gel said:
What about Ren being able to fly the Millenium Falcon then? It's just ********!
Do you mean Rey??
If so, this again isn't too great a stretch, since Rey's almost certainly a Skywalker, and both Luke and Anakin were accomplished pilots before starting their Jedi training. ?
I was more concerned that Rey and Finn stumbled upon the Falcon, which allowed Rey to meet her father or uncle, who in turn enabled Rey and Finn to link up with the Resistance.?
The original Star Wars film relied on similarly absurd coincidences. It's implausible that R2D2 would crash on Luke's home planet, before being sold to Luke's uncle, setting the whole saga in motion.
Still, these character unions and plot devices were lazy and clumsy. I'm certain I could have found a more convincing way to move the narrative forward, given a little time to think about it.
My other complaint is that I would have liked to spend more time with the characters, since the film rushed from action sequence to action sequence, presumably through fear of audience boredom if more than ten minutes passed without laser fire. I liked Ridley's character (and her performance was solid; not that Star Wars is the greatest test of one's acting chops). The potential for genuine pathos was squandered here, while the film's emotional beats were too heavily derived from familiarity with established characters. I'm hoping Disney, Johnson, and Kasdan (if he's still involved) will slow things down next time and pay greater attention to character development.
Oh, and the sequence after the Falcon was captured, when the cast was chased by a CGI monster, should have been ditched completely.