the story didn't work?  I just didn't buy into the supposed motivations for anything that was happening, the setup of the film?  Something.

## Main character, Rey

At first seemed that she wanted a better life off of the planet.  That's sensible.  But then in a whirlwind we find out she wanted to stay to find her parents...and then Maz tells her to give up that dream.  And she is convinced by this.  It's incomprehensible in three ways:  we didn't actually know what Rey wanted until then, it doesn't make sense that she'd be convinced to give it up, and we now have no idea what else her motivation in life is (other than pure generic blah).  This is very bad for a story.

## Old Characters are out of character

Luke:  would not run away like that.  It's not believable.  It's bad writing.  They clearly just had no other ideas to grab the attention of the audience.

Leia:  still doing the same thing for some reason?  No use of force powers?

Han:  was getting a lot closer to people, he was buddies with everyone and cared about people now.  All undone.

## Realizing that the prequels weren't rock bottom

Perhaps one of the most psychologically disturbing realizations from watching The Force Awakens is that the prequels actually weren't rock bottom :P

The prequels don't fit with Star Wars, I don't consider them "canon". But if they do at least have stories:

Phantom Menace:

* Beginning: an invasion begins
* Middle: help is sought, Anakin is met, a vote of no confidence
* End: battle resolves invasion, Anakin will be trained, new Chancellor

Summary: Palpatine's plan (of becoming Sith ruler with the ultimate henchman) is set in motion, this is how it starts

Attack of the Clones

* Beginning: assassination attempt, Anakin is "arrogant", has crush on Padme
* Middle: investigations reveal clone army, Anakin murders sand people, gets closer to Padme
* End: war, Anakin and Padme get married

Summary: Palpatine's plan escalates significantly, this is his how victory is set up

Revenge of the Sith

* Beginning: war continues, Padme is pregant
* Middle: efforts to resolve the war, Anakin has visions of Padme dying, Palpatine exploits this
* End: Anakin does Palpatine's bidding to end war, destroy Jedi, Padme is appalled and dies anyways

Summary: Palpatine's plan all comes together, successful

Obviously more could be added, but it's pretty clear what's going on in those stories, what they are about. What parts you would tell if you were to tell an abbreviated version around a campfire. "Storytelling".

Another thing to note is that the movies themselves often dwell on these points. They aren't minutia you'd have to carefully re-watch the film to get.

What does The Force Awakens have? How would you try to tell it around a campfire?

* Beginning: there's a map to find luke, First Order is a threat, Rey gets caught up in this
* Middle: First Order attempts to get map, blows up planets and threatens more, something something Rey (the force, lightsaber), Kylo struggles with himself
* End: Han is killed by Kylo, Superweapon is destroyed, Rey battles Kylo and finds Luke by using map (alone?)

Summary:  ??????????????? Someone called Rey gets caught up in huge random issues?

The different parts only tenuously relate to each other, but don't connect in "story-like" ways, only "cause and effect" ways. It's essentially random happenstance being put on the screen for people to pay to look at. The mere *presence* and involvement of Rey in each part is the only unifying factor, aside from "bad guys are trouble".