Star Wars VII

I'm a big Star Wars fan and have been my entire life, so naturally going into this movie I was hoping for the best but fearing the worst (the prequels).  But before this film, I cautiously reminded myself  to go in with no expectations at all.

I'll start with the good. The beginning was pretty good and it was looking up for 20-30mins. I mean obviously this wasn't the original trilogy, but it had that feel that this was a new Star Wars movie. Humanizing the storm troopers wasn't a bad idea and that actor that played Finn was decent. I mean yeah the pacing felt weird for his character development because RIGHT AWAY you find out that he didn't want to be a storm trooper but whatever. Poe Dameron was a really cool character in the movie at first, I was hyped to see more of him. And I thought that Rey seemed to have an interesting back story so I was looking forward to learning about that. The scene where they hitch a ride on the Millennium Falcon to get away from the First Order was really exciting and I was thinking in the back of my head "wow this movie is doing a lot right and not a much wrong." And then the problems became just so apparent.

So first of all Han Solo was just bad in The Force Awakens. There's no other way to put it. All I've seen so far is a few Dr. Who-core nerds talking on Facebook about how great Harrison Ford is in this movie. I wonder if these people are blinded by their fandom/the hype of this movie or I'm just totally missing something. He was practically mugging for the camera with every line saying dumb fucking references to the old movies so JJ Abrams can get his fanboy points. I felt like I was watching an episode of the Big Bang Theory at times with special appearance of Harrison Ford. He didn't seem like he remembered how to be Han Solo. I know it's years later, but he's still doing Han Solo stuff (smuggling things and being an old snappy "badass"), so why is he unrecognizable in this? He's one of the most important characters in this movie and it feels like he's phoning it in. I'm going to watch it again but I was thinking this almost the whole time he's on the screen. Of course no one will agree with me that his acting was subpar because the Star Wars hype train is real and everyone is too nostalgic. I was utterly dissapointed that Han's story took up so much of the focus of this movie while the new  character plots felt pushed aside. And Han ends up being trivial fanservice that won't affect the next 2 movies because he dies. Han Solo's story arch was handled so clunky, as were the story archs of just about every other character in this film. I mean christ they reveal right away that Kylo Ren is his son nonchalantly?  The saddest part was they send in a fucking 70 year old on a mission to save Rey when the resistance has tons of capable pilots. It was depressing as shit watching an old guy wobble around with a gun "saving the day." His death scene was alright, but by then I was pretty much not digging this movie so I just didn't care.

I don't feel interested in any of these new characters at all. They just feel stale, like every other modern action-movie character. I'll do the Mr. Plinkett Test: I can hardly think of any adjectives to describe them. There was too much time spent servicing the fans and capturing epic fight scenes and next to no character development. JJ Abrams tried to do too much in one movie and it led to this disappointment.

But let me just say that the biggest problem with this movie is that the plot was a rehash. A droid carrying around secret information in the desert it is trying to deliver it to a member of the rebel alliance  resistance while the empire hunts it down. Hmm sounds pretty familiar but I can't quite put my finger on it. Oh right it's a fucking remake of A New Hope.  Like how much safer can you make the plot JJ? They just remixed the same fucking story and shit it out! Why would I want to see a worse version of a great movie with washed up actors? It clicked with me that this movie is pretty fucking lazy when they pulled up the new, bigger Death Star. Wow! Holy shit! And it has a structural weak point that a squadron of rebel x-wings can sneak attack and blow up the entire thing?! That's the THIRD Death Star that the fucking empire has made. But wait this time it's bigger! Wasn't the last one big enough? I mean shit it could blow up fucking planets.That's just the big flaws too, there's litle ones that fanatics will have gripes with. There is paying homage and then there's being unoriginal and boring, and I think this movie crossed the line. 

Too much of this movie is fan-service and action movie cliches. They even did the cliche where the main character is *about to get killed* but then another character shoots the person who's about to kill him (fuck I hate that). Honestly, I am kind of disappointed that JJ Abrams was picked to do this movie and as a fan of his other work that hurts to say. He turned a Star Wars reboot with potential to be great into an average Marvel movie with corny jokes and old plot rehash.

edit: Let me add one more thing. Every good Star Wars has a component of political drama. That's what gives them depth, it builds the characters and gives the plot a unique spin, making it more than just a sci-fi movie. This movie is absent of that.  Disney wanted to make this plot as safe as possible and maybe thought talking too much about the political side of the power struggle over the galaxy after the empire fell in ROTJ would be too murky, so they ignored it and made it a movie about finding Luke and blowing up the third fucking death star.