After a title crawl that told the audience this was not the movie they were looking for, a star destroyer is shown flying over a planet. Several ships are descending to this planet, and inside them are stormtroopers waiting to attack. But these are not the Empire’s stormtroopers, these soldiers work for the First Order.

The movie then cuts to Poe Dameron. He is sitting inside a tent with an old man, who gives him something like a flash drive. This flash drive holds a clue to Luke Skywalker’s whereabouts. The two men talk for a minute, then they are told that the First Order is on its way.

Now both men essentially say that the other needs to run, but only Poe does so. The old man basically stands in place while the First Order arrives. Since they both know where the clue—which the audience later learns is a partial map—is located, it would’ve been better for both of them to flee. And presumably that would’ve been the plan since the villagers immediately take arms against the First Order. However, the plot needs to happen, so the old man sticks around.

As for Poe, he runs to his X-wing and puts his robot, BB-8, inside it. He tries to take off, but before he can, two stormtroopers see the X-wing and shoot at it. These shots manage to hit it in just the right place and prevent the craft from taking off. This was the first thing that took me out of the movie. I couldn’t think of a single time that a soldier’s weapon was enough to down a ship. This struck me as very unlikely, but anyway. Poe kills the two troopers, realizes he can’t fix the X-wing, and places the flash drive inside BB-8. He then tells BB-8 to run and promises to find him later.

This seems like a good plan. The robot takes off, but then Poe does something odd. Instead of retreating in another direction, he begins firing at the troopers after being told to run. Again, the villagers cannot expect to win against this army, so the only reason they could be putting up a fight is because they’re trying to give the old man and Poe time to run away, yet neither does this. And how did the first order know this meeting between Poe and the old man was taking place to begin with?

The First Order later wipes out the whole town, so presumably there were no spies. How did they discover this secret meeting? The writers don’t give us an answer. Anyway, Poe shoots a few troopers, and one of those troopers dies in front of a friend of his, who we eventually learn is called Finn, but more on him later.

Before long, the First Order catches the old man, and then enters Kylo Ren. They banter back and forth for a minute. The man says he knows who Kylo Ren is, and this is meant as nothing more than a tease for the audience because Kylo Ren kills him a second later. Now, this makes no sense. Kylo knows that this old man knows something about the map, and yet, instead of torturing him for information, he just kills him. Why?

Well, there’s no narrative reason, but it’s already clear—and this is something that will be brought up repeatedly for emphasis—that the writers are trying to copy A New Hope beat for beat, but they are consistently too lazy to establish how each plot point takes place.

Remember in A New Hope when Vader catches Leia’s ship? There’s a throwaway line to explain how Vader knew that the plans were on the ship. No such line here. The First Order just shows up. And remember when Vader killed one of the soldiers by choking him during the interrogation? Well, in that scene, Vader strangles the soldier by accident, and the scene is meant to convey that Vader is enraged at the situation. He’s so angry that he doesn’t have tight control over his power. He’s unhinged.

No such motivations here. Kylo Ren just kills the guy even though he knows for certain that the old man has information pertaining to the map. He’s not angry like Vader. He gives a pithy line right before doing the deed. It doesn’t make any sense. Another thing that doesn’t make sense is that the movie goes out of its way to show at least one stormtrooper burning down the town with a flamethrower when the flash drive could be anywhere within that town.

Kylo Ren makes it clear that he wishes to find Luke Skywalker, so he isn’t interested in destroying the drive—although they will if they have to—his primary goal is to find it. So, why are they destroying the town before searching it? Vader told his troops to tear the ship apart, but it was so they could find the plans. The First Order is destroying the town even though this is counter to their objective.

To make matters worse, Poe, in a fit of rage, takes a shot at Kylo Ren. One of the things I found irritating about this scene is that, in one shot, Poe is hiding behind a pile of sand, and, in the next, he’s in front of the sand. There’s no reason for this.

Poe would’ve been safer behind cover, and he’s already been shown to be a good shot, so it’s not like he really needed to close the distance between him and Kylo. The writers just wanted him in front of the pile of sand so the audience could see Kylo freeze the laser shot and Poe with the force; however, they couldn’t even be bothered to show Poe moving from point A to B, let alone explain why he does so.

Anyway, Kylo freezes Poe using the force, and Poe is brought to him. Poe says a snarky comment, trying to make light of a tense situation, but Kylo ignores him and orders the troopers to place him on the ship. This was yet another thing that didn’t make sense. Why not torture Poe in the village?

If the First Order tortures Poe on the ship and he tells them where the drive is located, they’re just going to have to fly back down to the planet to confirm whatever he tells them. Then on top of that, Kylo orders that the villagers be slaughtered. This was done for dramatic effect, but, again, this makes no sense because some of the villagers might know something about the drive.

Why not capture the villagers? Why burn down the town? This is supposed to be emotionally compelling, and, during a first viewing, it is. But once someone watches this film multiple times, these kinds of questions stack up remarkably fast, and they are more than enough to pull someone from the plot. While the soldiers are killing the villagers, one of them doesn’t fire a shot and lowers his rifle. This trooper is called Finn, and we’ll talk about his story next time.