Just left the cinema.
It was good, really good, but I feel a bit empty tbh.
- It basically made 4-6 completely pointless, and pretended they didn't exist.
- It's essentially an identical story to 4. Big bad enemy owns the galaxy ruled by evil ugly bad guy we never meet, his bad apprentice has a big red sword and is related to one of the good guys, they make a big floating weapon to destroy the uprising, and random youngster from a desert planet saves the world. Yawn.
- You could see someone getting killed a mile off. Mid way through I thought to myself it was either going to be Han or Chewie, but as soon as Han stepped onto the bridge that was as clear as day.
- I'm glad they did kill Han off, Ford is really getting on as an actor and the role didn't suit him at that age. Legend, but it was the right call.
- The next film really needs to be a prequel. There's so much we need to know: Who is Rai, why did people take her family, what really happened between Luke & Kylo Ren, how did the First Order suddenly get so powerful, how did the Republic end up useless again, why did a droid decide to go into safe mode and not speak for god knows how many years, did no-one notice ever that R2 had a handy chunk of map missing with a handy course already laid in...? Sooooo many plot holes, I'm just trusting in the vision that the next two films will cover this all off, otherwise we've just watched The Phantom Menace pt2.
- It took Anakin years of study to master the Force, it took Luke a few weeks/months with the greatest Jedi Master ever, but Rai went from not knowing the Force at all to using mind tricks and force pull in a few hours? Really?!
- Surely, she has to be Luke's daughter.
The young leads were excellent, very well cast and superbly acted. The scene where the X-Wings come in over the water was a tingly-spine moment, and later on when it went all first-person from the cockpit was just amazingly well shot. It was a proper JJ Abrams film, the angles and set pieces were as good as I hoped. The comedy was a bit overdone perhaps, but most of it worked well I think and I say that as someone who didn't really enjoy the funny bits in 4-6.
I need to watch it again, but for me it was missing *something*. I can only hope that it all becomes clear in the next films.