I generally liked it for the eye candy and the pleasant surprise that Abrams had basically preserved the overall "feel" of the SW universe. But a few things bugged me.
First nit: Unoriginal
It was basically an uncreative re-telling of A New Hope. From a woebegone protagonist living on a sand-planet to secret data stored on little droid pursued by the Empire, er First Order to another cantina band to another confrontation on a suspiciously-flimsy structure spanning a vast, empty space to another "Death Star" replete with trench and vulnerable spot open to attack that is ultimately destroyed but not before destroying a planet or two.
This doesn't feel like 30 years after the events of VI, it feels like 38 years ago in our time...
Second nit: A star-eating Death Star?
Okay, it's bigger and "badder" but, really, another one? And the new Death Star is a modified planet that consumes the energy of an entire star to power its weapon? This seems like a needless destruction of the mystery of what powered the original DSs. In Empire, we saw a vast, wonderous interior space containing a massive "reactor" that had to be destroyed. While we didn't really know how that reactor worked or what energy it used we knew by its immensity that it kicked ***. The SW universe provided the plausibility that, given their mastery of gravity and 19km-long super star destroyers capable of FTL travel, engineers could develop a reactor that could concentrate enough energy from whatever to destroy planets. The overt, in-your-face obviousness of taking all of the energy from a star -- aside from exceeding even the suspension-of-disbelief needed for any movie like this -- is an unnecessary and very Abrams-like "answer" that added nothing to the movie.
Third nit: Darth MopTop
Perhaps the worst and most egregious nit.
In Empire we caught a glimpse of an injured and disfigured Vader as his helmet was being lowered in his meditation chamber (or office or whatever) when Adm. Piett enters the room. Something "human" emerged at that moment; a flawed, damaged person and perhaps there was even some sympathy elicited; what happened to him? Is that part of why he is the way he is? In TFA, the mask is removed to reveal ---- nothing at all; just the anti-climax of a mop-topped boy-band member. Turns out he's just a ****ed-up misunderstood teenager or something equally insipid. No dark back-story, no gravitas. Such a let-down.
Fourth nit: Gollum as the new "Supreme Leader" (<-- North Korea much??)
Palpatine in the original trilogy was a much creepier and more identifiable bad-guy than the too-obviously CG and inexplicably non-human-appearing Severus Snape, er, "Supreme Leader Snoke." Perhaps I would better understand this thing had I been a more of fan-boy and read canonical SW books but from the perspective of the original three movies (so 4, 5 and 6) Snoke just sort of comes out of nowhere.
rotest: 