I was 9 years old when the first Star Wars movie was released and saw it in theatres. The primary things that a lot of us took away from the film was that it was done on a grand scale and presented an Epic story for the ages. It was a movie that nearly everyone could connect to in some way and have emotions stirred.

We didn't obsess over the obvious similarities to Flash Gordon or elements taken from other films and stories, but instead chose to enjoy the movie and let ourselves get caught up in the magic.

TFA is a film that once again has captured imaginations and stirred emotion. It has families watching together in the theatres and most fans excited for what is yet to come.

Yes, there may be elements that could be done better artistically and there are aspects of the film taken directly from the original storyline.

A billion dollars later, it's hard not to agree that this movie is doing something well enough that has the majority of us excited for what will come next. Please keep that in mind and remember to enjoy the ride, keeping your hands in the vehicle at all times.

It still just isn't that great and turning off my brain to enjoy it is not a excuse to make it good.

I'm excited they know how to make it look good mostly, but character motivations, pacing, and rehashing elements make it pretty uninteresting/feel like it has to shove in so much crap.

Like I am happy people can enjoy it and it had some exciting moments, but I'm thinking in awhile people will start to reflect and notice kinda how ironically uninspired some parts were.

Most people liked the Phantom Menace walking out of the theater thanks to the fan enthusiasm created by the audiences if you go watch old news reports.

Hopefully with JJ laying down the framework we can say goodbye to him in VII, because I am worried by his track record he likes to continue rehashing plots and playing it safe.

Please keep that in mind and remember to enjoy the ride, keeping your hands in the vehicle at all times.

Although, if you want to stick your head out of the window and wag your tongue in the breeze, that's fine...

Great movie. Can't wait for Ep.8!

You realise star wars movies even terrible ones always make alot of money, heck alot of that money comes from repeat viewers.

Transformers 2,3 and four are all terrible racist trash yet they made a truck load.

It's a public forum not an echo chamber if people get to say how much they like the movie it's only fair others get to say why they don't like it.

It still just isn't that great and turning off my brain to enjoy it is not a excuse to make it good.

I'm excited they know how to make it look good mostly, but character motivations, pacing, and rehashing elements make it pretty uninteresting/feel like it has to shove in so much crap.

Like I am happy people can enjoy it and it had some exciting moments, but I'm thinking in awhile people will start to reflect and notice kinda how ironically uninspired some parts were.

Most people liked the Phantom Menace walking out of the theater thanks to the fan enthusiasm created by the audiences if you go watch old news reports.

Hopefully with JJ laying down the framework we can say goodbye to him in VII, because I am worried by his track record he likes to continue rehashing plots and playing it safe.

JJ is still a producer in Episode 8. It was a good but not great show.

To me Episode 1 isn't the worst Star Wars movie. It was really, really bad, but that is it's saving point. Episodes 2 and 3 are by far the worst in my opinion. Rather than being bad, they are bland, boring and mediocre. They push no extreme and are totally forgetable.

Ask any one who has watched the Star Wars movies, they can usually tell you the plot and major events of the OT and Part 1, but will struggle to tell you what parts 2 and 3 are about and mix up the scenes of those 2 movies.

A billion dollars later, it's hard not to agree that this movie is doing something well enough that has the majority of us excited for what will come next. Please keep that in mind and remember to enjoy the ride, keeping your hands in the vehicle at all times.

On the other hand,it can be argued that the thing the movie is doing right is having 'Star Wars' in the name. I have a hard time imagining a Star Wars movie coming out and people NOT flocking to cinemas to see it. I was just a kid when the prequels came out, but I recall the cinemas were just as crowded. Prequel hate only became mainstream much later AFAIK.

Many people may very well still be in the 'hey, new star wars movie, awesome'phase.

Only time will tell if TFA will be considered good 2, 5 or 10 years from now.

It still just isn't that great and turning off my brain to enjoy it is not a excuse to make it good.

I'm excited they know how to make it look good mostly, but character motivations, pacing, and rehashing elements make it pretty uninteresting/feel like it has to shove in so much crap.

Like I am happy people can enjoy it and it had some exciting moments, but I'm thinking in awhile people will start to reflect and notice kinda how ironically uninspired some parts were.

Most people liked the Phantom Menace walking out of the theater thanks to the fan enthusiasm created by the audiences if you go watch old news reports.

Hopefully with JJ laying down the framework we can say goodbye to him in VII, because I am worried by his track record he likes to continue rehashing plots and playing it safe.

JJ is still a producer in Episode 8. It was a good but not great show.

To me Episode 1 isn't the worst Star Wars movie. It was really, really bad, but that is it's saving point. Episodes 2 and 3 are by far the worst in my opinion. Rather than being bad, they are bland, boring and mediocre. They push no extreme and are totally forgetable.

Ask any one who has watched the Star Wars movies, they can usually tell you the plot and major events of the OT and Part 1, but will struggle to tell you what parts 2 and 3 are about and mix up the scenes of those 2 movies.

Oh I know JJ is still technically around so I'm pessimistic at this point.

I agree with everything else you say. Phantom Menace is still bad, but atleast it has practical effects and some interesting elements. 2 and 3 come off like horrible soap operas in comparison.

I did genuinely think it was a good movie. It's like how Mad Max Fury Road stands up to Mad Max 2 (The Road Warrior), just a notch lower.

If there were less quick cuts and all the fighter battles were made with physical models on a blue screen, I would have enjoyed it more.

It still just isn't that great and turning off my brain to enjoy it is not a excuse to make it good.

Call me brain dead if you want to, but I and a lot of other people thought it was a great film.

When I was in college and worked in a movie theatre, a close friend and I had a very simple method for judging film.

Every film started with 5 stars. Every time you looked at your watch to see how much time was left, you took a star away. This method reflects on pacing, acting, story, etc...

In TFA, I checked the time once. So I don't consider it a perfect film, but 4 of 5 stars.

I thought there were enough moments that made me laugh, cry, and keep me on the edge of my seat to make it worthwhile.

When I was in college and worked in a movie theatre, a close friend and I had a very simple method for judging film.

Every film started with 5 stars. Every time you looked at your watch to see how much time was left, you took a star away. This method reflects on pacing, acting, story, etc...

In TFA, I checked the time once. So I don't consider it a perfect film, but 4 of 5 stars.

I thought there were enough moments that made me laugh, cry, and keep me on the edge of my seat to make it worthwhile.

So The Room is 5/5 then.

When I was in college and worked in a movie theatre, a close friend and I had a very simple method for judging film.

Every film started with 5 stars. Every time you looked at your watch to see how much time was left, you took a star away. This method reflects on pacing, acting, story, etc...

In TFA, I checked the time once. So I don't consider it a perfect film, but 4 of 5 stars.

I thought there were enough moments that made me laugh, cry, and keep me on the edge of my seat to make it worthwhile.

So if you fell asleep during the first 10 minutes of the film, it'd get 5/5. Good system.

The Force Awakens is the greatest Star Wars movie - it is the first movie I took my son to. He sat there in awe.

The movie was a true passinng of the torch, or in this case, lightsaber. From the old cast to the new, from me to my son (fandom).

No work of art is so great that it cannot stand criticism.

When I was in college and worked in a movie theatre, a close friend and I had a very simple method for judging film.

Every film started with 5 stars. Every time you looked at your watch to see how much time was left, you took a star away. This method reflects on pacing, acting, story, etc...

In TFA, I checked the time once. So I don't consider it a perfect film, but 4 of 5 stars.

I thought there were enough moments that made me laugh, cry, and keep me on the edge of my seat to make it worthwhile.

So if you fell asleep during the first 10 minutes of the film, it'd get 5/5. Good system.

Or you can concede that people are allowed to have different opinions than you, and that all these threads minimizing the opinions of people that don't like the movie as much as that op did are spamming up the forum.

JJ is still a producer in Episode 8. It was a good but not great show.

To me Episode 1 isn't the worst Star Wars movie. It was really, really bad, but that is it's saving point. Episodes 2 and 3 are by far the worst in my opinion. Rather than being bad, they are bland, boring and mediocre. They push no extreme and are totally forgetable.

Ask any one who has watched the Star Wars movies, they can usually tell you the plot and major events of the OT and Part 1, but will struggle to tell you what parts 2 and 3 are about and mix up the scenes of those 2 movies.

The only good thing about Episodes 1-3 is that they gave us the Auralnauts parodies. That is all.

It would be extremely difficult to make a Star Wars film that didn't have some ideas repeated. That being said, the impact of these themes is pretty different this time. Starkiller Base didn't destroy a planet. It destroyed a galactic center of civilization. Kylo may WANT to be Vader, but he certainly falls short of the mark in important ways that really do matter for where the characters are and where they might go.

Ep I: Terrible dialog, terrible acting, terrible characters, terrible choreography, terrible plot, terrible pacing, terrible effects.

Ep VII: Decent dialog (I'd have changed several things, but they don't have anything too egregious and most of it is fine), great acting

, great characters (I can see some of the criticism for Finn, but in general every single new character had a purpose and was interesting, and the old characters felt aged into to me), great choreography (the lightsaber fights felt like what they were - untrained or poorly trained people relying on instinct, while Kylo Ren's saber style was very reflective of his personality), mediocre plot (a little too on-the-nose as a symmetrical reflection of Ep IV, but they did lampshade it a bit, and I get the feeling that they're setting things up for a big reversal in the next film, which if it goes the way I anticipate will make the plot of this one better in retrospect), decent pacing (the end may have been just a little fast for my taste), and amazing effects (they did a wonderful job of integrating practical and digital effects, and so many things offered subtle clues and hooks for the characters and setting).

All in all, I give it a 3.5 out of 5, which is a solid movie but not the best. Depending on how Ep VIII goes, that may be upgrade to a 4.0. Naturally, taste is entirely subjective, and no movie is for everyone. Many people doubtlessly didn't enjoy it, or at least didn't enjoy it enough to recommend it, but nonetheless I suspect some of the people who actively dislike it are those who are either (a) so burned by the prequels that they won't forgive anything, or (b) those who wanted it to be a 5/5 and since it wasn't are insisting that it's terrible.

At the end of the day, it's a movie.

People are allowed to love it or hate it for their own reasons.

Still better than ROTJ. I waited 32 years for this movie and it didn't disappoint. But I can see why others won't see it the same. There's still some parts of TFA that do rube the wrong way, like Snoke's name, and the fakeness of the effect, as well as the holotable game on the falcon coming on for really no reason (should have had those weird circus dancers on the table like I'm the holiday special, no THAT would have been awesome!). I thought Finn was awesome and a much needed inclusion in SW as a comedic element, as a punch clock Stormtrooper to reluctant hero and as someone who tried to be the main hero but wasn't savvy enough to realize who the real hero was (Chewie, er I mean Rey), but I can also see how people might not like his style of humor or his dialogue which is not what we usually have in SW.

I can totally see why someone would give this movie and average or lower rating, but I just see it in a different way. I've already started a thread or two about that so i guess that's all.

Star Wars fans are the toughest fan base around. No matter what movie came out half the fan base would reject it. Am I surprised by the reactions, No. You could have almost written the reviews for this movie from a fans perspective 6 months ago. Star Wars fans unlike any other fan base actually hate Star Wars. They stand in a corner with their arms wrapped around the 'Original Trilogy" denying anything else exists movies wise. We see this even with this game as FFG moved into the EU for ships. How many times did we see a thread about the HWK when it was first revealed about how they wouldn't buy it because it was not in the movies. Lucas lived in this wild fandom of Star Wars and sure he was happy to let it go if nothing else then to get out of the crosshairs of the fans. Star Trek fans are equally as passionate for their franchise. You would never here that fan base talk about Gene Roddenberry as the Tar Wars fans talk about George Lucas. You can almost hear Lucas saying "see I told you" to disney after some of the fan reactions. So for those with their arms wrapped tightly around the "Original Trilogy" they have made more bad movies now then good ones. You have to ask yourself, are you really a Star Wars fan?

At the end of the day, it's a movie.

People are allowed to love it or hate it for their own reasons.

But if they hate it because Rey "beat a Sith Lord" then they are objectively mistaken.