I thought Star Wars was a fantastic movie. The first time I saw it. Almost 40 years ago. But this unimaginative, formulaic remake doesn’t really cut it. The first sign of trouble was the opening text crawl. The Empire is now the First Order and the Rebel Alliance is now the Resistance. Wait! What the hell? I know it’s supposed to be a 30 year time jump, but at the end of Return of the Jedi, the Rebels had destroyed the second Death Star, the Emperor was dead, and the teddy bears were using stormtrooper helmets as drum kits. Now a renamed Empire is back in control? So apparently everything that happened in the original trilogy was a big waste of time because now we’re back to square one. We’ve even got Supreme Leader Snookie, err Snoke, seamlessly replacing Emperor Palpatine.

Yes, I know there is a big mass of Star Wars cannon attempting to explain all this away, but here’s the thing – I’m not going to buy novels and comic books and study supplemental material just to understand what’s going on. Providing all that information for the nerds to enjoy, and pay for, is fine, but a movie needs to stand on its own. If a movie can’t stand on its own, then that’s just bad writing.

So we start following our new protagonist around on a desert planet and, well, if I listed every scene ripped off from the original, I’d essentially be giving a detailed synopsis of the whole movie. Hide important information in a droid, young “chosen one” force sensitive, drop a door on a dangerous monster, rough bar full of seedy characters, it goes on and on.

And then, you gotta be effing kidding me. A THIRD DEATH STAR?!! Really? But wait, it’s different this time. Look, it’s much bigger, and instead of just a space station, it’s a hollowed out planet! Come on, if hollowed out volcanos are cool, how much cooler is a whole friggin’ hollowed out planet? And Starkiller Base actually kills stars to power itself, so isn’t it great that it’s more than just a cool name? No! It’s a third Death Star. You’d think after two catastrophic failures of this type of weapon, even the Empire, sorry First Order, would give up on the concept. I guess hidebound unimaginative bureaucrats and pork barrel military contracts are not unique to our era or galaxy.

When the movie does deviate from the original, it fares poorly. Making the main baddie, Kylo Ren, a whiny, borderline incompetent little bitch was an interesting choice, and he’s actually one of only two characters in the whole movie that’s even remotely interesting, the other being Finn, the stormtrooper with a conscience. Ok, BB-8 was pretty cool. Sure, he was a blatant rip-off of R2-D2, but he managed to overcome the weak writing, make the role his own, and steal the show. But getting back to Kylo Ren, he isn’t the least bit menacing, and quite frankly, he reminds me a lot more of Rick Moranis’s Spaceballs character than Darth Vader.

Rey, the female Luke Skywalker reboot, performs pretty much as expected, even if she severely tests the limits of believability. Well, goes beyond the limits occasionally. Having her pull a Jedi mind trick out of her butt with no training and no reason for her to even know about Jedi mind tricks was a particularly egregious case of terrible, lazy writing. Later we have the sloppiest lightsaber duel in Star Wars history. I concede that this is actually justified. Rey is untrained, and Kylo Ren apparently spent all his time leaning various force powers and didn’t bother to practice much with his lightsaber. So it’s forgivable that they just kind of wildly flail at each other until Rey finally manages to connect. What’s unforgivable is the chasm that chooses that exact second to open up in the two feet of space between them.

Then there’s the rather depressing thread winding through much of the story. Luke, after suffering a big setback in his fledgling new Jedi order, apparently decided to pack it up and be a hermit for 20 years instead of manning up, rebuilding, and opposing the First Order. Han Solo gives up and goes back to smuggling when his son goes bad. R2-D2 powers down for a couple decades and doesn’t bother to tell anyone he’s holding a huge chunk of important information. It seems to be a mirror for an increasingly common attitude of our times – When the going gets tough, say “screw it” and retreat to your safe space.

In the end, The Force Awakens isn’t really a movie so much as a 2+ hour marketing campaign launch. The flood of novels and action figures has already begun, and there’s no expectation it will slow down any time soon. I’m sure there’s a good reason besides selling recolored action figures for C-3PO to have a red arm. In fact, I bet we get a whole novel or comic book to explain the story in great detail. Ditto for lightsaber blocking riot baton stormtrooper guy, quite possibly the most effective melee fighter in the whole movie. Oh, how did Maz Kanata get her hands on Luke’s original lightsaber? Bet there will be a whole novel or comic book miniseries about that, too.

I may have given the impression that this was a terrible movie. It wasn’t. It just wasn’t a particularly good one. Average is the word that comes to mind. It benefits greatly from being far better than the wretched prequels. After The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, and Revenge of the Sith, mediocrity is arguably a notable achievement. Final rating: 5/10.