Why I Liked (But Didn’t Love) The New Star Wars

I'll admit I was excited about seeing the new "Star Wars". I loved the original trilogy, and occasionally liked the prequels -- Episode 3 was the best of them. So how about Episode 7?

While I was excited about seeing "The Force Awakens", I was not so excited that I had to see it right away. I didn't want to deal with crowds, and I wanted to make sure my girl (who recently had surgery) was healthy enough to be able to go with me.

So I give "Star Wars" 2.5 stars out of four.

The main problem I had with Episode VII was this: There were wayyyyyyyyyyyyyy too many direct parallels with the original movie (Episode IV). If you haven't seen the movie, I'm sorry, but it's been a month now and I can't not hold it in just because you're a bigger procrastinator than me.

I lost count of how many times it seemed they copied-and-pasted something from the original formula, just with a more modern spin on it.

There is a droid that is given something the bad guys are not supposed to see. The map to Luke are the secret Death Star plans from the original, hidden in a droid.

The droid is sent to a sandy desert planet, where it just stumbles onto the protagonist of the movie who is a nobody doing nobody things. Luke was a pretty boy idiot farmer, Rey is a pretty idiot scavenger.

There are the two warring sides, and the government is essentially powerless. Seriously, what does "The Republic" do?

The main bad guy is middle management. For all the talk about Darth Vader and Kylo Ren, they each have to answer to a mysterious master. As much as I love the franchise, the villains are merely puppets.

There is a planet-killing monster space station. Starkiller Base is the Death Star on steroids, doing the same things the Death Star did only bigger.

There is a female needing to be physically rescued from the planet-killing monster space station. I know, Rey escaped the restraints on her own, but she was still being rescued.

There is thirst in the galaxy. Finn was crushing HARD on Rey, just like Luke and Han both were trying to impress Leia in their own way. Unlike Leia kissing Luke (on the mouth, which is creepy in hindsight) Rey totally friend-zoned Finn with a forehead kiss and referring to him as "my friend". Whatever. It's called Star WARS not Star Love.

There is the murder of a beloved character by the main villain. I submit that even though Kylo Ren will never be the villain Darth Vader was, his murder was far far worse. Obi-Wan went to confront Vader, and even committed Suicide By Vader at the end of their duel. The character Kylo Ren murdered was much much more beloved by almost every fan of the franchise, and was not even looking to fight. How they handle Kylo Ren moving forward will be huge.

There is a space cantina. Rey found Luke's old lightsaber at Moss Eisley Spaceport Bar & Grill version 2.0.

The planet-killing monster space station gets destroyed at the end, and it does the exact same way. "This thing is huge! There's no way we can destroy it! Wait, you mean there's this one tiny part of it that is super-vulnerable, and if we attack it there the whole thing will crumble? You don't say!"

Come on, people. Set your weapons to Original for Episode VIII.