Star Wars

Didn't suck. Was not great. I liked it, but it wouldn't become a blockbuster, or a classic, without 35 years of nostalgia and hype behind it. JJ Abrams does epic eye-candy well, and he's better at characterization than George Lucas (but who isn't?), but there wasn't a damn thing original in this film. It took no risks, did nothing new, and thus it's hard to see it as anything other than a cynical merchandising machine.

As a snobby serious science fiction fan, I have always been willing to suspend my disbelief for cinematic sci-fi, but Star Wars still has to offend with egregious stupidity. The first Death Star really made no sense, and a super-duper Death Star makes even less sense. Who the hell builds these things? Where did the "First Order" get the income to build planet-sized war machines when the Empire has fallen apart? So the Republic remains a useless collection of idealists who sit around drinking martinis until their planets are blown up, while a new Empire just pops up and is capable of wiping them off the map? What is the Rebellion rebelling against if the Republic is supposed to be the legitimate government now? The politics and economy are as incoherent as the science.

These are the things that bug me, not Kylo Ren's stupid cross-guard light saber or his being p0wned by two novices in a duel.