That was “I told you that story so I could tell you this one.” There are two much more interesting stories on either side. Ben’s Fall could have done the justice that Anakin never got. Rei’s training is the next film.
For Luke being absent the whole dang film, you never feel his absence. Which is weird.
This film had a whole lot of staring.
I liked the movie! The remix of archetypes (with a many new, surprisingly thoughtful snags) for the new characters was a lot fun. I also really appreciated how much screen time was devoted to establishing who they were with minimal dialogue. It’s what I was hoping to get, and somehow I didn’t think we’d actually see a blockbuster movie (especially one as safe as Star Wars is now) slow down long enough to let us see it, what with the manic editing/pacing/storytelling of like, Avengers films for example.
The revisiting of a lot of the story beats of A New Hope was something I was mostly expecting, but (post prequel-blues) I wasn’t looking for much more in this movie than to give a damn about the characters I’m supposed to care about. Which I did! Casting aside that the nature of the conflict remains basically unchanged 30 years later, or however long it’s been, the fact that I was left wanting to know more about what’s going to happen next was actually a nice feeling to have leaving a big expensive movie.
My knee jerk reaction is that the Big Bad should not have been revealed this time, so up-close and so frequently. Unless he’s not what he seems, which would be neat, though I’m not holding my breath. The giant projection was a nice touch, though. My eye-rolling at the CG-ness of Snoke was mostly offset by seeing actual, honest to goodness puppets for like 12 seconds at least.
Speaking of revisiting story beats, rolling through a few comment sections in a review to see angry fans cursing JJ Abrams for his “lack of originality”, as if he were solely responsible for the content of the film, and as if the original Star Wars itself was never a slightly altered pastiche of movies its creators had grown up watching (with a thick layer of polish added) is very funny to me.
Yeah yeah yeah, all that Force Awakens stuff is interesting, but it’s old news now that the movie is already out. Since this is JJ “mystery box” Abrams we’re talking about, the only thing to do now is speculate about which tantalizing hints offered in this movie are going to be followed through on in the next one, which lingering questions will be answered, and which will be deferred until Episode 10: Jedi Babies vs. Jabba Junior, directed by Jake Lloyd, is released in 2035. Obviously this still implies huge spoilers for TFA.
My theories:
The perfect shrugpandering 
I wish they had ended on the final close-up of Rey holding out the saber, instead of cutting to a helicopter shot.
Hoping Luke’s times in isolation has left him a little loopy, like Yoda.
Bearded Hamill is a hell of a cliffhanger.
I agree, though the way the last few notes of the score swell into the credits cutting off Luke’s leitmotif was like, more than perfect and I had to pull it up on Youtube a bunch of times today to hear it again.
that leia and chewie didn’t console together is super fucked up.
Only one human woman/wookie hug per movie.
This is Disney Law.
This was an impressively fucking boring greatest hits collection
Cool explosions demo reel I guess
Constantly overlit, constantly lacking in headroom as in room for heads
Product of fear for a fearful age
This was probably the only thing in the movie to make me cringe. It’s like a musical way of tapping your watch and saying, “Okay we’re done, ROLL 'EM.”
I thought everything else in the movie was fine, really. The pacing is a bit buggered from about half-way through, though.
Yeah I feel like the pacing suffered a bit on account of the cutaways to anything happening with X-wings, since Poe, a character we don’t know very well, just kind of runs in and easily does a thing we’ve seen happen before in a couple of movies remembered more fondly, only with less tension somehow.
Adam Driver’s pristinely helmetproof Paul Atreides hair deserves a… something
Harrison Ford didn’t seem like he wanted to be in the movie. I’m glad Poe “The Man” Dameron gets to shine in the next movie.
The paternity reveal was weird. Snoke just casually drops it in an unrelated connective scene and then in The Worst Scene in the Movie Han and Leia spew a bunch of redundant history they know at each other for the benefit of the audience. Save the reveal for Han yelling, “Ben!” and the punch is much better. It’s like they don’t get the ESB twist.
the most disappointing thing in this movie, besides the fact that it’s a 2 hour Pretty Good Cover Song of New Hope (really? another Death Star? having a line making fun of it doesn’t change the fact they still did it), is the fact that Gwendoline Christie’s Silver Stormtrooper character, which i was excited about, maybe gets like 5 total minutes of screen time and most of it is in the service of jokiness. but ya know, that’s what the next sequels in this new Star Wars Cinematic Universe is for, i guess.
my hope is that this movie is the “Ok here’s all the remix crap you want” and now they can move on to more interesting ideas and considering the set ups for the next movie, i’m rather excited. I like Rey and Finn and wanna see more stuff with them. also it’s glaringly obvious that they set up Rey as Kylo’s sister, right? that’s what everyone who’s seen it has been saying so does that mean they’re gonna invert the expectations of that?
say what you will about Force Awakens being a dumb rehash, but i’m legit excited for Episode VIII
rey is kylo’s cousin @ronk gosh keep up 
@shrug oh was that stated? i missed that?
99% sure he didn’t want to be. He at least demonstrably doesn’t give a fuck about Han Solo fans. Good guy.
it was good. thought i would be pissed at references to the older movies but that didn’t happen. most of them were composed in a way they stand by themselves, i’d say. had a cool pacing to it, with short-but-fresh breathing time in between action sequences.
gotta say my eyes got teary twice throughout the movie, first one being chewie hugging leia and the very final scene (which, yeah, could’ve been better without the helicopter shot).
i like how long was the close-up take on kylo ren’s face when he is with han solo. the whole movie is a safe bet all around, sure, but at least it’s cool to know they can do that sort of thing on blockbusters. kinda sad at the same time, coming to think of it.
this is the second time i watch a recent movie on the theater with the first one being mad max so yeah i’m more than happy with action movies this year.