Short version: Approved. Would watch again.
Longer version: infinitely better than the prequels. Very entertaining, definitely a good Star Wars Movie. But I’m unsure if it’s quite as good as the original trilogy… didn’t come out of the theater as thrilled and exited as I was by the original. But then… I was seven when “Star Wars” originally came out, so that might have something to do with it. Also: by far the most applause I’ve seen in a movie. Not just at the beginning and end, but several times during.
There is a lot of spoilery stuff that I won’t spoil, but rumors of someone important dying were accurate. Now, this being space fantasy, maybe death ain’t death… Spock came back, after all. But the death here seems every bit as final as the Emperor’s in “Jedi.”
And this being space fantasy, you’re better off not trying to analyze the science. Because it’s pretty outlandish here. Such as a Very Big Gun on Planet A that is many lightyears away from some observers on Planet B shoots a hyperlight weapon at Planet C, which is many lightyears from both A and B. I can buy that the weapon gets from A to C lickety-split, what with the hyperdrive and all… but the observers on B *watched* the weapon cross the sky – from lightyears away – in real time. Buh?
Oh well. No Jar Jar, and no characters nearly as irritating, so it gets a pass. There are some CGI characters that still look pretty CGI, especially “Supreme Leader Snoke,” the replacement for the Emperor. You only see the character via hologram (a technology that has apparently greatly improved since the Empire went down), but he’s still pretty fake looking. Shoulda been done as a muppet or makeup, IMO.
Some good humor as well. The main bad guy, one Kylo Ren, is essentially a Darth Vader fanboy. Collects Vader memorabilia, wants to follow in his footsteps and be as powerful as him. Like Vader, he has anger issues. But where Vader would get mad and be a contained scary guy who’d just stand there and make everybody uncomfortable, Ren whips out his lightsaber from time to time and just whacks the crap out of anything nearby in a tantrum. This leads to one of the best laughs in the movie when a couple stormtroopers who were walking down the hallway see this and turn around and decide to walk somewhere else.