It’s been a while.
Random wall of text review!
Loved Rey, BB8, the overall feel of the film. The main OT characters were actually unnecessary and felt forced into the film (except Luke - who was barely in it). The more minor one’s (Chewie and the droids) fit in nicely. The filmmakers knew they could never make a villain as good as Vader so they made one who was literally a Vader wannabe; pretty clever actually. Ren was a 7/10, but could easily have been a 2/10, so good job. There was more humour in the BB8 “thumbs-up” scene than in the whole prequel trilogy. Rey and BB8 are “classic” characters, worthy to stand beside the OT cast. Other than “Rey’s Theme”, the score was very forgettable. This was as good as could have expected, with the exception of the poor score. Snoke is a terrible name and not at all frightening as a character, and I fear for VIII and IX since he will probably be in it more. Abrams was a safe and uninspired choice as a director, but I think he gave it his all. Han’s death did not affect me like it should have. His character seemed to have taken a step back from the OT. I miss the Han from Zahn’s novels. Starkillerr base was unnecessary WE DID NOT NEED ANOTHER DEATH STAR! Carrie Fisher…yikes. Escape from Jakku and Rey-Ren fight were the highlights in regards to action scenes. Glad the duel was not too choreographed.
Almost as good as ROTJ, which is what I had hoped for.
This runs closely with my thoughts on the film as well. My first thought when Han was killed was not poor Han, but poor Chewie. I felt like they should have had Han killed off at the opening of Episode VIII, kind of a Janet Lee in Psycho thing. That might have actually been surprising.
Also I did not like the last shot, it was not Star Wars enough if you know what I mean.
The Starkiller base should have been a fake, with the real weapon of the First Order being a mind, a military genius. I would rather have seen something along the lines of Germany invading France in World War II where the French were still looking at warfare from a First World War perspective and invested heavily in stationary defenses at the Maginot Line. The New Republic could have same mindset seeing the First Order as the same as the Empire, building their own superweapon or similar defensive strategy only to be turned on them to destroy the new capital. They would lead the Resistance away to attack the Starkiller base, which would be a ruse only to lead to a sneak attack by the First Order on the new capital. That general idea anyway.
I do hope they go in new directions in subsequent films since this is so similar to Episode IV. Not too impressed the rathtar bit either. That and some of the aliens felt like they were from another franchise like Doctor Who or something. All in all it was fun and there is a lot I liked about it and it seems to get better with each viewing, for me at least.