Star Wars - The Force Awakens

My friends and I saw the new Star Wars film, The Force Awakens, opening day, opening show. And you know what? I was very disappointed! After all the hype, it just didn't deliver the way it should have. Here's why:

First of all, a little background for those who don't know: there is (or, in light of this film, was) a consistent timeline for the Star Wars saga. The films gave rise to a galaxy of books about the Star Wars characters, and the history of their worlds. It's called The Expanded Universe. Within the context of TEU, there is both a consistent history and an applied continuity for the characters, planets, people, and even the multitudes of species. The chronology has been consistent, and all the movies, books, and even cartoons have abided by it. But no longer. The Force Awakens movie doesn't conform to this canon at all. Director J. J. Abrams has thrown the entire timeline into the toilet and announced that he will not abide by it at all!

The Expanded Universe has a plethora of terrific characters and terrifying weapons that Abrams could have tapped for his film, and for the life of me, I cannot figure out why he didn't want to use them. There was Mara Jade, an imperial assassin who reformed and became the wife of Luke Skywalker. Or how about grand Admiral Thrawn, an Empire officer who was a tactical genius and made Grand Moff Tarkin look like a schoolyard bully by comparison. The Ssi-Ruv aliens whose technology sucked the souls from people and used them to power their spacecraft. The Sun Crusher, a tiny spacecraft which caused stars to explode. The Galaxy Gun, an artillery piece which could hit a target parsecs distant. The list goes on and on, and yet Abrams rejected all of this.

Then there's the fact that the Force Awakens movie posed more questions than it answered. Why do Rey and Fin have neither family nor friends? How could both of them wield a lightsaber with no training? If Fin was assigned to sanitation duty, how could he possibly know the planetary weapon's weak spot? If the weapon's force-beam travels through hyperspace, how could it have been visible in another planet's atmosphere? Why do the Stormtroopers have different armor? Why aren't the stormtroopers clones? Why did Luke Skywalker fail to train other Jedi Knights like himself (in the books he did so, successfully)? Why does Kylo Ren not resemble his parents at all? If the New Republic usurped the Empire, why is there a separate force called the Resistance; shouldn't the X-Wings be part of the New Republic Fleet? None of this makes any sense at all!

It just staggers me that such talented people like J.J. Abrams and Lawrence Kasdan could take on the Star Wars franchise and produce a film of such utter claptrap. Within the context of the Expanded Universe they had over twenty-five thousand (25,000!) years of history and continuity with which to make something good, and they threw it all away. The Force Awakens is ersatz junk.

To any and all Star Wars fans: Save Your Money!