Well, I just watched TFA for the first time in about a year, and honestly, after seeing the seething, endless vitriolic hatred this film gets in some other circles (hey it’s pretty much an echo chamber here on OT so at least I won’t get e-murdered by saying this)…I think it’s actually pretty decent.

It’s not perfect by any means, but it certainly isn’t as bad as many would try to spin it. I honestly wasn’t bothered by the retreading of ANH’s plot since this film was able to do it’s own thing, and can stand on it’s own. I mean, the film is structured, paced, and overall so radically different, you’d really have to heavily cut out major scenes and chunks out of the plot, then agonizingly stretch out others for it to even get close to resembling ANH. That aside, my only real major gripe is with pretty much everything surrounding Starkiller Base, but at the end of the day, it’s just a plot device, and it gets the job done. I don’t see people mercilessly attacking Jedi for doing practically the same thing.

Other than that, SFX were good, soundtrack was great, cinematography was beautiful, characters and performances were fantastic, and the fan service, while plentiful, wasn’t non-stop, shoved-into-your-skull-in-like-a-fucking-frying-pan like Disney’s marketing, which was (and still is) something I whole-heartedly abhor. But that’s a rant for another day.