hi hi
I just got a chance to see the movie today, and so here is my initial first impression:
Pros:
* Good opening which sets up dramatic tension well and got me invested in what was going on.
* Mostly enjoyable characters, with feelings and character stuff, with insights on both sides of the conflict.
* Broke some new ground rather than relying entirely on nostalgia.
* Good music.
* Relatively small number of plot holes and internal inconsistencies.
* Created, for me, some small sense of wonder in places.
* Good use of visual storytelling in a few noteworthy places.
Cons:
* Very noticeable JJ Abrams stuff repeated throughout. (More on this in a moment)
* Although it started strong, things got messy, muddled, and too busy near the climax of the movie.
* Number of callbacks got excessive at points.
* Managed to make the destruction of an entire planet feel emotionally hollow, like a side note, by not establishing a broader context or relation that made intuitive sense.
* Vaguely Asian coded group of people in a galaxy far far away? (This one is really more confusing than anything.)
* Almost Star Trek levels of technobabble to explain the
death star weapon planet thing that is totally not a death star. (Of course it has an oscillator, why, that's just common sense.)
Abramsisms:
* Suggesting that something is impossible or very improbable, then immediately doing the impossible thing. "Transwarp beaming is impossible, oh wait.. I mean, tracking another ship during warp is... no wait, going to lightspeed inside the hangar, that's the one. Or is it going out of lightspeed inside the atmosphere? That's probably pretty hard, or at least they said it was two seconds before they did it."
* Having characters waste lines of dialogue describing what everyone just saw in very basic terms. "Wow, that's a great pilot!"
Yes, I know. I just saw the same thing you did, thanks for holding up the cue card for me to know how I'm supposed to feel. "You brought this droid to us and that is really good."
Oh, I must have missed that part, thanks for letting me know.
* People going into a fight that could mean life or death for billions of people are super stoked and also double excited, rather than maybe a few of them being somewhat concerned or possibly filled with dread. Leaving this member of the audience underwhelmed when things don't go according to plan. "We need a plan. Oh, I've got the first idea that comes to mind. I second the first idea that comes to mind, and also add some inexplicable knowledge about a secret facility that will make it work. Awesome, lets execute the plan right away, as it is now fully fleshed out." Then later: "We've lost half our fleet."
Well no duh, with a half-cocked plan like that, of course you're going to have a bad time.
* Constant, sudden character mood swings.
Other musings:
The lightsaber hilt remains a silly idea, but when compared to a lot of the other silliness going on, really wasn't distracting at all. Silly things like sucking a star inside a planet. (Maybe it was better when they didn't feel the need to explain how the doomsday device worked.)
It seems some people here took issue with Ren being bested by Rey. I personally thought the lightsaber fight at the end was one of the more enjoyable parts of the film. It was choreographed to help tell the characters' stories, rather than just being a bunch of flashy windmills. (They established prior to that fight that Storm Troopers were given melee combat training, so it made some sense for Fin to at least be competent.) While the interplay between Ren and Ray fit into the overall theme between the dark and the light, highlighting Ren's fear of being weak coming true as a result of his own actions; and Ray who was learning how to use the force by mirroring what was being used against her, was focused rather than being torn in two from the inside. (Like the planet itself, as a metaphor.)
Also, at the beginning of the movie, and during the climax, two people take the same shot at Ren. Poe shoots after Ren kills some people, and Ren instantly turns and catches the blast. Chewie shoots after Ren kills someone important to him, and he doesn't even see it coming. Perhaps that is a commentary on his faltering mental state.
((Echoing sentiments raised by someone here already. I played in a game of West End's d6 Star Wars with a force user character, once upon a time, and that fight meshed surprisingly with my own experience after picking up a lightsaber for the first time and having to fight the group's nemesis with only a +1 pip in the skill. If it weren't for a bit of luck and an opportune distraction, I might not have won.))
Where were the fleets? I was very confused about what was going on in the galaxy. Who was the republic? I never really figured that out.
As someone who can do things like enjoy the Lord of the Rings books, and the Lord of the Rings movies in high regard, in spite of them being very different, I have no issues with them ignoring the expanded universe. To my knowledge, those books still exist for people to read and enjoy regardless.
The only thing that really made me scratch my head, in terms of stuff retconned from the original trilogy, was the lightsaber. Didn't the lightsaber that Luke got from his father fall into oblivion when his hand was cut off? How did they find that thing?
Overall: I didn't feel like I'd wasted my time and money to go and watch the movie. Felt like the beginning was stronger than the climax, but I thought the denouement left things in an interesting place. If they can cut down on the amount of callbacks and try to stand on their own like they did at the start, maybe the next movie will get an extra star or two from me over what this one is getting.