"It's everything the kid in us goes to the movies for — marvelous adventure that leaves us surprised, scared and euphoric. … As any Star Wars fan knows, bloodlines are crucial to the plot. And there are times when everyone seems related to everyone else. (The Lucas template is drawn from sources as diverse as the Bible, Shakespeare, Oedipus Rex and Road Runner cartoons.) Bad things happen to those who issue spoilers about this franchise. But I will say this: The action, from lightsaber duels to X-wing dogfights with TIE Fighters, is explosive and buoyed by John Williams' exultant score. And the movie is also funny as hell. Abrams knows how to build a laugh and fill the emotional spaces between words. He's a fanboy who knows what fanboys want, but he also delivers the goods for the rest of us. Giving starring roles to a black man, a white woman and a Latino is the right idea that could have gone seriously wrong; instead, it's quietly history making."

"It has been three decades since the events of the original trilogy. The dark and mysterious First Order has stepped into the power vacuum once held by the Empire. And the newly named Resistance fights in place of the Rebel Alliance, which has begun a tragic shift to the dark side."

"We didn’t write a treatment but there are countless times we came up with something and said “oh, this would be so great for Episode VIII!” or “That's what we could get to in IX!” It was just that kind of forward-moving story. But we knew this had to neither be a backwards moving nostalgic trip only nor a beginning of a movie without a satisfying conclusion, and that was part of the balancing act — embracing what we have inherited and using that where and whenever possible to tell a story that hasn’t been seen yet."

"I came on board and Disney had already decided they didn’t want to go that direction [with George Lucas's treatments], so the mandate was to start from scratch and tell a story that was the continuum… And Kathleen Kennedy brought on Larry Kasdan and Michael Arndt, and it was those people I began working with."

"[Addressing an assembly of First Order troops] Today is the end of the Republic! The end of a regime that acquiesces to disorder! At this very moment in a system far from here, the New Republic lies to the galaxy while secretly supporting the treachery of the loathsome Resistance. This fierce machine which you have built, upon which we stand, will bring an end to the Senate! To their cherished fleet! All remaining systems will bow to the First Order, and will remember this as the last day of the Republic!"

"Luke Skywalker has vanished. In his absence, the sinister FIRST ORDER has risen from the ashes of the Empire and will not rest until Skywalker, the last Jedi, has been destroyed. With the support of the REPUBLIC, General Leia Organa leads a brave RESISTANCE. She is desperate to find her brother Luke and gain his help in restoring peace and justice to the galaxy. Leia has sent her most daring pilot on a secret mission to Jakku, where an old ally has discovered a clue to Luke's whereabouts...."

"Jack Black (uncredited) – the owner of YouPorn"

"Dave "Gruber" Allen – Mailman"

"Randall Park – Edward"

"Nancy Lenehan – Linda"

"Nat Faxon – Max"

"Rob Lowe – Hank Rosenbaum"

"Ellie Kemper – Tess"

"Rob Corddry – Robbie"

"Stefanie Scott — Kimber Benton"

"Aubrey Peeples — Jerrica Benton"

"Jem and the Holograms are so hopelessly wholesome that the movie can't even bother to give Jem a downward spiral where she's seduced or at least tempted by the perils of fame let alone sex and drugs."

"Jem refuses to sell out her friends, but the movie refuses to give her band any distinguishing traits besides hair colors. As it is, it's a dance movie without any dancing, Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains without anything resembling true empowerment. The performance sequences are jarring, mostly because making Jem’s music sound like Mumfordcore stadium folk-rock with Imagine Dragons live drumming contradicts the band's stylization as '80s rock stars."

"Jem lacks one crucial thing that these other movies have: jokes, intentional or accidental. But what it lacks in humor it makes up for in sheer weirdness—it's a master class in How Did This Get Made? It feels focus-grouped to within an inch of its life, but it's so strange that it's impossible to imagine what process led us here. It's coproduced by Justin Bieber Svengali Scooter Braun, and you can feel what the makers are going for—Pitch Perfect with a rock band—and laugh when it turns into accidental outsider cinema by virtue of its inane plotting and bizarre choices. But I was never bored, and that's what counts—there's so much strangeness to process in Jem."

"Regardless, there probably isn't a lot here for the greying Gen Xers who grew up with the cartoon Jem in their living rooms, unless they have tween daughters they really want to share this experience with. They're safe to leave the kids on their own, though, if they want to save two hours and $12"

"Hardcore fans won't find much of the Jem they loved under the movie's achingly hip millennial trappings, while young newcomers will be left wondering what a robot has to do with a rock band."

"Wait, what? A robot? The diminutive droid, named S1N3RGY, is perhaps the most awkward remnant of the film's source material. … Here, S1N3RGY feels like a wildly incongruous afterthought in a movie that mostly dumps the TV show's singular sci-fi-tinged flamboyance to create a cloying contemporary teen flick about finding companionship through music and social media."

"The film adapts the hit '80s cartoon and toy line Jem," in the sense that there is still a main character named Jerrica Benton (Aubrey Peeples) who lives a double life as the titular rock star."

"Christy Marx, the creator of the original Jem series, has a cameo as a journalist, when what the movie could have used was her real—not fictional—writing skills."

"Whereas Hasbro’s cartoon Jem and the Holograms was spunky, brash and over the top, this live-action version of Jem and her sisters dispenses with the camp and goes straight for corny. There’s hardly tension, barely any drama and the sugar high you might expect from an eighties redux is replaced by a dull aspartame buzz."

"Chu has turned the intuitive computer Synergy into a cute robot pet and Jem into Justin Bieber. He has his female lead mimic Bieber's real-life viral rise to fame in a movie that is clearly for millennials, not for the cult fans of the original series."

"Shatner and the show's devoted fans would be well advised to steer clear of the final product. Not being part of the generation that watched the show, I can't vouch for its merits. But it's safe to say that it must be miles ahead of this wan, bloated screen version which forgoes the original's sci-fi and thriller aspects. Reduced to a teen girl empowerment vehicle that trots out every show business cliche about sacrificing your values for stardom, the film is a non-starter that is unlikely to attract the intended target audience."

"Fans of the original series will be outraged, while newcomers will be mystified."

"The movie doesn't put enough effort into any of these subplots; it seems to be merely tossing ideas into the pot that it thinks might appeal to 9-year-olds. Its biggest sin, though, is to miss the girl-power allure of the cartoon, in which Jerrica, in addition to being a rock star, was also a businesswoman. Instead, it grabs for the YouTube generation by making Jem a heroine for every kid who has ever been fat-shamed, had parents who don't listen, has been anxious about sexual identity and so on. Homemade-looking videos, thanking Jem for giving voice to their concerns through her bland songs, keep cropping up to try to sell this conceit."

"If you're a hard-core "Jem" fan who's still mad that Synergy is no longer a super-computer and that the rival band The Misfits are nowhere to be found (stick around after the credits, I'm just saying), you won't be won over by this reimagining of the material. But if you never had much investment in the Holograms, and aren't expecting any singles as great as "Three Small Words" from "Josie and the Pussycats," you may find this bubblegum musical more of a toe-tapper than you might have imagined."

"And yet the film seems inexplicably embarrassed by its roots, instead serving up half-baked and self-consciously contemporary drama that no one in the sure-to-be minimal theatrical audience will remember quite so fondly some 30 years on."