With that said, the new film is lacking the inspiration of the originals and the prequels. It is not inspired from the same level – it is only materialistically faithful (appearances, props, etc) to the other 6 films. That is why it feels ‘off’ for some. Star Wars is on another level because it is not ‘contemporary’ at all – it is timeless, archetypical and on another level altogether from most films. It is also because of this that it can never fully be pulled into the Hollywood machine. George Lucas was the good guy who resisted the Hollywood machine and made the films as well as he could. The Force Awakens has been partly sucked into the machine and is unsuitable as a timeless high ‘space fantasy’ or ‘space opera’ as the others are and instead comes across as something dimmer and contemporary. Fortunately, because of its legacy and embedded themes, it cannot be fully brought down from its high level.

TFA is otherwise a great and full movie. I think the plot line is similar to previous films because the risk of doing something new is obviously too high. The actors performed very well throughout.