J.J. Abrams wishes he was directing Star Wars: Episode VIII

While the secular world has been heaping praise on “Star Wars: The Force Awakens”, Disney’s massively marketed reboot of the Lucasfilm franchise (after buying George Lucas’ company and the rights to the “Star Wars” universe), the semi-official newspaper of the Vatican begs to differ. Commercially, the film has already made over $600 million worldwide and critically it stands at 95% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes.

L’Osservatore Romano, a Vatican newspaper which normally confines its columns toward reporting about the activities of the Pope, has slammed the latest Star Wars film as “confused and hazy”.

As a professed fair-weather fan of the “Star Wars” ethos, I found “The Force Awakens” to be rousing, incredibly well-made and genuinely artful. The verdict? Two holy thumbs down. The only reason why Kylo Ren has any hope of being a worthy successor is because we lose one of the most beloved characters.

Continuing the rant against the bad guys, Ranzato wrote that the use of computer-generated imagery in creating Snoke’s appearance “is the clumsiest and tackiest result you can obtain from computer graphics”. Abrams also puts his own stamp on the material, enlisting the aid of collaborators and friends like Simon Pegg (who was a vital part of the director’s “Star Trek” films), cinematographer Daniel Mindel, and “Alias” actor Greg Grunberg, described in the video as the director’s “lucky charm”.

Lest you think L’Osservatore Romano is just being prudish in their Force Awakens hate, they note that the new Star Wars movie is “not a classy reboot…like Nolan’s Batman” and previously called Mad Max: Fury Road a “masterpiece”, so they’re not above Hollywood blockbusters.

Meanwhile, Time magazine’s Stephanie Zacharek complained: “Somewhere along the way, Abrams begins delivering everything we expect, as opposed to those nebulous wonders we didn’t know we wanted”.