I completely cut myself off of social media etc until I saw it. The ending when the Emperor got thrown down the chasm was confusing, but awesome! Why did the lightning hurt the bad guy so bad, though?

FWIW, I liked it! Can't wait for more!

Noone else? :O

See? i miss things on first viewing lol. thanks for clearing that up.

I saw it yesterday and liked it overall.

If I had to put it into context of the other movies, I would place it like this:

A New Hope
The Empire Strikes Back
Return of the Jedi
The Force Awakens
a long time nothing
Revenge of the Sith
an even longer time nothing
The Phantom Menace
Attack of the Clones

Pros:

Rey - that girl kicks ass

Finn - I just like him. He reminds me of someone:)

Han Solo - Harrison Ford is visibly having fun and that in turn makes it fun watching him. Also Han is allowed to be an asshole again occasionally. No more of that Greedo shot first nonsense.

BB8 - When I first saw him in the trailer I was like: Get that THING out of my Star Wars!! Now I just love the little guy. Very positively surprised.

Another thing I really hated in the trailer was Kylo Ren's lightsaber design. After seeing the movie I must say it's a perfect reflection of his personality. Of course it's ridiculous and raw edged and clearly belonging to someone trying to overcompensate for something, but that is what makes it so unmistakably Kylo.

I also really like the new stormtrooper design. Plus they seem to be more competent than in the old movies.

The look of the movie finally feels like Star Wars again.

That last scene. Mark Hamill kills it!

Cons:

Criminal under-use of Max von Sydow. Seriously, I don't even know who his character was supposed to be.

Criminal under-use of Captain Phasma. Well, okay, maybe I'm just putting that here because I'm fangirling a little about Gwendoline Christie.

The plot was a little too obviously a rip-off of A New Hope.

General Hux - Overacting much?

They're hiding Andy Serkis behind CGI again.

Those monsters on Han's ship are just silly.

What in blazes was Luke's lightsaber doing in Maz's basement?

Neutral:

Poe Dameron - Seems cool, but he had too little screentime for me to really feel either way.

Kylo Ren - Turned from show-off badass to emo teenager. Thankfully Adam Driver is a way better actor than Hayden Christensen and that saves the character from the cons list.

And for the record, I also believe that Rey is Luke's daughter. Not only because of the lightsaber vision and her waiting for her family to return, but also because she seems to have latent memories of the place Luke is hiding out in. Pay close attention to the scene where Kylo is rummaging around in her mind.

What if Han and Luke were lovers in between the movies and had a clone child? That's probably what happened.

BTW, I love it. And I liked a lot of things that people didn't.

Adam Driver's Kylo Ren -- Nobody is strong with the force yet. He's got some neat tricks, what with the mind-raping and blaster-halting, but he's so enraged, so lost and so unstable, that he has yet to reach deeply into his hatred for his Dark Side force-powers.

In the video game The Force Unleashed (at least #2, maybe #1), "unstable" lightsaber crystals gave the same effect as Kylo Ren's. And unstable is Kylo Ren.

I like that he didn't have a Darth in front of his name. I may be mistaken, but it appears that the bad guys are indeed bad, but not quite as well-versed in the Dark Side. Perhaps the big bad guy is an actual Sith species, and he gets his pool of knowledge from the culture of his people? I don't know. I like the mystery.

He was also pretty crappy with a lightsaber, all-in-all. He was injured, sure, but he's clearly no Obi-Wan in the prequels.

When we look at the OT, Dark Vader appears to be an amazingly talented but muzzled lightsaber fighter. He looks like crap in A New Hope, but he's just testing the old man. In Episode 5, he toys with Luke, trying to bring out his anger. But as soon as Vader himself gets injured, it only takes three motions of his lightsaber before Luke is disarmed, has no hand, and is in position to join him or die. In Episode 6, more or less the same thing. He toys with him, just trying to get Luke to reach his darkest parts. I don't know if he counted on the Emperor to stop him from slaying Vader or not. But I still don't see him as totally beaten even with him on the ground. Though I could be wrong.

Anyway, Kylo and Rey really go at it with everything they have. They clearly suck, but are giving it their all. I liked it.

Also, I liked Kylo Ren's helmet. It changes his voice and his face, both which he despises. He cannot hide from the truth, which is evident in the tears in his eyes. But he is utterly lost, and must hide from the shame that is his own face.

Poe - I loved the character. I loved the emotion of finding his friend again. He didn't need any more in this movie. He felt very Hermione-ish to me. She's barely in the first 2 or 3 movies, but by the end, she's one of your favorite character. An into now is good. It also cleared the way to allow some better introductions of other characters.


What are all the specific origins, parentage, how did the lightsaber get there? And other mysteries?
I like mysteries. And especially when they have satisfying conclusions. It's easy to guess a million answers that make sense, and that's what makes them good mysteries. When they're revealed, you throw away your other 999,999 other guesses and declare "I knew it!" with a big smile splayed across your face.


The main issue I have is:
Rey
Ren
Ben
Poe
Finn

I kept swapping names in my head. For a while, I thought Rey's name was Rey Finn. I'm terrible with names, though. I think I got them all straight now. :)

I loved it.

I noticed you've already said that. The more you keep saying it, the less value the words have... which, like the movie, doesn't start with much.

I read that Harrison really wanted Solo dead. So, should I not blame Kylo for killing Solo, but blame Solo for committing suicide or something?

Harrison Ford has wanted to kill of Han Solo since 1982. George Lucas wouldn't let him do it because George needed his face and likeness for his endless money printing machine.

The worst mistake they made was in not letting Ford get his wish. Solo would have been so much cooler if he taken a permanent carbonite nap.

The carbonite is a cocoon. Think of Solo as a worm changing to a butterfly. Symbolism, mighty power indeed. Pre-ice cube Solo was an edgy dangerous rogue with a heart of gold. Post-ice cube Solo was a whipped family man hugging ewoks and picking the jedi kids up from day care. Neither Ford nor Solo would have wanted that. The real Solo was a dude with balls. He deserved a final moment of glory before death. Instead of last stand Solo, we got retired and moved to Florida Solo. Which one would you want to see on screen?

More like the carbonite was a "soft kill". Ford hated playing Solo and didn't know if he was up for doing it a third time, so he asked the writers to kill him. The carbonite allowed them to either say "of course he's dead, he was frozen!" or "of course he's not dead, we can defreeze him" depending on whether or not they got him back for Return of the Jedi.

All this talk about Harrison Ford makes me want another Indiana Jones-movie.

And yes, I've seen The Force Awakens. It was excellent :D

I like this movie even if have some obvious flaws
PS:Am I the only one that after see the endo of the movie think about this?
https://youtu.be/KPiqEdeothU