The Force should have hit snooze.

For the 10 or so of you paying attention, it should be fairly obvious that I was not a fan of the Star Wars prequels. I vaguely remember George Lucas doing an interview around 2011 saying he wouldn't be making anymore Star Wars movies and neither would anyone else. Disney had other plans. Disney and 4.05 billion little green helpers. 

I often find myself swearing blind that I will never watch a movie, under any circumstances. Forrest Gump, Titanic and the new Ghostbusters are all on that list. Force Awakens was on there too. I couldn't see the point of a sequel, let alone a trilogy of them. They left it way too long to do the Dark Empire story from the comics (which I rate actually, worth a read) and that slipped out of lore when they reshuffled the canon. At least I think it did, I'm not sure anybody is 100% certain on it. So instead we get a whole brand new set of characters,  plot lines and shenanigans. 

Or at least so we thought. 

I'm not even specifically referring to the returning cast. It makes sense for the saviours of the Republic to still be knocking around in some capacity, even 30 years later. Turns out it hasn't been the best of times, but that's ok. It's not like the original trilogy ended on a fantastic high, with the Evil Empire defeated, a villain redeemed and reunited with The Force and a village full of merchandiser's wet dreams celebrating heartily by playing the possibly decapitated heads of their enemies as drums. Oh wait, yes it did. Except maybe the heads part, that may have been a touch dark even for me. My point is, everything worked out in the end and we all went off happily humming the theme tune and I spent the next 30 years of my life wishing Speeder Bikes were a real thing. Why ruin it? 

$4.05 billion. 

It's an obscene amount of money even if you are Mickey Mouse. You'd have to be an idiot to fork out that sort of capital and not expect a significant return on it. Whatever else you say about Disney, idiots they are not. Of course they were going to make movies and of course I decided to boycott them. Then curiosity got the better of me and I decided that I ought to have my own opinion rather than rely on the disoriented babbling of the Internet. See Lord Vader? I can be reasonable. 

I went expecting the worst and although I didn't get that, I can't say I came out brimming with joy. I wasn't mad; I was just disappointed. 

The best way to describe it was a two and a half hour long deja vu experience, except stripped of all the fun. Everything in Force Awakens feels like it's pulled directly out of the original trilogy and just re-shot. Allow me to elaborate:

Jakku is just Tattooine. 

I know sand from one desert is usually pretty indistinguishable from most others but this is just silly. Also, what is it about abandoning orphans on desert planets? 

Rey is basically Luke. 

Except she's a girl, which there's nothing wrong with at all. Except the acting, which is ropey at best, and the fact that she's almost certainly related to Luke somehow which makes him a total douche for repeating history and dooming her to a series of sand-inhalation related respiratory disorders later in life. 

The Greatest Pilot in the Universe. 

Used to be Luke, now it's Poe Dameron. I can only assume Luke vacated the title after refusing to defend it. I have no idea whether having a robotic hand would help or hinder your basic star fighter piloting, but I assume it's the latter. 

Starkiller Base is The Death Star. 

Proving adequately that if at first you don't succeed try again. If that plan gets foiled in basically the same way but with added Ewoks the try just one more time except bigger. The Empire really needs to fire its military advisers. I can imagine the planning meeting:

'We have this great new weapon design.'

'Is it a Death Star by any chance?'

'Yes, but it's BIGGER!'

'Bigger you say? Go on...'

That Ginger Guy is Grand Moff Tarkin. 

Only less menacing, less memorable and looks like he's about 14 years old. This is what happens when you put all you high ranking Generals on one super weapon at the same time. Twice. All the Rebels need to do is plan their assaults during nap time and they'll have the whole thing wrapped up in days. 

Supreme Leader Snoke is Emperor Palpatine.  

Gnarly face? Check. Commands a powerful Sith? Check. Appears in hologram form? Check. Is probably someone else from the trilogy in disguise? Check. Snooze.  

Kylo Ren is Darth Vader. 

Well he wants to be and it is kinda part of the plot so I might let them have that. 

BB8 is R2D2. 

Just more annoying. Still carrying vital information for the rebellion, still miraculously finds itself in the hands of our abandoned orphan. 

There's a Mos Eisley in there, a little Yoda-like fount of all wisdom, a Death Star trench run at the end, a father figure character makes a sacrifice at the end of a lightsaber; the list goes on. I think the only characters that aren't directly lifted are Finn and Captain Phasma; Finn is fairly pivotal admittedly but Phasma is criminally underused. 

I left the cinema feeling cheated. It felt like lazy scriptwriting; like all they did was cobble together story beats from the original and re filmed them. JJ Abrams has said since that it was deliberate, to ease people back into the universe after 30 years away. Sorry JJ, but in a universe where Finn finds himself armed only with a lightsaber and is confronted by literally the only Stormtrooper in the history of the franchise to be carrying a melee weapon; I call shenanigans.