Such an overhyped and disappointing movie. Would have been as bad as the prequels if it wasn't for the nostalgia.

And they explained away Khan's original appearance being transformed into Khanberbatch as just futuristic cosmetic surgery in the prequel comic I think.

But yes, it's still stupid. In their defense, how else were they going to do Khan? The person would have had to have looked like Montalblan otherwise.

But going back to stupid since it was just stupid to reboot the Khan storyline. Cuz yeah, a genetic superman from the 1990s would be a really big help fighting a war in 2200s. Obviously war in the 2200s is exactly the same as it was in 1900, no leap in logic for this fossil to design a hyper advanced starship that dwarfs the flagship of the day...not at all.

The new star wars is flawed...but you have to realize the original trilogy was extremely flawed too. Just because you first digested it as a little kid and those memories are still with you does not make those movies perfect.

The new star wars was fun...something the prequels failed miserably at (effing politics is the root plotline). The characters were appealing and full of charisma.

Despite its over-hypedness and glaring flaws the new star wars is an excellent restart for the series. I look forward to the other movies coming.

Cheer up guys.

Far different from what I would rank as Top 10 of 2015....

Especially the Top movie pick. As much as I think I quay myself a SW fan (too many expensive SW collectibles, ringtone's set to the Imperial March since my first smartphone... blah blah) this one is a minor disappointment. There are lots and lots of superior choice even for a SW fan.... if you're even slightly unbiased.

On Drachen_Jager's points: pretty much what I thought after seeing the movie. My thought is SW:TFA is right in the "middle of the road" movie, whether you look at it from a fan/non-fan perspective. It's not as good as any of the OT, but better than the prequels. And as a stand alone Sci-Fantasy Action movie.... it's a turn-off-your-brain-then-it's-good kind of movie. Too many media/fan's buying into the hype-machine to rate it that high.

Still, it's a commendable direction the new sequels is taking the franchise in the future. I'm giving it the benefit of the doubt on all the stupid fights/plotholes in this movie just so it can move further pass the OT characters so as no further sully the fond memories of these OT characters by seeing them on screens as tools rather than heroes.

Have to disagree with Star Wars.

Without the massive appeal the series built, this movie wouldn't get many good reviews at all. The plot is an insane jumble of random events and plotholes that should have been embarrassing. To enumerate a few:

1) Randomly Melennium Falcon happens to be at the right place, right time (I can buy this, barely, because it's fun)

2) Before they can even have a full conversation (something the filmmakers seemed determined to avoid, even though, as this list shows, dialogue can make riveting cinema) HS and Chewie burst in. I could buy into this, if not for the rapid-fire pace of these events, as it is it just seems random and things are starting to get silly.

3) Before THEY can even have a full conversation not one, but two gangs HAPPEN upon the group, for no reason, except some executive was apparently worried about giving the audience a moment to reflect and MAYBE develop some connection with the characters.

4) Kylo Ren kicks ass. He's the only Force master EVER to stop a blaster bolt mid progress. He's got some serious juice!

5) Kylo Ren can't fight his way out of a paper bag (a bag named Finn) narrowly winning the fight and merely wounding the otherwise fairly useless ex-stormtrooper.

6) Kylo Ren is BEATEN by some chick with no training whatsoever! (Don't get me wrong, I like Rey, but the good guys are SUPPOSED to be weaker than the bad guys, and what's the point in Jedi training if she already kicks Evil's ass? )

7) WTF is up with this whiny Emo? He is, bar-none, the worst villain of the entire SW series thus far. It's not surprising that they defeat him, he's so useless, what's surprising is it takes them so damn long to beat his whining Emo shitty-at-lightsaber-duelling ass.

IMO the whole film was a hot mess that reeked of far too much studio interference which turns artistic vision into "more explosions!"

In summary, and this is totally true, my ten-year-old son, who loved the first 3 SWs (I won't let him watch the prequels) when asked what he thought of it replied, "Too many explosions." This is the mediocrity paradigm of big-budget Hollywood films at it's pinnacle.

I agree about the over-reaction to the "white slavers" comment, which I think just got hyper-PC types riled up.

And he does seem pretty humble and wise, although if he was really going to practice what he's preaching he would just butt out and not say anything. To be fair, he probably got invited on the show and is just responding honestly to the questions -- which is a fair bit different than if he sought out a soapbox to complain from.

I think Lucas had a fantastic combination of Tolkien-esque level creativity AND knew how to adapt his specific creations to the broadly appealing "Hero of 1000 faces" fantasy prototype AND got lucky in many ways. He deserves a LOT of praise for all of that. ...BUT, for the original movies he knew how to delegate things that he doesn't do well -- dialog, directing, etc. He was reined in by internal and external constraints. When those largely went away, we got the prequels.

I love Star Wars and am very grateful to George Lucas for creating that universe. And I'm pretty much equally grateful that he isn't at the helm anymore.

I'm very happy he wasn't involved in #8. The prequels are table scraps compared to the latest film.

I've seen it twice now--once on opening night in IMAX with co-workers and the next day with my daughter and wife in 2D at the local theatre. To be honest, I wouldn't have gone to see it again if the local theatre hadn't of gifted me with discounted tickets (around $12 US for me and the wife and $9 for the daughter).

I was deeply disappointed with the film, though I would not go so far as to say it sucks like @kulpims did. If I had to sum it up in two phrases, I'd say "tries too hard to be clever" in homages to the original films and "deeply flawed" in terms of story. It's not a terrible film by any means, but I would say its unevenness makes it good yet far from great.

It's better and worse than the prequels at the same time. Acting and pacing are far better than the prequels (but not nearly as good as the originals as has been pointed out by @ChaosEngine already).

At the same time, say what you want about Lucas's prequels but he at least tried to expand the Star Wars universe and show us new sides and aspects of it--to make it really feel like a galaxy rather than a couple of mostly uninhabited worlds like Tatooine and Hoth that we got to see in the original trilogy. This movie is a step backwards from that and played things waaaaaay too safe (partly because, as I mentioned, they were too busy trying to make themselves look clever with references to the originals and lots of "nod, nod, wink, wink, see what I did there" moments).

But it is JJ Abrams and I shouldn't have really been as shocked as I was to find out how much of the movie was copy/pasted from the originals with twists that I'm sure he thought were clever but which I just found as cringe-worthy.

Still, really loved the new characters. The daughter was definitely enthralled by Rey, but surprisingly likes her better as dune-surfing scavenger than planet-hopping adventurer.

When I watched the first Star Wars movies, it always seemed that the Jedi were just extremely long lived due to the Force and that the Empire had been in power for such a long time people had forgotten about the republic. Even Yoda mentioned he was many hundreds of years old.

It wasn't until the horrible prequels that this was shown to be incorrect and that it had only been a couple of decades. Of course the prequels also introduced other stupid crap like midichlorians (sp?), ship and vehicle designs that seemed far more advanced than anything the empire had 20 years later, tech like robot sized force fields that block light sabers, the Emperor's face being caused by force lightning (instead of just being ancient), etc etc.

Plus, it wasn't just Han Solo who felt this way. For instance:

Tarkin: The Jedi are extinct. Their fire has gone out of the universe. You, my friend, are all that's left of their religion.

Motti: Don't try to frighten us with your sorcerer's ways, Lord Vader. Your sad devotion to that ancient religion has not helped you conjure up the stolen data tapes or given you clairvoyance enough to find the Rebels' hidden fort-(begin force choke).

So, to be fair, either the Jedi should have had very little presence in the Republic in the prequels (like to the point that nobody really believed in them beyond 'that's a bunch of hokum), or it should have been many years between the fall and the rebellion. Of course, that means that Luke and Leia would have to have been like great great great grandkids of Vader's, but either way would have made more sense. Having them basically 'running' the Republic's military and people seeing them use the Force all the time just doesn't fit.

Gut reaction is it's just behind Empire and A New Hope.

It is an order of magnitude better than any of the prequels.

If you're referring to my comment. The prequel comics which are supposedly part of the canon is that the Narada is a borg-ified romulan vessel.

They use that as part of the reason why JJverse Enterprise is different from TOS Enterprise. The explanation goes that the Kelvin scanned the Narada and magically gleamed all the borg tech from those scans which led to a massive explosion of new technology. so JJverse tech is supposedly roughly on par with TNG-era tech if not better because of the borg tech boost from the Narada....all that from just scans of the ship.

Don't blame me, that's just what I read

EDIT: just looked it up. Yep, that's what the writers wrote about it.

Now I almost want to re-watch the prequels trilogy. Unfortunately, to do that, I'd have to re-watch the prequels trilogy.

Without a doubt. Still, that one twist could well have saved the prequels. There was no twist in the sequels, there should have been one, and Jar Jar suddenly getting all serious and evil would have been awesome and redeemed the character.

Don't believe this was the plan at all, of course, but it *would* have been a good idea.

Honestly, if he had been, it would have made the prequels a million times better.