Just got back from seeing it for the first time.
I enjoyed it even having most of it spoiled beforehand. I was pleasantly surprised with how much I liked Finn, Rey and Poe as characters.
But even though I generally enjoyed the whole thing, the whole movie seemed to just develop a huge case of ADHD once Han Solo and Chewie showed up. Up to that point, everything in the movie flowed fairly well but after that its like a bunch of disjointed scenes glued together. I mean, I know the main thrust of the plot was "Find Luke" but does the movie ever really explain why everyone wants to find Luke? Just cause he's the last Jedi and the First Order wants to kill him?
I feel like that's where comparisons to A New Hope sort of break down. In ANH, the whole movie from beginning to end centered on the Death Star and the Rebellion trying to take it out. With TFA, it still basically starts with finding Luke, but once Han shows up the main plot thrust gets completely bogged down and drowned out in some real poor exposition explaining what Han and Leia have been doing the past 30 years, some of Kylo Ren's backstory, oh yeah we've got a super Death Star and we'll blow up the Republic capital that nobody seems to care about, let's kill off Han because Harrison Ford wants to be done with these movies, toss in an obligitory trench run and on and on.
I feel like there is a really great movie in there but I don't know if it was just edited really poorly or once Han and the older characters came to the fore, JJ felt the need to check off a bunch of nostalgia boxes or something.
And Kylo Ren and the whole First Order was a total disappointment. The OT and even the prequels had decent villains/antagonists. Once Kylo Ren took off his helmet he just became "Han and Leia's angsty kid" and not somebody to be feared. His whole schtick would have been great as prequels Anakin, but its kind of like we've been there, done that before. And when you've got Rey wiping the floor with Kylo Ren, what is this guy's purpose? The rest of the First Order was just bland and just not threatening. Hux seemed like a poor man's Tarkin. Phasma was a poor man's Boba Fett, although I guess she went out like a total punk like Boba Fett. And Snoke? I just cannot get over how horrible that name is. I know its an impossible job coming up with fantasy character names but "Supreme Leader Snoke"? Snoke sounds about as least threatening or menacing or evil as you think. I just don't quite see where they're going with the First Order going forward and I think that's the biggest problem I have with the movie and possibly going forward. These guys are a bunch of pushover, non threatening dorks. The heroes were all pretty good in the movie but the villains were barely villainous and not even threatening. Sure they blow up a planet but I feel like not even the Resistance really gave a shit about that when it happened. And ok, I guess Kylo Ren killed Han, which is too bad but that was so telegraphed and not knowing much of anything about Kylo Ben, that scene sort of fell flat.
And can someone explain why all the main CG characters have no noses? Are noses hard to do in CG or something? Maz ( I think that was her name) and Snoke I guess being the main examples. Between them and like the apes in the Planet of the Apes movies or Gollum, that dawned on me while watching the movie.