Kylo Ren might just be the most interesting character in Star Wars thus far. Everything Anakin should have been in the prequels, makes a great impression without a great deal of screen time compared to everyone else. His rages and tantrums were almost managed to one-up Vader's officer culls without being a blatant copy. The idea of a character that fears 'falling' to the Light Side is very new and fascinating, his familial ties work (mainly to set up Han's death) and his design and voice with the mask on I feel will become every bit as iconic as Vader. More on this later, but the way he fights just brutal, his bastard-sword-esque Lightsaber looked and sounded great and the fact he used the hilt in combat as well to stab Finn was very satisfying. Loved the fact they called him Ben as well.

The action pieces throughout the film blew me away. The opening Stormtrooper massacre, the levelling of the cantina/palace and the assault on the Starkiller base interspersed with Finn and Rey taking on Ren were the standouts, the two dogfights were excellent and the lightsaber duels were more visceral, 'real' and emotional than anything other than possibly Luke vs Vader in Empire. The sabers seemed to have a real weight to them, more like actual swords than anything else, and the injuries they left were somehow a lot more exciting to see than just slicing through limbs with no real effort.

Now let's talk about Han Solo... As I said before, Ford's best performance, and every bit the Han we know and love from the originals; scruffy looking nerf-herding, great interactions with both new and old cast, and general badassery right up to his last moments. The bridge scene mirrors Obi-wan's death wonderfully, just as Qui-gon's did, and continues that cycle without becoming a parody of it. Sadly, it had been spoiled for me previously, but that did absolutely nothing to dull the impact of the scene. Whoever they cast in the Solo solo film has very, very big boots to fill.

Finn and Rey were fantastic. Their on-screen dynamic was perfect, and while there's still a lot of mystery, particularly around Rey, I left the film feeling like I 'know' them as well as I do Luke or Han or Leia. I feel we're going to get the rest of Rey's story in the next film, perhaps as she trains with Luke (kind of think she may be his daughter...), and that's definitely something I look forward to. Poe Dameron is also brilliant, underused but a worthy 'new' Han Solo character. Cool X-wing piloting shenanigans and slick dialogue definitely leaves me wanting to see more of him.

Practical effects and sparing use of CGI, fantastic. Not a lot more needs to be said there; Snoke maybe looked a little off, but that's as much due to the size as anything else, I think.

Think that's just about a wrap for me, I'll conclude with my top 5 moments just for the hell of it:

5) Trench Run! I saw the X-wings dive, saw the trench, wondered if they were going to do it and hell yes, they did! Brilliant sequence.
4) The first Falcon sequence, from 'garbage will do' to the chase through the Star Destroyer, was just amazing. Looked great, sounded great, and there were some very cool manoeuvres on show (loved the shot where Rey 'slammed the breaks on' so Finn can get the shot at the second TIE.
3) Poe and Finn's TIE-fighter escape (funny how that's 3 in a row featuring cool spaceships! ). Hilarious dialogue, cool action, a great first real set piece of the film.
4) Han's death scene. 'Nuff said.
5) Kylo Ren vs Finn and Rey. Hands down the best lightsaber fight in all 7 films. Superb choreography, great visuals, so charged with emotion and power.

and have her swap positions with Ren

all three had a mentor who dies in the first act of the trilogy ( Jinn, Kenobi, Solo)

The Good:

It was still more entertaining than the prequels. The new leads were likeable. Han Solo had some killer lines and everything about him and chewie sold it and anchored this jaded old timer and was the perfect tonic to help suspend disbelief and quiet down my stupid brain with all its thinking. The sound was amazing, the visuals were amazing, the action was surprisingly grounded and very well shot. The transitions weren't overdone. The pace and the character development was really good until it got cranked up to 11. I would recommend this movie, I would watch it again. It's funny and exciting, the new characters are interesting and likeable, oscar isaac nails poe dameron. Great character. Ray seemingly living in the wreck of an at-at was amazing. I didn't recognize simon pegg at all, that was cool.


The Bad:

I'm sure I'll sound a little harsh and rambling, I'm sure half of this is just nitpicking for the sake of it. The story was good enough up until the csi-level forced exposition scene where an attack on the "star killer base" is apparently planned democratically in about 45 seconds in the military equivalent of detectives barking back and forth across a bullpen. I can understand feeling a bit guilty about recycling half the plot and not wanting to tread water too long in eerily familiar scenes but man, even if I believe for a second that space travel in star wars is almost instantaneous, that's not reason to speed the pace up through what should be one of the most interesting exposition in the while movie.

The entire first order side of this was handled terribly. For one, they're more preoccupied with finding skywalker than using their super weapon. Using it to destroy those core worlds is like an afterthought hux:"hey supreme leader guy, we should like totally use this bad ass laser to like blow up planets n stuff" snoke: "ya that'd be radballs, go 4 it bro! I wish I thought of that". Snoke didn't work for me, I was relieved when its revealed he's a hologram. I get it, power obsessed, he a megalomaniac, metaphor. I get it. But he just seems incredibly generic. Hux too sadly. Domhnall gleeson did his best but his line were pretty gak. The speech just kinda felt flat, I wish there was more substance/ideology put forth in it. His hat also was distracting. Nothing he could do with what was written for him. Kylo ren was ok. His sword is still seems unnecessary. Adam driver is really talented but he looks kinda goofy, big ears, big front teeth. Not sure if the hair was meant to hide the ears or to humanize him some more. If the helmet only came off the once with han and maybe the helmet be partially destroyed by ray with the final sabre blow, that I coulda lived with and would had very much understood it while still not feeling enthralled, but I just saw too much of the him. Too much of a young adult feel to the new order. That's probably intentional, it probably is supposed to use metaphor to replace actual interesting exposition over vague inference. Hux and ren were probably supposed to be similar age to help push the rival vibe, for whatever reason. Points for at least not verbatim copying tarkin and vader's mad dog on a leash thing, but it just wasn't very interesting.

The resistance... why is it the resistance if the republic...is...back? Why is leia a general but has no dialogue and barely seems in charge of anything, I suspect maybe there was more and it was either cut or they couldn't coax it out of carrie fisher. Leia's best scenes in the original trilogy is when she's addressing the pilots on hoth and "generaling" the gak out of every early scene, it's a shame she felt more like a cameo. It was nice to see her, wish she had more to say. Leia and Ray never meet face to face until the end, but they hug. The entire starkiller base is planet sized and they happen to land on the continent where ray is. Tie fighters apparently now seat two people, I was actually fine with that until it never came up again and none of the tie fighters seemed to be shooting from the rear. Why did they bomb the crap out the bar when they wanted the droid?

Where did the map come from? Why go into hiding and leave a treasure map? Why is finding him so important to the resistance and the first order, in so much that it would seem the entire focus and or "raison d'etre" of both parties, no intergalactic civil war to speak of. Wouldn't the senate and thus the republic have to fall before a resistance could exist? The star killer base has been around long enough that fin served on it and was in sanitation and yet they wait until a really random and arbitrary time to take it out for a spin.

Taking the mask off.... just no. It reads like a contractual obligation or something, which I understand to some extent for up and coming stars but god damn man, maybe the once for the han scene but it was too much. I also don't understand why they execute all the villagers, I understand its presence in the story make fin re-think this whole new order thing and ofcourse to reinforce new order = bad guys. This could have been a good framing device for the state of the first order like they're still really obscure or secretive or something. But now, everyone seems to know who they are and/or in their employ one way or the other, both the groups of pirates were well aware of them. So why execute everyone? There's any number of reasons I'd buy but it felt too forced to me.

Anyway, it lost points because it had a good thing going but in typical jj fashion chose to keep the backstory as something you're actively encouraged to ignore and not think about. The world you create is just as important as the characters you put in it. If mad max can do enough to clue me in and still have plenty of detail in all that action, star wars can too. If mad max can make the old feel new, star wars can and should too.