... What the hell was that?
The Good:
-The new characters were great. Finns backstory actually made him a very interesting character, to the point where the film would have been much improved if it spent a significant amount of time at the start on his backstory (showing life as a stormtrooper...) instead of whatever the hell that was at the end...
-Some of the special effects were quite nicely done. The new hyperspace looked terrific, I liked most of the models used to create the scenes, and more than a few areas throughout the film just looked nice. For whatever reason the 3d seemed terrible, but that may have been due to sitting far to left of center in the theatre, so everything looked slightly weird.
-Harrison Ford was excellent, his acting at times almost being the only thing that holds the movie together. The script contained so many godawful corny lines that he managed to deliver without them becoming annoying as hell, and he mixed with the new characters very well. By comparison Fisher and Hamill might as well be cardboard cutouts
-The whole first third or so of the movie was great, the parallels to A New Hope were there, but not constant to the point where they made the whole thing unbearable. And then things went off a cliff...
The Ugly:
-Logic, Originality, and several planets die horrible deaths thanks to a new death star. Apparently in a film that never ends, we cant spare more than 15 seconds to find out what planets are being destroyed and why.
-Almost every single part of the Cantina scene is ripped off, detail for detail. The warning to "watch your step" before stepping inside. The slightly off alien music. The shameless pan over every single creature in the building, even though there is no reason to take the camera off of the main characters.
-It wasn't enough to rehash having a death star, apparently it also has to have a weak point. Oh, and its a race against the clock until the rebel base is destroyed, and there is a run down a trench... seriously?
-Kylo Ren is absolutely comical. Apparently our very intimidating villain needs to destroy every inanimate object in the same room as him, whenever something goes wrong, for about 5 minutes before he bothers to do anything productive
The odd thing that I realized about this film, so many of the things that always drive me nuts about Abrams films are often things that he technically doesn't control or create as the director, but they're so consistent throughout his films. Maybe he just habitually works with the same writers/design artists that always work these things into the films he directs? That being said, this film was his style absolutely cranked up to 11:
-The sets constructed from nothing but shiny chrome and red lights (unless theres a computer screen, in which case its always blue for some reason).
-The sound of a lightsaber now apparently needs to destroy my eardrums every time it gets activated, even though it sounds nothing like what it sounded like in the other six films.
-The nods to the original trilogy done with all of the subtlety of a hammer.
-Fight scenes that drag on forever with no change in the mood or pace of the scene (or, I don't know, the occasional line of dialogue?).
-Characters are introduced, given 5 minutes of character development, expected to somehow play a big role in important scenes, then completely disappear for the rest of the movie.
-Characters participate in an emotional, complicated moment that changes the outlook of the story, which is instantly reversed for no reason at all other than shock factor, and keeping the story moving in its original (predictable) direction.
-CGI heavy battle scenes that last for 5 minutes but don't advance the plot at all.
-Musical themes from previous movies blared as loud as possible during important scenes in an attempt to make them seem meaningful.
-And the jokes. His style of humour is actually pretty good. Except when it is forced into literally every scene in the movie, regardless of whether its needed or not, repeated about 20 times in 60 seconds until you wish they would just stop.
Absolutely hated it. Quite literally the worst film I have ever seen.