I haven’t posted on OT.com for a very long time, mainly because I was a bit bored and disillusioned with Star Wars. I’ll always love the OT, but I was just a bit ‘over’ everything else.

So let me start by saying I thought this movie was fantastic… Star Wars is back, baby! I saw it twice in the first two days and have been reading up on it ever since. My love and excitement for Star Wars has been reignited.

Obviously it wasn’t perfect, very few movies are, and this one had a lot of weight on its shoulders. But I think JJ and co pulled it off. Credit where credit’s due.

Of course, this is an Internet forum and complaining is what we do best, so I’ll start with the bits I wasn’t so keen on (but I can let them all slide in the grand scheme of things):

CGI characters. Maz, Snoke, that dude who gives Rey her rations… Prosthetics would have looked better in my humble opinion.
Speaking of Maz, or ‘Orange Yoda’ as I like to call her, she felt a bit… pointless. Maybe it would have been better to have Leia give Rey the lightsaber and explain the force to her? It would have at least given Carrie something useful to do 😉
Starkiller. A lot of people are dissing the familiarity of the plot. Yes, it’s a beat for beat retread of ANH. But I’m actually cool with that. For the first movie of a new trilogy I don’t need a convoluted plot, just take me back to a galaxy far, far away, don’t f*ck it up and I’m happy. But I could have lived without a bigger and badder Death Star in the final act.
The Republic/The Resistance. Aren’t they the same thing? Didn’t the rebels win the war and become the republic? Shouldn’t Leia be President or whatever by now? It just felt a bit weird and complicated.
The CGI monster hijinks on Han’s freighter. That whole scene felt like ‘hey we need some fun action and Han being Han stuff here’. It was kinda cringeworthy, and it’s the only bit of the film where I thought Han Solo fell flat.

Anything not mentioned above, I thought was great. And among the stuff that was great there were some bits that were extra-great…

Luke at the end. Goosebumps. Mark Hamill nailed it without saying a word.
The lightsaber fight in the snow, especially the bit where Rey force grabs the lightsaber away from Kylo Ren… Goosebumps.
Kylo Ren. What a great villain. Conflicted, powerful yet weak, petulant in a dangerous way. Adam Driver nailed it.
Han’s ‘it’s all true’ speech. I thought that was a really nice moment for the character.
Han’s death. I avoided all spoilers for this movie, so I hadn’t heard the ‘Han dies’ rumours, but as Han walked onto that bridge you just knew there was at least a strong possibility that it was coming. I found the moment tense, dramatic, sad, poignant.

To summarise, I can’t wait for episode 8. But I’ll be watching Episode 7 at least a couple more times on the big screen first 😃

P.s did anybody else notice the rectangular dish on the falcon to replace the original round one Lando knocked off in ROTJ? That was a nice bit of attention to detail and probably my favourite of the call backs (some of which I found a little forced and unnecessary).