Terribly sorry for recalling this thread back from oblivion, but since I saw Rogue One this Monday I've dedicated some time to rewatching episodes four through seven in succession and this in turn gave me a lot of food for thoughts some of which I would like to share with you, people.
So, after sitting through Force Awakens a second time yesterday I actually... Came to like that movie a lot more. Surprising, I know. The first time around once the euphoria of seeing a new chapter in the Star Wars saga settled down I've started to notice just how similar the new movie looked to New Hope and - to be honest - felt kind of cheated because of that. Now however I've uncovered a deeper kind of appreciation for episode VII and its characters. For instance I've heard people voicing opinions about Rey being a Mary Sue and such, but come on - Luke's been living his whole life prior to the original Star Wars movie in the safety of his uncle's farmstead and then when the moment arrived suddenly discovered he can handle firearms better than specially train military personel, pilot X-wings as well as any Rebellion veteran and deflect blaster fire with a lightsaber blindfolded after only a couple of days spent with Obi-Wan... But Rey being able to fight or pilot spacecrafts well is definitely overpowered. We're only talking about a girl who lived her entire life on a hostile planet with no infrastructure and had to either fend for herself or die of thirst and starvation.
I also begin to think that Kylo Ren is an underappreciated character. Die hard fans call him "Darth Whiny" and think he's a bit of a joke, but that's actually kinda the point: he's not supposed to be the next Darth Vader, the movie makes it clear that Ren is just a confused young man who's being manipulated by the Dark Side of the Force and just pretends he can be "as cool as grandpa". He's an imitator with a tragic backstory and not a bad focus for a new fable about the eternal struggle of good versus evil at that.
However the biggest problem with Ben's character as well as with the entire movie is bad presentation and complete and utter lack of any sensible universe building. I think everyone agrees on this part: we're shown and explained almost nothing about what's going on when the movie starts. The viewer knows absolutely nothing about the First Order or the Ressistance going in and why the New Republic doesn't really interfere in their conflict. We know very little about our new protagonists or the bad guys, we're given only the tiniest bits of information here and there and as a result can't embrace them as fully developed characters. I understand where J.J. Abrams was coming from with this: it's the same as in New Hope, where very little detail about anything was communicated to the audience and the story kept intentionally simple, but it's the seventh movie in the series - there's a galaxy of established lore and mythos, you can't just expect people to gulp down everything without asking any questions.
Take the Starkiller base for example - it's an extremely important plot element for Force Awakens, yet it just comes out of nowhere and noone in the movie itself bother to explain anything about it. They never tell you that it's an improved design compared to the previous Death Star weapon or that it's cheaper to build (what's easier to do: turn a planet into a weapon or build an entire planetoid from scratch?) or that the method by which it operate is completely different. Neither do they elaborate on that it has no reactor that can be blown up, but that a leak has to be caused in its stars consuming center to make the weapon implode on itself... No! They just do it and it goes out with a blast. This is an example of a huge missed opportunity on director's and Disney's part to invest the viewers in what was going on in a new Star Wars movie and the recently released Rogue One movie just makes it too darn obvious what the flaw with this one was.
And yeah, as of right now my top 5 favourite SW movies list looks as follows:
1. Empire Strikes Back - the absolute masterpiece;
2. New Hope - the one that started it all;
3. Rogue One - the best representation of many aspects of the series to date;
4. Return of the Jedi - the first half of it is a mess, but the ending is just iconic;
5. Force Awakens - kinda screwed up, but can still grow into something amazing. Only time will tell!
