Ehh...I saw it Sunday and wasn't all that impressed. The only character who's death actually felt like it had weight was K2. The others were just a little too bland and generic for me. Granted they're writing a story between two that have already been told, but it really lacked any kind of development outside of normal tropes. It just felt more like a modern action movie where it's heavy on action and light on characters, where as I've always seen Star Wars as a drama that has little action pieces thrown in.
I think the franchise is falling into the trap of "because we can make these elaborate battles, we should" rather than them being a small piece of the film and the characters dominating everything.
I probably would have liked it more if they would have given me a reason to care about her father rather than "they're family, it's important, the end". I think they also missed out on Forest Whitakers character as well. He went a little overboard, and had nothing human about him, and his scene felt a lot like the cantina in 7 where they're like "here's the next piece of the plot, don't ask questions" kinda shit.
The first star wars movies were always about characters (for me) and less about the set piece action movie stuff. I think they went too far towards the action movie and lost the heart.
The last 15 or so minutes were pretty decent and I think much of that has to do with the nostalgia they were hitting for me, and less to do with the quality of story.
I'll definitely give props to the CGI Peter Cushing, that was surprisingly convincing.
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