Just saw it finally this evening (well, last night evening...whatever.) So now I can join the conversation.

When I started this thread, my intention was to avoid seeing the spoilers myself until I saw the film, but I couldn't resist posting some nostalgia stuff while I waited, and I accidentally saw a post that said Han was killed, but I thought I also read Chewie died, and of course, he did not.

Now, first, I must say that they did an excellent job with this film from many perspectives:

I saw the original SW-IV A New Hope back in the day, and saw it four times when it first came out in the theatres. I still have my original collector's program, where Lucas describes the 'trilogy of trilogies' he planned on: IV-VI, then go back to I-III and finally doing VII-IX when the characters had aged 20 to 30 years. Therefore, it was no real surprise that Lucas found a way to make all of them as he had a pretty good perspective/idea of it from the beginning.

Also, remember, the Star Wars saga as conceived by Lucas was/is a combination of old Flash Gordan serials (where he stole the opening text crawl directly from) and Akiro Kurosawa stories, where he stole many of his plot and character ideas. As Bono said "every artist is a cannibal, every poet is a thief," so no big news there.

Before going to see this film in the theatre, I had re-watched the original trilogy (special edition ones, without all the added cgi and then with it) and also the I-III which I still consider garbage (even III was excruciatingly painful to watch with all the interminably dumb dialogue during the saber battle between Obi-wan and Anakin.)

The film itself was just well-made all around from a filmmaking perspective. It makes even the second, 'original' trilogy (IV-VI) look like campy amateur film-school drivel by comparison. I'm talking about the actual execution of the film here, not the story.

JJ Abrams didn't write this script by himself. Lawrence Kasden (Empire) helped co-write it. So it's naturally a hybrid of old and new, and that worked well to set up the story. They had a tremendous task to get a lot in for the new setup, retain the old while disassociating themselves from the 'prequels' which almost everyone agreed were terrible, terrible movies that hurt the franchise, although they made lots of money.

This is a more mature Star Wars, yet still accessible by newbies and younger fans. A great job balancing everything, with only a few nit-pics.

The cgi character in the bar (a second, more realistic 'cantina") that knew Han Solo was actually quite well done. The cgi character that annoyed me was the one on Jakku buying the scraps from Rey. But since he was brief, no big whoop.

I can't believe no one here gets the screamingly obvious plot point that Rey could very well be Ren's sister and Han and Leia's daughter. As Luke and Leia both were Anakin's kids. When "Ben Solo" and Rey are fighting and he is trying to extract the map from her, it is just like brother and sister sparring and resisting each other. Also explains why Rey both has the force abilities and can deal with the Falcon as she and Han Solo finish each other's sentences. Just a bit too obvious for me.

Luke is likely Rey's uncle, not her father. Separating Rey and putting her on a desert planet after the twins were born is what Obi-wan did to protect Luke and Leia, and it did work, so natural that Leia, Han and Luke would follow suit with Rey and Ben (Kylo Ren).

I agree Snoke may well be small in reality--perhaps kind of like a Dark Yoda? He may well be Plageius--we'll see.

Harrison Ford was so eager to come back and do this because he was promised Han would die, and he could finally get away from "Han shot first" (he really did--sorry George Lucas). This was Han Solo's movie, which is also why Luke was barely in it. Good idea not to try to explain everything at once. I was actually disappointed they went to go let us see Luke at the end--could have saved it for the start of the next film, but too hard for Disney to resist putting the teaser in there while we wait a year and a half.

The next film (next December) is Rogue One, about the stealing of the original Death Star plans by Leia and the rebels. Then VIII comes the next may, then two and a half years until the Han Solo origin story film, which Ford has said he will not be having anything to do with.

I thought they did a great job of believable inclusiveness in this movie. It was less a white people's Star Wars, and was pretty fairly balanced in mixing male/female, black/white,etc... in a believable way that did not seem as forced as those things usually do.

I think the Finn could be related to Lando theory might have legs, as we did not see Lando here, but saw several of his 'mates from Empire and Jedi in this film. Finn said he was captured as an older kid and that the Jakku landing was his first action--he was a sanitation guy job-wise. Hey, maybe he's even related to Mace Windu??? Nah, Jedi aren't supposed to get busy (What about Leia?? Well she never really studied the force, she just has it.)

I had a much easier time believing in Rey's fighting and flying skills than I did with Finn, who they made a little too unsure of himself.

Also, things moved just a bit too fast for me, until I remembered that we are watching a modern Flash Gordon series here, so then it makes a bit more sense. As far as Poe not saying he looked for Finn, well, that kind of thing was done in Flash Gordon all the time. We don't need to see every last breath of each character, after all.

It was difficult watching Han Solo die. I knew it was going to come when it did by the way the scene set up (why no railings on those catwalks all the time?) I first though Kylo was just going to push him, but it was a hell of a moment the way they did the scene. Ford was looking too old to play the action hero. He needed to go, and he really wanted to. maybe he'll come to regret it, but he's not gonna live forever anyway in real life. I thought they did about as good a job with it as they could. Also, it's nice to actually see a series brave enough to kill off a main character instead of always having everyone on the "A team'" survive every major disaster, which is just too unrealistic.

I loved, loved, loved BB-8. I didn't think I was going to (shades of I-III's over-merchandising worried me). BB-8 made R2-D2 look like a relic from I-III. I actually am growing tired of C-3PO as well. I guess we'll hear about his red arm in VIII, but I honestly don't really care much at this point.

The space battles were cut very, very fast and a tad too impossible looking, but that's what the kiddos are used to these days. No more 8-bit speed, and stop-motion for them, so I'll live with it. I'd like a bit more character development and a bit less action in the next one. Keep the politics to a minimum.

I liked Poe Dameron as a character and look forward to seeing him and Finn's stories develop. I actually wonder if there will be another love triangle with those two and Rey? we'll see what develops. I though Finn and Rey became a little too quickly connected too fast, and that seemed a bit less than believable, but again, this is Flash Gordon, so those quickie bondings do happen in that kind of a series.

Captain Phasma was kind of a dumb idea, but it was probably a politically-correct type of market inclusiveness decision. I think the female X-wing pilot was way more believable and acceptable than Phasma.

Finally, it was great and difficult seeing General Leia. I'm glad they kept her to a minimum here, but no one looks the way they did at 19 years old, and then again at 23 (gold bikini) some it's kind of unfair to hold Carrie Fisher to that standard, but it is sad to see how the years of drugs and partying aged her more than might have been necessary. Her real-life daughter appeared in a scene in the movie, and I don't know if they have any plans for her in the series or not. I can see where Carrie Fisher is coming from when she defends how she looks in the movie in the press, but she also has to realize she did kind of let herself go more than she had to.

Overall, I find I wish this team had been there to help Lucas with all six of the previous Star Wars movies. I really think using film instead of digital, and practical effects supported by, not supplanted by cgi is the best way to go on these films. They showed several movie previews which were way too cgi-intensive and it showed how bad that garbage looks compared to the real thing.

The team assembled for this film did a fantastic job of taking Lucas's basic ideas and making a much, much better film than any of the previous ones. As to those who complain about the story not being original, well, I liked this one way, way more than the first three and wish those could be remade in the style of this film. The future bodes well for Star Wars.

Please keep to the practical effects and focus on story and character development, and limit the explosions and too much cgi stuff. Less battles and more personality makes a better film. May the Focre be with You!