Oh my god…
I saw it, and I absoutely ADORED it! I'm gonna be honest, it's probably now my second favorite Star Wars movie just behind Empire. It's THAT good.
It wasn't without its flaws, but hey, Empire isn't either, and that's my favorite film of all time.
more in-depth thoughts in spoiler tags for spoilers:
! First off, I did notice the parallels to the original trilogy, especially Episode IV.
! I was actually ok with them because they did Subvert a fair amount of them.
! Like, at two points a hero gets caputred by the bad guys, first it was the person who put the important info in the droid like in New Hope (this time Pope instead of Leia) and later it's Rey. In both situations, none of the primary heroes had to save them.
First, Finn defected to save Pope. Second, they went to Save Rey only to find, surprise, she saved herself while they were getting there.
! This generation's Skywalker isn't the main character, he's the villain up front. In each of the prior two trilogies, the main hero is the most recent generation of Skywalker and this fact isn't hidden, we learn it in the first movie. Anakin Skywalker is the Hero of the PT and turns evil at the end. Luke Skywalker is the Hero of the OT and resists the urge to turn evil at the end. Ben Solo (Skywalker) is the VILLAIN of this movie right off the bat, and we learn that early in the film. Neither of our main two (Rey or Finn) is a Skywalker yet, at least that we know.
! Kylo-Ren not succumbing to Talk no Jutsu and becoming a good guy was also a subversion. Obi-wan vs Anakin in RotS wasn't like this because Obi-wan went into that expecting a fight, he was fighting Anakin knowing full well that his slaughter of the kids at the Jedi Temple meant he wasn't gonna be swayed with words alone. RotJ had talk no Jutsu succeeding when Luke tried to bring Vader back at the end. This had the Talk no Jutsu fail and go badly.
! Also, Luke was kindof a whiny Wimp who had to become something cool, Rey starts out quite capable in her own right.
! Rey picking up The Force as quickly as she did didn't seem like a big stretch to me. After all, she isn't shown to be a MASTER or anything, the big things she does are:
1: Jedi Mind Trick. She had to try twice to get it to work tho.
2: Bring the Lightsaber to her.
and
3: Beat an already injured Kylo-Ren.
! It's less believable to me that Yoda trained Luke to be a full-fledged Jedi in, at most, a couple of weeks, possibly a couple of DAYS in Empire, than Rey figuring out how a couple of her force powers sort of work. Especially when she got told earlier in the movie that if she listens and looks inside herself, she can use the Force.
! The only part where I'd say it felt like too much of a rertread without turning on its heels too much is Starkiller base being a huge thing… but then again, it kinda felt secondary to the story about who Kylo-Ren was etc, and them looking for Luke. The search for Luke seems to be the A-Plot here and Starkiller base felt more like a loosely associated B-plot to give them a big threat to fight in the 3rd act.
Ultimately, that's why I forgive this one.
! Also, the loss of Han tore me apart... I saw it coming the second Han was trying to talk him down... I was like "No WAY they have Talk no Jutsu work on him, at least this early into the series" so I knew Han was gonna die there... but still, seeing one of my childhood icons die was heartbreaking... I cried so hard...