The thing is, every time I hear someone try to tell me that it's "the exact same movie" or just a rehash, the most they can give me is the big details. Giant murder ball, desert planet, father/son relationship. And yes, absolutely that's all there, but everything that actually composes those large pieces is different. Fundamentally so. It's the same building blocks, but they're all made out of different materials, and painted pretty colours. The character dynamics are new, the story is different, we're accomplishing different things, we're talking about different things. So much so, that when the credits roll, you are left with something entirely different. I don't walk out of The Force Awakens feeling like I just watched A new Hope 2.0. I walk out feeling like I just watched something awesome and Star Wars-y and different.

Obviously your mileage may vary, but I just don't see the arguments for it being "just a rehash", there is too much else going on that is fun and character driven, and funny, and interesting.

If that's not enough for you, fine, that's you. But you cannot deny what this movie is, that A New Hope isn't.

So I'm having a discussion on FaceBook about plot holes.  Is a plot hole something that can not be explained or is it something that doesn't make sense in the movie?  I personally think it's the later.  I think Star wars Episode 7 has a lot of plot holes with regards to Rey and her force abilities.  She seems to be able to do things without it being established that she had training and what not.

Yeah, that's more in line with what I was thinking.  I can buy that Rey can understand Droid Speech and Wookie.  I can buy that she can fix different mechanical things and that she can fly almost any type of ship.  I just thought that the force Mastery in her was too rushed.  There seems to be some lazy writing in TFA.  And Poe getting off Jakku wasn't one of them.

That wasn't established in the movie though dude.

Rey being powerful too quickly really comes down to differences in perception of the Force. TFA is a successor to ANH and ESB, where the Force was about feelings and instincts, not training and experience (which seemed to dominate the PT, the books, and the TV series). It ties into what Trey talked about as his main criticism on the ANH commentary way back when. In the original, you had Luke learning to use the Force very quickly and with actually very little in the way of training. He goes from knowing nothing about the Force to blocking blaster bolts blindfolded (in just two attempts) and using it to make a one in a million shot with torpedoes. Why? Because he reached out with his feelings and let the Force flow through him. Obi Wan and Yoda are not seen actually instructing him to do anything in a specific way. Yoda doesn't tell Luke the button combination to lift the X-wing. He just says to do it (and Luke fails not because he doesn't have x hours in jedi lifting but because he believes it's too heavy.)

Rey does the same. She lets the Force take over. So yeah, not a plot hole when Luke did it and not a plot hole now that Rey is doing it.

As for the rehash argument, it only really works when you distill a plot element to its most basic level. The ordering of the reused elements from ANH, for instance, occur in a different order and resolve under different circumstances. There's a 'lowering the shields of the enemy base' situation in TFA for instance, but it's not in any way similar to ROTJ. Vital information gets loaded into a droid and that droid does get captured by a desert dweller, but the manner in which that droid both gets captured and released are completely different. Their escape from the desert planet is also completely different.

It seems that many forget that TFA is a sequel, and sequels always rehash previously used elements. I just don't see why TFA is being held to a different standard. Why is Terminator 2, practically a remake of Terminator, not given this same criticism for example? I even see talk about how for all their craptasticness the prequels at least introduced new things, which is completely at odds with how they recycled planets, dialogue, shots, situations, characters and designs to the same degree. It's like a sudden collective amnesia has happened.

As for the film's success being due mostly to nostalgia? That's rubbish. The film is introducing a whole new generation to Star Wars (some of whom wouldn't even know who Han Solo is) and has broad appeal which is bringing in people of all ages, colours and sex. It's also a very entertaining, crowd-pleaser with lots of laughs and surprises with characters that you enjoy watching. People are not going back for multiple viewings because they want to see that moment when the holo-chess turns on again.

If Starkiller were the focus of the climax I'd be more inclined to agree, but it's not. It's the characters we're concerned about, and that forest duel is incredibly tense for that reason. The climax is about Ren, Finn and Rey and where they're going as characters, Starkiller is just an excuse to get them to that point.

As for the bad guys being stupid: even ignoring the fact that superpowers in the real world enjoy doing the same thing over and over again and being surprised when it doesn't work, the First Order being stupid in this regard makes sense. They're slavishly imitating and idolizing the old Empire, flaws and all. Does that make the movie perfect or fix the fact that another giant ball is a dumb idea? No, but I just don't understand someone saying Starkiller ruins the entire movie for them when there's so much goodness in the rest of it.

I have a question...in regards to the whole using the force without training thing.

Why does no one ever question the fact that Luke can just up and do shit in Empire? It's been a couple years sure, but Obi Wan's dead, there's never any reference to him training with ghosty, we don't meet Yoda til after Hoth and as far as we know, every other Jedi in the galaxy is dead. Did he just try really really hard and started figuring shit out on his own?

Granted he can't do a lot, but it certainly leads credence to the idea that force users can just learn stuff on their own.

(That said, I personally ascribe to the whole "between whatever the fudge happened happened at Maz's and whatever happened between her and Kylo, some switches got flipped and jumped up that otherwise wouldn't have in Rey's head. Ren also seems to be pretty freaked out when he realizes what's happening "She's just starting to flex her powers, the longer it takes to find her, the powerful she'll become" or whatever the line was. He definitely seems to know something we don't.)

My bet is that a force sensitive person left alone goes sort of along the Harry Potter route, their powers are tied to their emotions, they have no control over it whatsoever. They are deeply tied to the force, but have no ability to control their own minds and channel it into something useful, they become a hurricane of force energy. If they are angry Aunts start blowing up, if they are happy confetti flies out of the nearest kitchen sink... or something *cough*. Hence why training is necessary. But someone tied to the force will always be close to the force. My guess is this is why the Jedi were always so insistent on getting them young. Their powers have less of a chance to be bound to their emotions.

Now all that said, that's just pure conjecture on my part, and for all I know has been intricately detailed out in the EU that I've never read.

Also...“Fear is the path to the dark side…fear leads to anger…anger leads to hate…hate leads to suffering.”

If looks could kill I believe they say.