Pretty poor on the whole. There was little in it that I thought was just "fun" and much of it felt like a re-tread. Death Star but bigger, trench run, desert planet yearning for travel but kept there by family (albeit departed), father-son emotional paint-by-numbers. I guess much of it was meant to be resonance, but it came across as re-tread. It felt stale. If you're going to try to capture the feel of the original movie, it's not sufficient to copy what someone did, you must instead copy their goals - it's the essence of the thing you must emulate, not the form that essence previously took. The thing about Episode IV is that it didn't go in thinking "I'm Star Wars, I'll get the audience cheering just for showing the Millennium Falcon or revealing that someone is Han Solo's son". Much of Episode VII you can tell is the writer or director thinking 'the fans will love this'. That doesn't lead to good cinema.

Oh, and Snape kills Dumbledore Han Solo.

Other than Snape, the cast were pretty good however. But when we're told the villain fears he will never be as good as Vader - well I'm sorry to say that he's right.

I saw it last night, and thoroughly enjoyed it, though it did have it's downsides.

I loved...

... Kylo taking off his helmet. I really thought he was just going to be more Vader like.

... the nods to ANH. Be it the garbage chute reference or the stormtroopers comlink transmission about them splitting up and being on levels 5 and 6.

... Rey's lightsaber stand off with Ren. You can almost see her tapping into the light side of the force when she closes her eyes. Like she is making herself calm and at peace. Just before kicking Ren's backside.

... much, much more.

I did not like the superweapon. In fact I don't even understand it. A hyperspace-capable superlaser. Uh, ok. One that eats it's own star to power it. Gotcha. Soooo, how do you fire it more than once? Did I miss that?

I think (though I'm uncertain from the film), that the way the Star Killer weapon works is that they move it into position around the star of a system they want to destroy and it does the double-whammy of sucking up that star through it's big tunnelly centre and then when it's all contained, firing out the stars energy towards the planets of that system. It's a bit hokey (lot?) but that's what I got. We never see the Death Star moving through hyperspace but it obviously could. I guess this planet can also do the same as - like you said - it would run out of ammo pretty quickly otherwise.

Though I'm at a bit of a loss to explain how people on Rey's planet could see the projected enemy heading toward the Republic worlds. Unless they were in the same system. It doesn't really make a lot of sense to me but the above works as an 80% answer, I think. I'm tempted to just paraphrase the movie Chinatown and say: "Forget it Jake, it's Abrams".

JJ Abrams, a middling director best known for making homages to films he loved as a kid - films like those make by Steven Spielberg and George Lucas - makes a movie that is an enormous homage to Star Wars.

Nobody should be surprised by this and, frankly, the only important thing is, does it give us a good springboard for the rest of the trilogy and the rest of the franchise? Meaning, does it work as a reboot/sequel (a... requel?)?

(I guess it could be argued that Abrams has done for Star Wars what he did with his first Star Trek film: He made something that is both sequel and reboot.)

What if Wrey is Sabine and Ezra's kid.

Okay here is a thought, if you read the back story out side of the film you do know what's going on, it literally took me 10 minutes. The First Order has a treaty with the New Republic, which they recognized, up to the point they launched the Star Killer base, Now the resistance is a locally risen "terroris" group against the First Order. It a local uprising sense all they have is some small ships and such, makes sense since the First Order are essentially Nazi remnants in Argentina. They are not the Rebellion, but they do get some aid from the republic, i.e. some new x-wings.

I don't think the Star Killer Base was designed and built by the First order, I'm willing to bet it was a Galactic Empire project they discovered that was mothballed.

Was I the only one who got the impression that none of the "main" characters (Finn, Rey, Ren) had anything more than a basic understanding of lightsaber combat? It looked to me as if they had given a couple of ten year olds sticks and told them to beat one another with them... Hopefully that's intentional...

Actually, I quite liked that Rey was stabbing with her lightsabre in the dual. She does it over and over again just thrusts it forward at Ben Solo. She only stops doing it after closing her eyes for ten seconds and going all Force-y.

I liked Finn. Boyega did a great job, and I like that he's really the first Star Wars movie hero that's an actual infantry soldier. Pretty much everyone else has been a pilot.

He needs a bit more emotional range, though. Granted, he's in a whole mess of new situations. But, his face seems to be either angry or confused. He's pretty much the Star Wars version of Mark Wahlberg.

Now to pick up that book that tells the stories of Poe, Rey and Finn leading up to the movie. And I can finally drop my TFA set piece on my Infinity base. All the characters are level 20, but I need to play the actual game now.

I think one thing that bugs me is that there was no indication of where the First Order came from. I want to get an idea of what happened after the Emperor was destroyed. There was no hint of that in Ep VII.

There were several things that were not revealed. To me, that was the beauty of the Star Wars movies...they picked up in-stride and leave a lot to the imagination. Of course, he was holding back a lot of things in this 1st movie that he plans to reveal later. Perhaps that is one of them. Please consider, "Who is Snoke???" TOTALLY left unaddressed. How'd he get so burned(?) up? Where'd HE come from? IMO, all to be revealed in the next two films.

They said it "arose from the ashes of the Empire". Isn't that enough? Guys with power stepped up and reorganized. Or, perhaps, Snoke stepped in. He, I believe, is the bigger mystery.

Was I the only one who got the impression that none of the "main" characters (Finn, Rey, Ren) had anything more than a basic understanding of lightsaber combat? It looked to me as if they had given a couple of ten year olds sticks and told them to beat one another with them... Hopefully that's intentional...

ABSOLUTELY SURE it was intentional!!! It's like JJA made a list of all of the stuff that made the prequels some of the worst movies ever made. First words of the movie were about "setting things right". JJA was sending a message. On that list (I'm sure) was exquisite ninja-skill lasersword fighting all over the place with no purpose other than to display lots of lightsabers. Did all that swordfighting in the 1-2-3 impress you? I mean, WHY was Maul fighting Ben & Qui?

Second point is, Ben Solo fights like a spoiled teenager who's not fully trained. It fit his character perfectly. You saw how he was not quite 'fully-trained'. Rey knew to fight with the staff and poked with that quite often in the movie. Makes sense.

Seeing them do high-end swordmaster moves would have ruined it for me. I mean, seeing little Yoda going nuts with a lightsaber made me laugh out-loud in the theater and is on the list of atrocities that were committed in 1-2-3.

Saw it on Thursday, had a jolly good time. Not a perfect Star Wars movie for me, but very good, in the range of 90 percent.

My nitpicks: The big bad didn't do it for me (Who is he? What is his motivation?); Gwendoline Christie was criminally underused; Rey from zero to hero a little too fast (although that is very Star Wars-y); a little more explanation would have been nice, for example, what is the relationship between Republic and Resistance?

But on the plus side, we had great action (space battles!), it all looked and more importantly felt very Star Wars, the actors did very good jobs. And we are set up for more! I'll go see it a second time tonight and I am looking forward to it.

Well, I thought the Snoke was a GIANT! It was about the 3rd time where they showed it was a hologram. Then again, as a kid, I thought Stormtroopers were robots. You never saw them take their helmets off and see what was underneath, plus they spoke through helmets and sounded robotic. I little uncertainty is a good thing.

Gwendoline Christie? My vote for "worst character" in VII. The voice was all wrong and her role was never defined. Plus, the armor stunk.... I had a Battlestar Galactica flashback when I saw her. I was looking for a red dot going back and forth across her visor. I am sure she will have a better role later. I'd of been better if she were a mad scientist or something. I just wasn't buying the female being sort sort of ultimate trooper.

I thought the First Order officers were way too young. No way those types are generals when they look about 26 years old. Well, maybe there's more to it than that.

As someone who thinks it was good but not great... I wonder how history will treat it, when the hype wears off.

Every review I saw said something like 're-energises the franchise after the hated and dreadful prequels'. But mostly, they weren't fully 'hated' in their day. A lot of that seems to have come in with revisionism.

I remember a lot of 10/10, 5-star reviews at the time, saying 'Star Wars is back!' and how they loved Hayden Christenson or even how the kids loved Jar-Jar. People like Kevin Smith assuring us that RotS was the best Star Wars movie ever made.

I felt the film was mostly a trailer for the next one; that's how many videogames (like Dragon Age) are made these days too. But I wonder if a backlash might set in when the hype machine wears off.

Reviews are for suckers. Ever see a new movie NOT get 4-5 Stars when it comes out? It's their job to dole them out. Such people should never be trusted to review anything ever again.

Every friend of mine hated it instantly. In the theater we were turning to look at each other with disgust during every nonsensical sequence. Must have rolled our eyes at each other 10 or more times that first movie. No revision of thought needed. Some of us actually saw it twice to make sure that we had actually seen what we'd seen. I believe the only revised ratings of the movie were by those who were simply thrilled to have another Star Wars to see but then later realized the great tragedy that they were. I really thought this nails it. http://redlettermedia.com/plinkett/star-wars/star-wars-episode-1-the-phantom-menace/

Like someone else on here said, I'd put it at 90% or better on being a top-notch movie. The character development missing from 1-2-3 was fully embraced.

Backlash after the hype wears off? Perhaps 'Snoke' was silly-sounding for someone so serious. But we'll see what comes of that. People might disagree with Solo's fate. But H.Ford thought Han should have sacrificed himself in RotJ, so he was itching to off his character. I actually kind of loved the father trying to reconciled with his son. It resonates with our society. The planet-weapon was completely unoriginal. Is he going to "copy" the next film, too? Yeah, it was a copy of IV. However, the characters are inspiring in their devotion for one another.

Actually, I envision VIII being similar to V. Jedi training, things take a darker turn, etc... JJA will seemingly mirror the original trilogy.

"Palpatine" is one of the seven hills of Rome.

Snoke is... uh... she's got a snuke in her ____...?

ETA: Jar-Jar Abrams will not be directing Star Wars movies going forward. Thank God. Disney has found more capable directors for that task.

I found it entertaining that Finn was the comic relief without being obnoxious (like Jar Jar was). I did feel that the movie could have done with less "tracing" of previous Star Wars works. It was a visual treat to watch and the acting was enjoyable too, but the story felt like I'd "been there and done that" before, and not in an entirely good way.

I thought the First Order officers were way too young. No way those types are generals when they look about 26 years old. Well, maybe there's more to it than that.

If you read Lost Stars, it ends up with the Empire having a lot of very young people in high ranks, due to the fact that much of the older, higher-ranking officers died in combat. The commander of the Inflictor (the star destroyer that crashed on Jakku) was about 26 or so. It's possible this new Empire felt like a focus on the new was a better idea than the way the old Empire worked.

I also think the movie could have used a little more CGI. The best aliens were the CGI ones.

I'll just have to disagree with you on that point. Overuse of CGI has ruined movies for me. I still cringe when I see the eyesores that are the prequels. I mean really, CGI babies? Anyway, to each his own but I have to say the reduced reliance on CGI was a huge plus for me.

• If Rey is the daughter of Luke we will need an explanation of who her mother was and why he left her on Jakku.
• And not some throwaway line to explain it like they did with Anakin and his father for her. Now we may very well get more of the story in the upcoming movies which would be good if so.

Well on the bright side, I don't think we could possibly get such a weak explanation this time around. It was hard enough to swallow the idea that the Force just magically impregnated a random woman (the later insinuation that it was done by the Sith was only marginally better) but I don't think that flimsy plot element works as well when there's only a father.

I can see it now, "There was no mother. I had some happy time in my room and a week later when I was doing laundry I found a baby in my sock."

I am quite the movie critic, and the movie was bad.

Oh thank god, I am not the only one. I finished seeing it about an hour ago and utterly hated everything about it except Maz.

*sigh*

Help me Rogue One, your my only hope now (of seeing a good Star Wars film made in the last 30 years)

It worked for me. Is it perfect? Nope. Was it really good? Yup. Are all the story details good? Nope. Were the bulk of the new characters great? Yup. Was it fun to watch? It sure was. Is it Star Wars? It sure as hell is.

It's not summer(s) of 77 and 80 and I'm not 9 & 12, so it wouldn't have been fair of me to look at and judge this movie from that perspective. It wouldn't be fair to expect any movie to capture how I fell in love with this universe at that time and in that way, but I can honestly say I love some of the new characters. I think BB-8, Finn, and Rey are fantastic and I can't wait to see where their adventure goes.

I thought the First Order officers were way too young. No way those types are generals when they look about 26 years old. Well, maybe there's more to it than that.

If you read Lost Stars, it ends up with the Empire having a lot of very young people in high ranks, due to the fact that much of the older, higher-ranking officers died in combat. The commander of the Inflictor (the star destroyer that crashed on Jakku) was about 26 or so. It's possible this new Empire felt like a focus on the new was a better idea than the way the old Empire worked.

I'm gonna have to get Lost Stars - it seems to tell the story of some of the things I'm interested in.

"Palpatine" is one of the seven hills of Rome.

Um, no? Palatine is (from which words like Paladin derive). Although I have to admit that I felt Snoke was a bad name, too, because it simply contains no malice and/or power.

Star Wars names regularly tread on the border of unintentional comedy, often crossing into it, right from the very beginning.

Though I'm at a bit of a loss to explain how people on Rey's planet could see the projected enemy heading toward the Republic worlds. Unless they were in the same system. It doesn't really make a lot of sense to me but the above works as an 80% answer, I think. I'm tempted to just paraphrase the movie Chinatown and say: "Forget it Jake, it's Abrams".

Yes, I was a bit miffed about that, too, because that is not how light works. The explosion made the Kessel run in 14 parsecs, I guess?

Though I'm at a bit of a loss to explain how people on Rey's planet could see the projected enemy heading toward the Republic worlds. Unless they were in the same system. It doesn't really make a lot of sense to me but the above works as an 80% answer, I think. I'm tempted to just paraphrase the movie Chinatown and say: "Forget it Jake, it's Abrams".

Yes, I was a bit miffed about that, too, because that is not how light works. The explosion made the Kessel run in 14 parsecs, I guess?

Left me scratching my head as well. And I'm usually pretty generous with applying my own explanations to things. I thought that perhaps they were in the system that the attack was launched from rather than the target system and that they were watching the energy projectiles depart rather than arrive. But that had to be rejected when the planet was shown to be using the star of the system it is currently in which would have left them without a sun. So either

(a) It only sometimes uses the star system it is in but can use a star from elsewhere in the galaxy (seems pretty silly).

(b) The darkening of their sun hadn't reached their planet yet (but as you say, that's not how light works - how would they see the projectiles, then?)

© It was a binary (or more) star system and they still had a spare sun after one had been eaten by the star killer weapon.

Of these, © could work though I don't recall any evidence to suggest it in the film. What I will say is that there were a few laughs in the cinema when the Rebels Resistance threw up those side by side holograms with a "and THIS is the Starkiller". It just had a very ten-year old view of drama to me. A sort of "yeah, my new deathstar is ten times bigger it's so awesome" intent, it felt like. At least that's how a lot of our audience took it based on the chuckles.

I know - internal consistency has never been the core of the Star Wars movies, but I like a little support for things other than just the director or writer thinking it's cool. The OT and Prequels are actually not that bad at supporting their plot twists and events upon review. This felt rather lazy to me.

Left me scratching my head as well. And I'm usually pretty generous with applying my own explanations to things. I thought that perhaps they were in the system that the attack was launched from rather than the target system and that they were watching the energy projectiles depart rather than arrive. But that had to be rejected when the planet was shown to be using the star of the system it is currently in which would have left them without a sun. So either

(a) It only sometimes uses the star system it is in but can use a star from elsewhere in the galaxy (seems pretty silly).

(b) The darkening of their sun hadn't reached their planet yet (but as you say, that's not how light works - how would they see the projectiles, then?)

© It was a binary (or more) star system and they still had a spare sun after one had been eaten by the star killer weapon.

Of these, © could work though I don't recall any evidence to suggest it in the film. What I will say is that there were a few laughs in the cinema when the Rebels Resistance threw up those side by side holograms with a "and THIS is the Starkiller". It just had a very ten-year old view of drama to me. A sort of "yeah, my new deathstar is ten times bigger it's so awesome" intent, it felt like. At least that's how a lot of our audience took it based on the chuckles.

Credit to you for trying to explain it. I just chalked it up as style over substance. The folk at Maz's watering hole seemed to see the attack in real-time; even if it all happens in one system, the usual distances should mean mean minutes before the light reaches them. Also, the people on the target planet itself saw the attack coming, but it must have been travelling at more than light-speed, right? So the hit would be the first light reaching the planet. Also, there is no explanation of how the destruction of the planets also destroys the Republic Fleet (which is mentioned once or twice). For me, the movie was enough fun to ignore that stuff while I saw it - suspension-of-disbelief and all that -, but afterwards I found the logic of it all lacking.

I saw the bigger Death Star as some kind of intentional (meta-) comedy, especially as it was paired with Han's comment that they always have a weakness.

"Palpatine" is one of the seven hills of Rome.

Mmmmh no...

the hill is "Palatine"; palpatine sound something like... well... b00b squeezing...

Btw yesterday i saw the movie for second time. And i noticed...

when Rey come to the island and found Luke on top of the mountain, at the very end of the film, Luke is in front of some stones; at first thought it's looking on the horizon, then i realized there are a vertical flat stone in front of him. Like a tombstone. Maybe Rey's mother's tombstone? and who was she? Kylo Ren killed her?

Left me scratching my head as well. And I'm usually pretty generous with applying my own explanations to things. I thought that perhaps they were in the system that the attack was launched from rather than the target system and that they were watching the energy projectiles depart rather than arrive. But that had to be rejected when the planet was shown to be using the star of the system it is currently in which would have left them without a sun. So either

(a) It only sometimes uses the star system it is in but can use a star from elsewhere in the galaxy (seems pretty silly).

(b) The darkening of their sun hadn't reached their planet yet (but as you say, that's not how light works - how would they see the projectiles, then?)

© It was a binary (or more) star system and they still had a spare sun after one had been eaten by the star killer weapon.

Of these, © could work though I don't recall any evidence to suggest it in the film. What I will say is that there were a few laughs in the cinema when the Rebels Resistance threw up those side by side holograms with a "and THIS is the Starkiller". It just had a very ten-year old view of drama to me. A sort of "yeah, my new deathstar is ten times bigger it's so awesome" intent, it felt like. At least that's how a lot of our audience took it based on the chuckles.

Credit to you for trying to explain it. I just chalked it up as style over substance. The folk at Maz's watering hole seemed to see the attack in real-time; even if it all happens in one system, the usual distances should mean mean minutes before the light reaches them. Also, the people on the target planet itself saw the attack coming, but it must have been travelling at more than light-speed, right? So the hit would be the first light reaching the planet. Also, there is no explanation of how the destruction of the planets also destroys the Republic Fleet (which is mentioned once or twice). For me, the movie was enough fun to ignore that stuff while I saw it - suspension-of-disbelief and all that -, but afterwards I found the logic of it all lacking.

Fair points all. Okay, I got nothing!

I saw the bigger Death Star as some kind of intentional (meta-) comedy, especially as it was paired with Han's comment that they always have a weakness.

Yeah, if you're getting to the point that characters in-universe are making generalizations about death stars, you may be over-using them.

Yeah, if you're getting to the point that characters in-universe are making generalizations about death stars, you may be over-using them.

... that is true ... Star Wars is notorious for over-using planet-killing death weapons ...