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Why Am I Disappointed with Star Wars: The Force Awakens? My Non-Spoiler Review:
I just went to see the new Star Wars film “The Force Awakens” and I think it is a good film, but not great.
I am a pretty die-hard Star Wars fan and I did not go in there expecting to have my mind blown, however I did go with the idea that I would leave the theater with the same awe I did with the other Star Wars films.
At first, I could not figure out why I was so disappointed, but then after rethinking the film, I began to see why.
The Bad: The mega-advertising and merchandise campaign on this film was simply enormous and that made the expectations of the film to be highly anticipated as super-great. Put plainly, the hype on this film was outrageous so, the film had very big shoes to fill.
It is always – and I mean always – very bad to only feature a tiny cameo of the person that the entire film is about in the movie! I don’t care how understanding you are as a fan, mark my words, people are going to be disappointed by it, despite understanding why it was done.
Because of the pace and editing style of the film…even some dialogue and humor - It had a cheeky “Star-Trek” like feel to it…you can see this if you go back and watch the Star Trek films that Abrams made.
Not to say that was bad, because I loved those films, too. But Star Wars is not Star Trek!
If you are a fan of the many, many books that were controversially made “Non-Canon” that feature the adventures of the Star Wars universe (The EU –or Expanded Universe) after Return of the Jedi, you will see some very familiar rip-offs from the book series.
In fact, the main villain in this film is an obvious and tremendous rip-off to a Sith character from the now “trashed” book series. Namely Darth Caedus! It’s a real surprise that no one else is calling this out yet!
One part of the film has seemingly huge inconsistencies that the audience can’t ignore. This is that one of the main characters is able to battle another very powerful figure with no kind of training or explanation what so ever!!!
I mean come on now, even Luke Skywalker himself had to train with two masters to confront Darth Vader!
I heard some disdain about this gross unbalance in whispers in the theater. However, if you read the EU books – you would know that this character has a reason why the battle had gone so well for him/her.
But you could notice this ONLY if you read the ironically trashed EU books.
Regular fans would not pick up on this, as I had, unless you’re a true SW nerd! (I.E Force Possession & Battle Meditation) Yet one more thing they stole from the book series that they trashed…

The CGI on one of the main alien characters in the film was not as good as say that done on Gollum in Lord of the Rings, so yes, I liked her, but I expected much more from ILM.
Another huge hidden trick of sorts is made in disillusioning the audience to think the child of one the main figures is legitimate, but in fact, if you watch the film closely, especially in the ending scene when the near-tearful, emotional eyes of one of the old school heroes, meets the young hero – you will know that there is a huge family connection between these two that is NOT what is being proposed in this first film. Once again, the EU “Non-Canon” books gives it away.
It is no wonder why Disney made all these great EU books “Non-Canon”, because they will be a water-well for them to take from, change around a bit, and alter to their own means.
Although some old heroes of the original trilogy are in the film, the plot of the film made them feel more like forced cameos than actual functioning players in the story.
By far the most disappointing thing in this film is what I term as a lack of a finale or true showdown in the film.
Yes, there was a finale-esque battle, but it was nowhere near anything like a real finale as in say Darth Maul VS Obi Wan and Qui Gon Jinn, or Luke VS Vader, or Sidious VS Yoda, ect.
This lack of a true finale that all other Star Wars films had is what really gave off the bad taste of disappointment for me.
The Good: It does have some really interesting characters that I got into quite quickly. Oddly, more than the two main characters, the one of resistance Pilot, Poe, for some odd reason stood out to me more than the others. Though he was not the main figure in the film. Just good acting maybe? Who knows?
The cinematography is superior to the other films and its practical effects over the CGI were awesome.

Conclusion: I really liked this movie a lot, but it had some whoppers on inconsistencies that needed to be explained in the first film.
I’m sure the next films will shed some light on these, but some of them were so huge that they were needed to be explained in order for the audience to understand how or what these characters where doing in the first place!
So sure, lots of people complained about the Star Wars prequels, mainly about the excessive use of CGI, but that’s the same as saying that Return of the Jedi had an excess use of Muppets – we deal with it and look at the story overall.
I honestly have to say that when I left the theater after seeing the Darth Maul Duel in Phantom Menace, or the Ending of Revenge of the Sith, I was much more exhilarated then when I left the theater after seeing this film!
…I’m being honest about that. However, I will say and I am quite happy, that this film marks a great start to a new series and new characters…and that’s a great reason in itself to go and see it!

Description

Why Am I Disappointed with Star Wars: The Force Awakens? My Non-Spoiler Review:
I just went to see the new Star Wars film “The Force Awakens” and I think it is a good film, but not great.
I am a pretty die-hard Star Wars fan and I did not go in there expecting to have my mind blown, however I did go with the idea that I would leave the theater with the same awe I did with the other Star Wars films.
At first, I could not figure out why I was so disappointed, but then after rethinking the film, I began to see why.
The Bad: The mega-advertising and merchandise campaign on this film was simply enormous and that made the expectations of the film to be highly anticipated as super-great. Put plainly, the hype on this film was outrageous so, the film had very big shoes to fill.
It is always – and I mean always – very bad to only feature a tiny cameo of the person that the entire film is about in the movie! I don’t care how understanding you are as a fan, mark my words, people are going to be disappointed by it, despite understanding why it was done.
Because of the pace and editing style of the film…even some dialogue and humor - It had a cheeky “Star-Trek” like feel to it…you can see this if you go back and watch the Star Trek films that Abrams made.
Not to say that was bad, because I loved those films, too. But Star Wars is not Star Trek!
If you are a fan of the many, many books that were controversially made “Non-Canon” that feature the adventures of the Star Wars universe (The EU –or Expanded Universe) after Return of the Jedi, you will see some very familiar rip-offs from the book series.
In fact, the main villain in this film is an obvious and tremendous rip-off to a Sith character from the now “trashed” book series. Namely Darth Caedus! It’s a real surprise that no one else is calling this out yet!
One part of the film has seemingly huge inconsistencies that the audience can’t ignore. This is that one of the main characters is able to battle another very powerful figure with no kind of training or explanation what so ever!!!
I mean come on now, even Luke Skywalker himself had to train with two masters to confront Darth Vader!
I heard some disdain about this gross unbalance in whispers in the theater. However, if you read the EU books – you would know that this character has a reason why the battle had gone so well for him/her.
But you could notice this ONLY if you read the ironically trashed EU books.
Regular fans would not pick up on this, as I had, unless you’re a true SW nerd! (I.E Force Possession & Battle Meditation) Yet one more thing they stole from the book series that they trashed…

The CGI on one of the main alien characters in the film was not as good as say that done on Gollum in Lord of the Rings, so yes, I liked her, but I expected much more from ILM.
Another huge hidden trick of sorts is made in disillusioning the audience to think the child of one the main figures is legitimate, but in fact, if you watch the film closely, especially in the ending scene when the near-tearful, emotional eyes of one of the old school heroes, meets the young hero – you will know that there is a huge family connection between these two that is NOT what is being proposed in this first film. Once again, the EU “Non-Canon” books gives it away.
It is no wonder why Disney made all these great EU books “Non-Canon”, because they will be a water-well for them to take from, change around a bit, and alter to their own means.
Although some old heroes of the original trilogy are in the film, the plot of the film made them feel more like forced cameos than actual functioning players in the story.
By far the most disappointing thing in this film is what I term as a lack of a finale or true showdown in the film.
Yes, there was a finale-esque battle, but it was nowhere near anything like a real finale as in say Darth Maul VS Obi Wan and Qui Gon Jinn, or Luke VS Vader, or Sidious VS Yoda, ect.
This lack of a true finale that all other Star Wars films had is what really gave off the bad taste of disappointment for me.
The Good: It does have some really interesting characters that I got into quite quickly. Oddly, more than the two main characters, the one of resistance Pilot, Poe, for some odd reason stood out to me more than the others. Though he was not the main figure in the film. Just good acting maybe? Who knows?
The cinematography is superior to the other films and its practical effects over the CGI were awesome.

Conclusion: I really liked this movie a lot, but it had some whoppers on inconsistencies that needed to be explained in the first film.
I’m sure the next films will shed some light on these, but some of them were so huge that they were needed to be explained in order for the audience to understand how or what these characters where doing in the first place!
So sure, lots of people complained about the Star Wars prequels, mainly about the excessive use of CGI, but that’s the same as saying that Return of the Jedi had an excess use of Muppets – we deal with it and look at the story overall.
I honestly have to say that when I left the theater after seeing the Darth Maul Duel in Phantom Menace, or the Ending of Revenge of the Sith, I was much more exhilarated then when I left the theater after seeing this film!
…I’m being honest about that. However, I will say and I am quite happy, that this film marks a great start to a new series and new characters…and that’s a great reason in itself to go and see it!