This is the second most eagerly awaited film of my lifetime, behind The Phantom Menace. Although I'd say that one isn't as bad as you remember, it was still a disappointment. The Force Awakens however was enjoyable even on the first watch.
Despite waiting an embarrassing month since the release date until watching it I'd heard surprisingly few spoilers. All I knew that there were many references to the previous films. What I didn't realise in fact was that it's actually quite close to a remake of A New Hope. Both films begin with a droid containing a map being launched out on to a desert planet, and the plots continue to run in parallel. There's the surprise father-son combo, a hologram evil-lord and so on. There's even a new even-bigger Death Star, which is so obviously the same that Han Solo (he's back) makes a joke about it. Virtually every vehicle from the original trilogy reappears here, along with all the old cast members too.
So in that sense The Phantom Menace is a much more original film, and adds to the Star Wars mythology, rather than simply repeating it with a woman in Luke Skywalker's role. Daisy Ridley does play the role well though, and is a stand-out, alongside the decent John Bodega as a Stormtrooper turned good. His story arc reflects the major theme of the movie(s), rejecting or accepting your destiny. There's really no fighting it, and it seems you might as well accept what's coming to you and get on with it. Indeed when the rather weak sub-villain Kylo Ren is reminded that he's not all bad "You know I'm right" is almost a convincing enough argument.
This film is light on light-sabre battles, and that's no bad thing. The main battle at the end is more about establishing that Rey has got some skills, rather than just an out and out fight of the Darth Maul kind. In general the special effects are fairly toned down, which is a relief. The low point are the rubbish CGI monsters set loose on the Millenium Falcon. Comparing their colourful wavy tentacles with the excellent pet Rancor in Return of the Jedi makes me long for models.
There is quite a lot of humour, inevitably involving the comedy sidekick droids and Chewbacca. In general it's pretty good though, and so you can tell it wasn't written by George Lucas.
The whole appeal of a fantasy epic like this is to hint at a whole intricate universe, and there are certainly a few interesting unresolved issues for the next two films. Are there other Jedi's that have survived? Who is Rey's family that she was waiting for? Who is the 20 foot tall hologram man? Is the Star Wars Universe controlled by The Architect from the Matrix sequels and destined to loop round forever with repeated Death Stars, evil empires and Resistances?
