The novelizations of the prequels were much better than the actual movies. The Revenge of the Sith book was legitimately great.

This is all well and good, but really, that detail should've been given in the film itself. Because, you know, it's actually a fairly important detail. Rey's sudden aptitude with the Force and with a lightsaber left more than a few audience members scratching their heads.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for having the novelization expand on things that are only hinted at in the films -- the original trilogy novelizations were full of that kind of stuff -- but this seems like something that should've been explained or at least hinted at in the film itself. Ditto for how the First Order came to be and why the Republic's armed forces are called The Resistance. The lack of info about that kind of stuff is just sloppy filmmaking on Abrams part, in my view.

I think that would be the dumbest thing they could do imo. And I don't think there's any merit to it personally. It is curious the two have such similar head scars, but maybe done intentionally to cause this very debate? I'd be ok if it were darth pleagis? Or a clone of the emperor. Or what if this snoke was actually the real darth sideous and the sideous from the original trilogy was just a clone?

In my dream scenario, we learn that R2D2 is behind it all; he becomes the first droid Dark Lord of the Sith after having a particularly powerful Sith holocron connected to his CPU.

Or to throw in a real curve ball, this pair as her parents:

My wife and I had a baby back in November, and we've both had our hands full with our newborn and his two older sisters, so we were unable to see TFA until recently.  I have been purposely avoiding online spoilers, so I steered clear of this thread until I had a chance to see the movie.  I finally got to see it last night, and have been catching up with the thread.

My verdict: I loved it!  Not a perfect movie, but I'd rate it about 8.5 on a 10 point scale.  Sure, there were some nits to pick, but overall I felt it really delivered and brought back a lot of the magic that had been missing from the franchise.

Things I thought worked well:

1) The return to practical effects and real sets over CGI:  As a run-up to TFA, my wife and I re-watched Episodes 1-6.  Visually, the prequels have not aged well.  The CGI from the prequel trilogy looks dated -- more so, IMO, than the practical effects from the much-older OT.  Lucas relied too heavily on CGI for everything, instead of balancing it out with traditional effects in the manner of, say, The Lord of the Rings trilogy.  TFA definitely avoids this misstep.

2) Revisiting the OT: A lot of people have criticized TFA for following ANH too closely.  I can see why this would make the film less appealing to some, but it did not detract from my own enjoyment.  My hunch is that JJ Abrams is saving major twists and/or risks for episodes 8 and 9.  After the prequels and the unpopular revisions to episodes 4-6, the current stewards of the franchise have a big task -- arguably, a bigger task than Lucas himself had when the prequels were released -- to win back the trust of the fan community.  The best way to do this is to stick with what works and nail the execution.  I think they succeeded in that respect.  

3) An emotional core: Having the old cast show up gave me a real emotional connection to the film.  They are clearly older and wiser, but a lot more discouraged than they were when we left them.  There's a real sense that they are unsure whether they can triumph, but buoyed by a sense of hope that the new characters bring.  I particularly resonated with Han's reaction when Rey and Finn mention Luke's name.  All at once, the cranky smuggler attitude fades away when he realized that these two are looking for his old friend.  I also got a bit of the chills when Luke finally showed up -- bearded and gray, wearing full Jedi robes, obviously wearied and broken by things in his past, seeing his old lightsaber being returned to him by someone he clearly knows and may represent a new hope to him in much the same way he did to Obi-Wan.

4) Humor: This is another "eye of the beholder" type of reaction, but I appreciated the bits of humor sprinkled throughout the movie.  I think a lot of it had to do with the fact that I wasn't expecting it.  The OT mostly avoided humor, and the prequels went for poorly executed slapstick and puns (Jar Jar and Episode 2 3PO).  I'll admit that the humor is very much of this era -- but hey, I live in this era so it works for me!  

5) Aerial dogfights: We've seen plenty of space battles in Star Wars.  It was great seeing X-Wings, TIE fighters, and the Falcon go at it in the sky. 

Now on to the nits:

1) The Starkiller base was perhaps the only aspect of the OT that should not have been revisited -- or at least, not revisited so slavishly.  Clearly, the emotional weight of the final battle was skewed towards the lightsaber duel between Rey and Ren instead of the mission to take out Starkiller.

2) In comparison to the previous movies, there wasn't really a menacing villain.  In the older movies there was Palpatine, Vader (until he returned to the light), and Darth Maul.  Snoke is little seen and clearly meant to be the phantom menace, with Kylo Ren meant to be the muscle.  Ren definitely played up the conflicted/complex villain role, but in exchange he came off as being less intimidating.  I think they played their hand a little too early on this one when they revealed his lineage and origin story, as well as showing his real face.  Once the mask came off and you knew he was the son of Leia and Han, he pretty much stopped being scary -- if he was scary at all.

3) Rey and Finn being able to go toe-to-toe with Ren requires some MAJOR suspension of disbelief.  Sure there are a lot of excuses as to why he didn't -- he was wounded by Chewie, he's still an apprentice who evidently has not completed training, Finn has some battle training due to being a Stormtrooper, Rey tapped into the Force, etc.  But in the end they only serve to reinforce that he wasn't that powerful of a villain.  Honestly, based on everything we've seen from the previous films, I would expect a trained Force user to mop the floor with a common Stormtrooper or completely untrained Force user.  If not for the fact that they most likely will show up in Episodes 8 and 9, I expected Ren to cut them both down in a few seconds.

Those few criticisms aside, I thoroughly enjoyed the movie.  I'll be making a separate post to discuss some of my own theories regarding the mysteries and questions raised.

It's worth remembering that this is exactly what happened with The Phantom Menace when it came out too. Lots of people within the fan community were saying that it was better than Return of the Jedi -- a claim that seems utterly ludicrous now!

I think it's a combination of fans really, really wishing that a new Star Wars film could be as good, if not better than, one of the original trilogy, along with a particular sort of vocal fanboy who dislikes the Ewoks, mistakenly believing that sci-fi or space fantasy should be oh-so-serious and never cutesy. These fans tend to fixate on their dislike of the Ewoks, forgetting how dark and action packed ROTJ is, not to mention what a fitting conclusion to the original trilogy it was. Personally, I think anyone who doesn't like the Ewoks is totally missing the point of Star Wars.