I just think they went too far with it. The parallels were just nakedly obvious.
The main bad guy is a dude in a black mask and robes who was trained by an older Jedi master and it all went to shit and he was seduced by the dark side of the Force and the older Jedi master has gone into hiding in a remote location.
The main bad guy character is also revealed to be a close relation to a couple of the major characters.
Part of the plot revolves around tracking down and finding the older Jedi master.
There's a new Death Star. And it's even BIGGERER. It's no longer moon sized, it's a whole fucking planet! And it's got an even bigger superlaser.
Which has a weakness that is exploited and ace pilot does the deed of destroying the Death Star.
Cute non-humanoid droid that talks in bleeps and bloops has secret plans map that the plot revolves around.
Protagonist is orphan that lives on remote desert planet.
Main bad guy isn't actually main bad guy. He's just an enforcer and right-hand man of a mysterious dark lord pulling strings behind the scenes who communicates with him via hologram.
Death Star isn't commanded by the Darth Vader clone, but by a brutal senior military commander (Hux/Tarkin).
And a lot of fan service just to keep people happy. Look, here's the lovable droids from the original movies! And Chewy! And the Millennium Falcon! Remember them?
Etc. etc.
It all came across as a very safe and calculated movie whereby the marketing executives at Disney figured out a formulaic way of regenerating the buzz of the original movies, to the extent that they just decided on a remake in anything but name.
I still thoroughly enjoyed it though.
This ^^^
I finally saw Star Wars.
It was just a rehash of the Episode 7 with some Episode 8s and 9s thrown in.
Opens with huge space ship over planet? Check
Desert planet? Check
Girl dressed in sexier desert robes but with a similar color scheme/clothing texture as Luke? Check
Cute blooping robot? Check
Cute blooping robot that has a secret that bad guys are looking for but is happened upon by cute girl? Check
Smart-ass, cocky good looking super pilot with single syllable first name who gets tortured? Check
Third Reich-ish Empire-like bad guys? Check
Super large intimidating weapon that's used for extreme evil and genocide? Check
Rebels/Republic fighters who have to dive into large super weapon to destroy it after small team sneaks onto planet to lower the shields and destabilize weapons device? Check
Evil, bad guy in black mask and robes who is of the Dark Side? Check
Lightsaber fight? Check
Well, you get the hint and you probably know how the rest of the story goes.
JJ Abrams did exactly what the naysayers said he would.
He just warmed up the old episode that made everyone cheer the first time around to draw in new fans. The older fans just sat there, disappointed. No cheering, not even a hint of cheering or wanting to re-watch the movie.
The only interesting arc was Finn's. How does a stormtrooper give it up? Would have been interesting had the story of storm troopers overcoming their conditioning been the main story, but no, JJ has to reuse all the old parts and then some.
Example - Jedi spent their lives training and learning how to control the Force and the lightsaber as an extension of their Force usage. In this movie, folks off the street who've never even held a lightsaber can fight effectively with it.
Example - scary guy in the black suit is not scary. He's not even scary to the stormtroopers. He's not even powerful. He's a cosplay kid. He's laughable. He throws tantrums, literally, and
he wears a mask he doesn't need 
. The guy in the black suit is a ridiculous kid. He's a D-list Sith. He "trained with Luke, but turned against him". LOL. He was seduced by the Dark Side and his pride got in the way before he finished his training
and it shows. He sucks so bad he's not even a Dark Lord. He has hissy fits, he's not a good swordsman, he's not even very sensitive to the Force. People sneak around him and he doesn't even know they're there.
Example - big planet sized star killer weapon. Leaving aside the gravitational catastrophe of
doing away with your local sun and the time it would take to suck it dry, did JJ Abrams/writers not realize that destroying a weapon does nothing but slow things down? The Empire/First Order still has the plans on how to make one. They will just make another one. As they did in Return of the Jedi.
Example - the Empire had very poor surveillance. So does the First Order. In my viewing, my sister leaned over and whispered, "They have cameras on doors on small ships but not on hallways in huge super secret weapon bases?"
Example - cute girl character with tragic past who chooses to learn the Jedi way...except she's just single. We don't see her tragic past. She really doesn't have one. She's basically just a twenty something living paycheck to paycheck, so to speak, and sad that her family just abandoned her. So unlike Luke, with his murdered family, Rey's personal background is humdrum.
Other plot issues - continuity. We hear "weapon will be effective in 10 minutes" just as we see our heroes approach a physical barrier that will take them the better part of an hour to climb. We hear "weapon will be ready to discharge in 2 minutes" as our heroes start to leave the base. Seconds later, they're a quarter mile away. Are they Olympic sprinting champions? Silly.
SO many things JJ Abrams could have done differently with the new Star Wars. Instead, he chose to just repeat the past. Pressured to make money? Probably. But he forgot. The fans were already there. We just need a good story. This wasn't it.
Star Wars the Force Awakens 5.5/10
