You obviously weren't paying a lot of attention. Notice that he is a) still very young b) dealing with being conflicted between his good side (parents) and going full-out darkside and c) he hasn't finished his training as was basically spelled out for us after he is defeated.

I had a blast watching the movie and it was a spectacular return to form for the series. Can't wait for the next film and the off-shoot film in between. The Force awakens is right up there with Empire Strikes Back in my book.

It was ok, though I agree with the OP. The scenes felt very rushed with no proper build-up, but I'm hoping for an extended version with some 40 extra minutes to flesh it all out, the movie needs it.

Also, Finn is such a terrible and annoying character, everything about him is so wrong and bad. The new Jar Jar.

I started out liking the movie but hated it by the end. I was pretty disappointed with how the story unfolded and particularly how the movie ended. I remember Luke Skywalker speaking in one of the trailers so I thought that he would actually have something to say in the actual movie -- of course by the end of the movie I didn't think he was going to say a lot but was surprised that he didn't even utter a word... also related to his 'exile'... how exactly does he survive from from a day to day basis (i.e., food, shelter, social connections etc) -- is he meant to be meditating the whole time? Does he know what has transpired since his departure... I definitely think the story (including the characters) needed to be fleshed out more... 

I also thought the lightsaber sequence at the end was a huge disappointment... At least from the first scene of the movie, it appeared that Ren was quite powerful... however, it didn't make sense (and still doesn't) that he was so easily beaten by someone who has never used a lightsaber before. I understand he is injured but I'd rather they exclude the light saber sequence completely than show what looked like a couple of kids play fighting.... I really enjoy the light saber scenes in past movies and had high expectations for a great action sequence at the end (I can remember thinking to myself... maybe Luke will all of a sudden show up and we can see some proper action lol) but that didn't eventuate and so it left me feeling pretty disappointed. 

I did enjoy the first act of the film, and mostly liked the fan service to the previous movies, as well at the new Rey, Fin, Poe and the new droid so that's a positive... I also liked how the protagonist of the series only emerged in the final third of the film (although it seemed a little far fetched 'the force' came so easy to her...). It still wasn't enough to make up for everything else though lol

It was a good movie but Abrams was playing it very safe. Basically A New Hope with some new actors and mixed up relationships

All of a sudden l feel the prequels weren't that bad.

I really miss George Luca's. For all the flak the original trilogy gets. They were still good movies that FELT like Star Wars. The Force Awakens was a very good movie, but lacked the Star Wars magic. I do have faith that Episode VIII and IX will be redeeming of this mess.

I want to go and watch it again before I really make a strong opinion on it.

I understand that opinions are subjective and can't inherently be wrong by nature, but all I see in this thread is "Waaaah, pay atttention to meeeee! see? I'm a hipster who hates popular thiiiiiiings!"

Geez people, it's just a feature film.

I don't think it's as good as the OG trilogy, but it's absolutely not bad any comparing it to the prequels is an insult to coherent storytelling. Star Wars has never been good at explaining their settings, especially A New Hope. Hopefully much of that will be explained in the 8 and 9, but we don't need to know the origins of the Knights of Ren or the First Order yet.

We knew like nothing about how the empire was formed until over 10 years after the OG trilogy released. Yet the OG trilogy is as acclaimed as it is because it didn't need to explain that stuff to be great, and neither does this. Luke had very little back story in A New Hope, so let's not be hypocritical here.

I do agree that Kylo Ren is an incredibly weak villain, though. But even he isn't as bad as say, Darth Maul, who people only like because he looks cool. That being said, the are obviously building him up to develop into a better villain throughout the trilogy, so I with hold judgement for now. Still, he shouldn't have been defeated by Rey. The lightsaber choreography in this movie in general was pretty poor, but the fact that a trained swordsmen, even if injured, was even struggling against Finn or Rey is absurd and a slight on his character. The death of Solo was meant to empower him, only to be defeated by a force noob in the next scene. Not good writing at all. But not as bad as anything in the original trilogy by any stretch of the imagination.

You're on a gaming forum, and you have the gaul to judge people for being critical of entertainment media?