Let me just say I really enjoyed the film but I'm not at all ready to stand up and sing it's praises. I need to see it a few more times, which I'm going to, before I really make up my mind. I loved Rey, Finn, and Poe. Han and Chewie were great. I could have used more Leia and it was annoying how little of Luke we got. The ground fight scenes were great, all of them. All those actions sequences work well for me. I hope have more ground combat or at least aerial combat. Speaking of which the X-wing combat above Maz's was great. That long shot of Poe flying with Finn, Han, and Chewie on the ground was great. More of that please. I really enjoy what they're doing with Rey and Finn's friendship and possible relationship. Same with Finn and Poe's friendship. The use of BB-8 was really good. Kylo Ren was an interesting surprise for me. Especially since it he has some interesting call backs to the past EU and Jacen Solo be they intentional or not. I really appreciated that. My concern with Han and Leia was that they were going to break up that relationship. My head canon, until shown otherwise, is that a lot of relationship stuff for the two of them could mirror some of the stuff they went through in the old EU. Keeping them together was important for me and for the most part they did and it's understandable why they would have separated in the film. It was also clear they still loved each other and couldn't even pretend they didn't.
However the X-wing combat around the Starkiller was poor. That entire sequence was disappointing save for the very end with Poe. I know it wasn't a focus but it felt like it wasn't even important. You likely could have done that entire ending sequence without it for the most part and somehow redid the bombing of the inside so other way. It felt like those X-wings were there just to have an X-wing fight to play on the nostalgia of the Death Run run in A New Hope and the Trade Federation attack in The Phantom Menace. That didn't work for me at all. I also don't think they should have played the superweapon card so soon.
Phasma was completely pointless as well. Her character is a prime example of why I do not buy toys of characters before the film comes out. We don't know what the characters will be like or how much they'll be in the film. Nearly everything we've see of her in the trailers and promotional footage is almost all of her appearance.
Right now there is a lot I really enjoyed about the film and a few things I had issues with and a few of them were things I was concerned would happen. Not plot wise but with how the film was structured and paced.
This film need far more exposition. People complain that some films have to much of it but this is a film I feel needed a little more. I say this as a person that is a Star Wars fan, read the EU when I was younger, read up on the current events after the slate was wiped clean. There are things that should have been explained by characters or been in that opening crawl. You had a character in Rey where you could explain certain things and it wouldn't have take people out of the film. She has no knowledge of why the galaxy is the way it is it seems. A short conversation about the stories she's heard and what really happen was all that was needed. Instead pushing that information to visual guides, etc.
Disney doesn't get that Star Wars isn't the same as marvel. Guardians and captain America are pretty different. Star Wars is Star Wars, too many movies will dilute the name.
This is ultimately my biggest concern about the Disney's handling things. Especially if the films move at the rapid pace that TFA does. I'm going to say something that some might hate. There was not enough world building in this film. That was something Lucas did very well in the prequels. He made the locations and worlds scenes took place in feel alive. Like actually locations. Doesn't matter if he used to much CGI or not. It felt like the characters were going from world to world. That's not to say there isn't some of that in the new film but it's limited. As a fan of world building that was one of the things that I loved about the prequels and why I will never hate them the way some do. I don't think that is something people hate about the prequels.
They need to expand this universe they're working in and it has to expand on the screen not just in the novels or the comics. What locations we see can't just be limited to the characters immediate locations and nothing else. I fear if they're pushing these films out fairly quickly that's what we're going to get because there simply won't be time. I love the details JJ put into stuff like the food Rey was eating. That flip side of that with the world at large can and should be done as well.
Certain things also needed to be explained. I get the feeling there was entire sub-plot removed from film. The close up on the characters when the planets were destroyed by the Starkiller is what makes me think that. That close up was suppose to have meant something and we were suppose to know the importance of those planets being destroyed. I would guess that would have slowed down the film instead of allowing it to move from one action sequence to the next.