Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

The Good Harrison Ford steals every scene. Excellent production values and good effects, as was expected. The script was pretty funny and very little fat. The Bad The Story Literally lifted from the first and third movies. Almost verbatim. The excuse trotted out is that Abrams/Disney needed to re-introduce the Universe to a new generation of fans. Are you kidding? Every human on earth has seen every Star Wars movie at least 612 times. Who could be lost? Who is The Resistance? Why do they have to resist anything? They crushed the Empire at Endor and had the biggest intact fleet in the galaxy with which to hunt down the remaining Star Destroyer squadrons. I was actually enjoying the movie up until they are all standing around prepping for the StarKiller (really!?) Base attack. Wham, Bam, Thank you Ma’am….aaaaaaaaand we’re outta here. No biggie, these bases are easy peasy to blow up. It descended into parody and farce. From then on I was outside the movie laughing at it. They find Rey, on a planet sized base, in under three minutes and there is one guy they had to kill to get in. Oh and somebody wake up R2 so he can help us find Luke MacGuffin... The Tone What was the point of the first trilogy. Good, Evil, Victory, Defeat? All pointless. We have entered a nihilistic World War I style conflict. Perpetual war for perpetual war’s sake. The Abrams/Disney take feels a bit 1984ish. Why fight? There is always some conspiracy and betrayal coming down the pike. To wit, my children were confused and slightly depressed walking out of the theater. Thanks JJ. The Characters A girl from nowhere who is handier than Solo, so independent she thrives in the scorching desert alone (with a lovely complexion, by the way), apparently can fly anything with no training, perky personality, enough curves that you know she’s female while still 2x4 enough to not make little girls feel inadequate, a helluva shot, can wield a lightsaber against a guy trained from birth and kick his tail in relatively short order (just by closing her eyes apparently) and finally (yet I could go on) being an absolute nobody, she alone gets Chewbacca to Uber her to Luke Skywalker via the Falcon. A stormtrooper who, on his FIRST mission, is assigned to an assault force to find the MOST IMPORTANT piece of intel the Order is seeking. Hmmmm? To paraphrase Ellen Ripley from Aliens: Did IQs just suddenly drop while I was away? After a lifetime of indoctrination he has a crisis of conscience. He would have no operational experience to make him jaded enough to desert yet suddenly he does. I do however now know why stormtroopers suck at shooting. This guy is more Marx brother and less Magnificent Seven. He stumbles, bumbles and tumbles. No wonder the Empire lost. Diversity: let’s take an inventory. Girl as Lukette Skywalker; Black stormtrooper (Blazing Saddles anyone?); Mexican/Lebanese fighter pilot; Girl stormtroopers; Girl fighter pilots; Shriveled, orange Mrs. Miyagi bar owner who is wise and pointless; Oriental general; Scottish and Oriental bounty hunters; and angry East European Kylo Ren. The only white guys are Porkins reincarnated (but killed again), Crazy First Order General who sounds like he took a big gulp of helium before addressing the Nuremberg Rally in Space, Han Solo (killed) and Luke Skywalker who apparently is so depressed he needed to be exiled/flee from the Cornell English Department that apparently did all the casting… Kylo Ren is about as scary as a bag of Nutter Butters. Was it just me or did everyone else start seeing the kid from the VW commercial dressed as Darth Vader every time Kylo was huffing down a hall? Zero gravitas and zero menace. But I hate my dad. Listen sport, everyone hates their dad for awhile. Your dad is not only Indiana Jones but also the coolest dude ever to grace the silver screen. Even Bobba Fett didn’t hate his dad. He took his armor and went into the family business. By the way Kylo, if a girl in a linen sarong kicks your ass you should give up on Darth Vader letting you into the club. Youth. Did everyone over the age of 30 besides Han, Luke an Leia die? Some of the scariest things to kids are…adults. When I watched the roundtable of Imperial generals in A New Hope I believed these guys could plan The Final Solution. I’m now supposed to be afraid of an angry teenager and She-Stormtroopers in Prada armor? Best Moment BB-8 zippo thumbs up. Worst Moment Han Solo’s death. He deserved so much better but you can understand why Ford probably demanded to be killed after reading the script.