It's a Trap! -- Official Star Wars spoiler space

Yeah, the moment that got me emotionally wasn't Han Solo's death - because there's just that long pause you know it's coming - but that twinkle in his eye when he says "I knew Luke."

What planet the New Order blew up. It's funny because we actually get to see the panicked last moments of that world, but what it is and what the stakes are of losing it are more opaque than the death of Alderaan (where we never visit) in the first movie. According to Reddit the world is Chandrila, the home planet of Mon Mothma and the capital of the New Republic. It's in the Hosnian System, which I guess is where the other exploded worlds are.

Besides Jakku, the film doesn't really establish which planets are which honestly. Took me a while to get that Starkiller Base is also a planet.

There is a lot to unpack here. I really liked the movie, loved even. I was nearly brought to joyful tears a few times throughout the film. Buuuuut, it felt really safe. Of course Kylo Ren is son to Han and Leia, of course JJ abrams did a lot of retreads from the original trilogy, of course there isn't a death star but a death planet. Of course Han dies. I hate that a mainstays character death isn't shocking, but the expected route now. I kinda wish Abrams bucked it and just kept Han alive. Also, for actually borrowing quite a bit from the EU, you couldn't call Ben Jacen? Jacen Solo is a better name, not to mention if anyone was going to have a kid named ben it would be Luke. Leia never actually met the dude, and Han barely talked to him(to be fair Luke didn't either, but it is Luke who had the ghost show up a lot).

And I will agree with previous sentiments that the movie didn't really do a good job of establishing the resistance vs the new order. If anything it seems like the empire grew a whole lot stronger after the defeat of the emperor while the rebellion became smaller. It feels like the resistance is maybe 50 people.

I do really like Kylo Ren as a villain, and while he does work better with the mask on. I think him being a conflicted 20 something works. And for as stupid as a lightsaber with a hilt seems, it worked. It felt like there was actual weight to the saber that made it more dangerous and unstable, it was more akin to a great sword.

And I don't really like the way they took the force, while the prequels took it one way, here it took it the complete opposite. All Rey has to do is close her eyes and think for a second and she becomes powerful enough to fight like a master jedi for a few minutes? Not buying it, also the dream sequence when she touched the lightsaber did feel out of place.

I did like Snoke and especially Hux. I'm really hoping Snoke is as big as he seems, the safe route of course is that he is actually small like Yoda, like DRC mentioned. But him actually being that big would be something cool and a bit unexpected even if we have seen him as a big hologram. Since it is a hologram most people probably are thinking something isn't quite right with him being that big, so it staying the same would be somewhat of a surprise. And Hux is great, even if he isn't thrawn.

It was cool to see Ackbar and Nien Nunb back, but where the fuck is Lando?

Poe is the best, but sadly his role was about as big as I expected going into this. I really hope he gets more to do in the sequel and the new trio actually becomes the new trio instead of Finn jumping back and forth between Rey and Poe.

In the end it was actually better than I expected and I really liked it, but Abrams couldn't shed all of his problems as a director(being safe, and reusing old ideas). Oh yeah, the score was really disappointing. Of course the old stuff was great, but there was nothing new that stood out or I can even remember. It did sound like star wars music, but in a generic way.

Okay, yeah, that's a bit better but at the same time if the new order has enough resources and power to make the Death Planet and just wipe out the new republic in an instant, seems like they should have won this war already, even if that was the first time firing it. Also, the new republic fucking sucks then if it isn't helping back the resistance more than it should.

Sorry this is so scattered, I just walked out

If I didn't have so much self-restraint I would have done a full cheer and fist pump when Rey force-grabbed the lightsaber. Even though I saw it coming from a mile away it was so good.

Wanted more Oscar Isaac but I always want more Oscar Isaac. Ridley was fantastic. And I guess this is minority maybe but I absolutely loved Driver. Thought he had/has a great physical presence and voice, at least with the mask on. (Why did he use the mask anyway? Just Vader idolatry?)

This really just underscores how disastrous the prequels are. Like this isn't rocket science. Everything had a weight to it and when you hold back on CGI it makes the use of it so much more palatable. The creatures Han was smuggling were legitimately gross.

My only qualms have already been covered - confusion about the size/success of the First Order and Resistance, just a tiny bit too much fan-service/callbacks, and I didn't really care for having the whole movie lead up to one second of Luke. What if Hamill dies or something, isn't he old.[/spoil]
    

- it actually was like poetry. It rhymes!
- it was absolutely brilliant to make Kylo Ren into a deranged, vaguely pathetic man-child instead of some kind of "even-more-badass-than-Vader" Mary Sue villain. He's way scarier and more interesting that way. And he was exactly how Anakin should have been portrayed.
- I suspected what would happen to Han. It still felt like being hit by a truck. I haven't been genuinely shaken by a fictional death like that since Dumbledore.

I loved how anticlimactic that reveal was, and I think it fits with the character. He's pathetic. He's not a badass, he's an emotionally-stunted dork who happens to have extraordinary power and severe rage issues. To me, that's a way more interesting way to play him than as a genuinely cool Vader 2.0. He's a bully with a chip on his shoulder, the sort of guy who was always picked on as a kid and resents it so deeply that he'll throw a tantrum and throw things around the room if he thinks you've slighted him, or who will scream at his girlfriend for hours on end if she looks at him funny. I thought Adam Driver brought an unnervingly real quality to the character.

Rey suddenly going "oh right, The Force! I should totally try to use that!" in the middle of the lightsaber duel when Kylo mentioned it on the cliff edge... no. Just, no.
The visions worked for me, though. Hope they get deep into this next time... especially since a film called The Force Awakens doesn't really show The Force awaken.

So Rey is Luke's daughter right? We don't know any other force people than Luke and Leia. That makes her Kylo Ren's cousin. Luke abandoned her after Kylo went Sith, afraid that he would screw her up too. This would neatly parallel what Obi Wan did with Luke.