Let's start off by saying that, of course, expectations were enormous; almost insurmountable. J.J. Abrams was tasked with delivering the first chapter in the saga in ten years, and he succeeded...to an extent. Let me get there, first. Basically, whether you're a fan of the entire series, or you're a fan of just the originals, you can only admit one of two things. The prequels were horrible, or the prequels just weren't as good as the originals. Anything other than that is just you being cheeky, coy, or merely trying to convince yourself that spending your Saturday night watching Episode II is well-worth being called "a good time".
Long story short, people harp on the prequels for similar reasons: Tragic acting, lame-brained dialogue, being too political, being absolutely crammed with stuff we're either not told entirely or force to believe, and especially tampering with the story or filling it with shit that doesn't need to be there. Jar Jar, I'm looking right at you. This is why I argue that Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi are films made for moviegoers, and Episode's I, II, and III are films made for Star Wars fans. However, that debate is for another time.
Basically, as The Force Awakens was ready to hit theaters, there was a climate of fear that history would repeat itself and that we had another Phantom Menace on our hands. People were afraid that we'd get another Jar Jar, another Jake Lloyd, another horrific explanation as to how the force works; everything. People were ready to be disappointed as much as they were ready to be wowed. Being visually smacked in the head with a desk chair by the useless backstory of The Phantom Menace, the traumatic love scenes of Attack of the Clones, and the hasty attempt to wrap everything up in Revenge of the Sith will do that to you. So, people were a little on edge. When it came out, on December 18th, 2015, everyone loved it. Ticket sales shot through the roof better than any of the other Star Wars films. It eradicated all of their box-office revenue records by substantial margins (Though Star Wars has sold more tickets than any other film in the franchise) and it got rave reviews all across the board. It seemed Star Wars could return to the caliber that it once was. It seemed the trust in Lucasfilm and Disney had been restored.
It wasn't until late-January after the awe had died down that the internet began lashing back in full-force. Sure there some guys who hated the film off of the bat, but they didn't come forward until well after the shock-and-awe had died down. You can't say you hate a new Star Wars movie during the initial release. People will hate you. Once the hype went away and it felt like the whole world had seen it, the reviews of people who disliked the film began popping up all over the web. Let's go ahead and skim through all of the common reasons people think The Force Awakens is a horrible Star Wars film:
1) It's a clone of Star Wars: Yes, the big gripe. It's a sheer carbon-copy of the first Star Wars film released in '77. From the droid carrying vital information that gets separated from its master and left on a desert planet, to the would be hero discovered on said desert planet that is whisked away on a new and exciting journey with the help of an old sage. They stop at a bar to further their adventure and after some additional battles, they make their way to both the good guy base, and then the bad guy base later in a rescue attempt. Right down to the whole movie coming to a conclusion using both a simplistic lightsaber duel and a space battle that blows up a massive bad-guy weapon that can destroy entire worlds. The exact...same...plot as Star Wars.
2) Harrison Ford looks hilariously ancient: In 2008, when Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull came out, one of the big gripes about it was that Harrison Ford was simply too old to still be playing Indiana Jones. That was eight years ago. Ford is now entering his mid-70's and just got off of reprising his role as Han Solo. People didn't complain as much about this one, because unlike Indiana Jones, there wasn't much for Han to do (except die). You could easily tell that for a lot of action scenes, Harrison's silver-haired head was digitally slapped onto the body of somebody younger who could run, jump and at the very least, move briskly without breaking their hip. With news that Ford will play Indiana Jones again in 2019 in Indiana Jones 5, which by then he'll be in his late-70's, people are wearily skeptical...
3) Rey was too perfect: Rey was absolutely annoying. Her character was too clean and too pampered to be the hero. The only struggle is she didn't know who her family was. Boo-hoo. On the other hand, she knew how to understand both BB-8 and Chewbacca without prior exposure to either droid nor Wookie. She was well-versed in staff-fighting (being the only person on Jakku who had a staff) and just happened to have a cool house inside the belly of a derelict AT-AT. She not only could fly the Millennium Falcon with ease, but could fix it too. She could trip switches to close doors on a freighter she had just boarded. She had to rescue Finn from being eaten. She is the one the Force is calling too. She then just so happened to discover she not only had the Force but could use it efficiently, all in a span of ten minutes. She escaped custody too easily. She, an untrained Force-sensitive, bested Kylo Ren in both Force and duel and to top it all off, inherited both the Falcon and the task of finding Luke Skywalker to deliver the lightsaber too. The entire movie was carried on her back, leaving seldom to do for the other two leads, Poe and Finn. Finn was basically Robin to Rey's Batman, and it was bullshit. You know it. Admit it. Rey got handed everything; Finn got handed a lightsaber to the spine.
4) Captain Phasma was laughably misused: She was just the next Boba Fett. Quiet, but cool, but ultimately had little to no baring on the story. The first sign of trouble, she wigged out and allowed the heroes to best her by taking her hostage and forcing her to deactivate the shields to Starkiller Base. The real captain of the Starbase would've gladly taken the blaster bolt to the face. At least Boba captured Han Solo. Han Solo captured Phasma. What does that say?
5) Sincere Lack of Politics: Guys, look. I get it. The prequels suck farts through a hose, but let's not bury them in the past. You can't do everything exactly opposite of the CGI-shitfests and expect it to be great. Having zero political background made the film seem out of touch with the Star Wars reality. The prequels had far too much, sure, but this film didn't have any. The New Republic was just barely hinted at. Speaking of, where does the Resistance fit into the scheme of things? If the Republic is the one in power, what's the need for a "Resistance"? If the Republic isn't the one in power, what's the need for the Republic? If the First Order is made up of remnants of the Empire, wouldn't they be the ill-equipped faction? They seem like they're just the Empire, but with a different name and logo. It's all very confusing and not explained well at all.
6) Too Much Trilogy Set-up: Nowadays, you can't announce a movie without promising sequels, prequels, in-between-quels, or at least some Barnes and Noble graphic novel tie-ins. Having a movie with this much stuff that either gets swept under the rug or ignored entirely is just trying way too hard at setting up more movies. We want there to be more stories, but not blatantly told there will be more stories. It takes all of the fun out of it. Look at Star Wars for example. The only hint that there may be more movies is the scene where Darth Vader flies away from the Death Star explosion; that's it. This movie has like a thousand open-ends that may or may not even get resolved in Episode VIII. God forbid we get Episode's X, XI, and XII. Either let it die or make one at a time. That's one thing I'm looking forward to with the Star Wars spin-off films. Standalone stories. I guess standalone stories are a thing of the past in Hollywood.
So with a film that seemed like it was destined to either be one of the best or one of the worst, people will debate the question for years to come. Was the wait for The Force Awakens worth it in the end? Of course it was. It was very much worth it. Does that make it a good Star Wars film? Goodness no. After having the prequels fall flat on their asses all across the board, and then having this one only moderately please people, we can obviously deduce that the original trilogy will go unmatched in quality and style. People complain mostly, as the broad issue, that the film didn't take any chances and that it only appeased people who hated the prequels and refused to watch them. People don't like The Force Awakens because they feel it only catered to the people who dislike Episodes I, II and III and didn't take any risks, introduce any new concepts or ideals; it pretty much just played it safe.
You know what though? It had to. Like I said earlier, the prequels all irreversibly damaged people's faith and trust in the franchise. You can sit there and boo-hoo and whine all you want about how wrong and stupid you think I am, but the proof is in the pudding. Even if you who's reading this adores the prequels and holds them on the pedestal with the originals as "the Star Wars Saga", you can't deny that there's probably a hundred thousand people for every one of you that despised what they got in Episodes I, II and III and outright cursed Lucasfilm for screwing them. So when the time came to make more, Disney had to play it safe. They weren't just catering to people who hated the prequels, they were trying their best to cater to everyone. By copying a lot of things done in the first three films, they were merely trying to tell the world "Hey, remember those three movies that those goofy cartoon kiddy prequels sucked your love out of? Well, we've taken all of the things you loved about the first three and recycled them in this one!" They were just trying to let you know (and maybe see for themselves) that Star Wars, as a whole, could still thrive and survive in a world almost forty-years different than when it first came out. Being the highest grossing film of 2015 certainly proved them right.
In better terms, you can compare the history of Star Wars to when Coca-Cola announced it would permanently alter its formula. New Coke was a soft-drink released in the 1980s, intending to replace the current Coca-Cola formula. It even promised an "exciting, fresh taste of Coke that would last for generations". What happened? It sucked! Horribly! New Coke bombed harder than Mars Needs Moms. Nobody liked it. Stocks and sales plummeted! So, what was Coke to do? It had this old thing that people loved, and this new thing that people hated. It had to prove that it was going to be alright. It had to let the world know it wasn't going anywhere or dying off anytime soon. It wasn't going to do a "New New Coke". People's faith in the company was tarnished! Doing something new after something new failed was out of the question, fiscally and economically. Instead, it released "Coca-Cola Classic", a rebranding of the exact same formula of Coke it sold prior to New Coke. It copied its old formula into something with a completely different title and released it, and you know what? The people ate it up like hot cakes. Coca-Cola Classic was labeled a triumph and Coca-Cola returned to prominence.
The Force Awakens is just the rebranding of the old, successful formula. Maybe it was just what the doctor ordered. Now that it was a financial and critical triumph, you can almost bet Disney and Lucasfilm have been instilled with enough confidence to try new and exciting things in Episode VIII.
Now if Episode VIII is a retelling of The Empire Strikes Back and Kylo goes to Rey and says shit like "I am your brother" and Poe gets frozen in carbonite, I'm gonna be pissed...
