The Force Awakens is something new in my experience. It had a TON of things wrong with it... and it was still great. The three hero characters radiated optimism, and were every bit as engaging as the original trio from ANH. It's just a shame they kept Poe Dameron apart from Rey and Finn for much of the movie. I want to know everything about them - where they've come from and where they're going.
I'm Mister Critical - the story was derivative and awkward, the action scenes didn't thrill me, even the settings looked far too earthlike - but after one viewing I'm completely invested in the new trilogy.
I'm just bemused by anyone arguing about this film. It was poor AND it was great.
This. The universe-building was bad (no context to the overall setting, no sense of a massive universe, it lacked a breezing moment like the training scene in the falcon in ANH to let the relation between Rey and Han blossom more naturally and make me feel like the galaxy is big), the story was a mess; not only is it nostalgia driven (I like my themes to be consistent from one trilogy to the next, I do not want the same thing from specific plot points), it is also filled with unexplained events that seems to only be there because it's a convenient way to advance the plot (I'm sure a lot of them will be explained later. I don't care, I like my stories to be good by themselves AND as part of a group, not just the later), the action was pretty awesome but as far as the big battles were concerned I did not especially care or feel any tension, and despite all that, I still felt it was a great film. Probably because it's a character piece, and everything including the story is at their service, and god were the characters awesome. I just can't wait to see the movie a second time, and to see the next adventures of our new heroes (also more Phasma please, she has been humiliated, it's a perfect motivation for her character)
While I'm at it: as far as the Rey/Ren fight is concerned that's my take on it:
It only took Luke knowing that he could use the force, some time and a blindfold to be able to to use it to blindly deflect laser shots. Which showed that you actually didn't need experience to guide your movements if the force could do it for you, at least as long as you're not up against another fighter which has both experience and the support of the force (I'll come back to that). Rey had an awakening when touching the lightsaber, she was made aware that she could use the force and like Luke when he was blindfolded, it only took her some time and a few attempts to use her new-found power.
Now Luke was kind of different, he had been raised by Owen and was always thinking in term of "cannot do" as Yoda discovered later. That's what he had to unlearn. Obviously Rey is not of the same mind, she's more open and when she learned that she was force sensitive she didn't start thinking about the limits of her powers. She just used them, more and more. When wielding the lightsaber, she can trust her feeling to find a way to victory so she don't need to have proficient traning in this specific type of weapon, she only needs to have the overall physical ability to execute the movements her instincts tells her to make, and she's most definitely physically impressive. I'm not entirely sure if the admission that she had been definitely abandoned has something to do with her rapid awakening, I might have missed something about that.
Now Kylo Ren is another beast entirely. Ren is powerful in the force too, as he likes to show (off) with the exuberant use of his powers (rather than using the path of least resistance and sending back the laser, he freezes it for a minute). He does that because he has no confidence. He can't even convince himself that he's a Sith. A true Sith uses their emotion to fuel their power, but Ren let his emotion control him. That's why as soon as he met any kind of significant opposition, his powerful use of the force crumble, he's not attuned with the force at all, not even with the dark side because he can't use his emotions properly. He can use his pride and wrath to freeze a laser bolt because there is no worthwhile opposition of any kind but as soon as a Force user appears, all his insecurities comes back and he's left crippled. Ren is unstable mess. That's why even with all his (assumed) training, he couldn't win against someone attuned with the force. It's what Yoda said in ESB "For my ally is the force, and a powerful ally it is" and not "for my ally is my lightsaber and intense fencing training..."
Like I said earlier, I don't believe training is completely useless. First, you still need to have the physical ability to execute the movements fast enough. Then, if you're facing someone as attuned as you are with the force, the training may give you an additional layer (not sure how it works at that point, I don't think I have enough canon material to judge).
