Been lurking round here for ages, figured I should actually register.
I thoroughly enjoyed it and can’t wait to see it again. Will be interesting to see if I’m bothered by “plot holes” the second time round or not.
I was lucky enough to see it in 70mm at the London Science Museum IAMX and it looked and sounded fantastic. My next viewing is in the same place but I may me tempted to catch a 3rd viewing in a 3D IMAX.
To me this was all about character introduction and that was pulled off superbly. Making Rey THE protagonist is great, finally a true female lead. The moment when the lightsaber flew to her (intentional wording) was my favourite in the entire film. Finn is interesting too - there’s a little bit of Kyle Katarn in there I think, his ability to use a lightsaber seemed to stem from his military rather training rather than ability to use the force but where his character goes will be very interesting to see.
Kylo Ren is a great villain for reasons already stated… The whole Snoke thing came off as a bit “Lord of the Rings”, even the name sounds a bit Middle Earth. Hopefully when we see him in the flesh they’ll do a better job. The Darth Plagueis talk may have some weight.
Would have liked to have seen more Poe Dameron, maybe we will in a directors/extended cut but who knows.
Music was decent, listening to it on Spotify I really like Rey’s theme. Use of the binary sunse/force music was excellent.
Other random bits: I like the First Order as a kind of Brown shirts of the Galaxy/junta. The empire was fascistic but we really see it on another level. BB8 is just the coolest thing.
I’m not really buying complaint’s about Luke we have no idea what on earth he was doing, I’d be surprised if he really had just gone to sulk on a mountain.
Issues I did have;
Probably a bit too similar to A New Hope. Did we need another desert planet and Death Star?
C-3PO sounded a bit off, maybe they had to adjust something in dubbing to make it fit.
Five Planets get blown up and people don’t seem that bothered, but this isn’t new to Star Wars… I feel like bits around there may have been cut out.
Occasionally dialogue felt a tad forced.
Anyhow, big thumbs up from me overall.