To each their own. I did not find it disappointing, perhaps in part because I knew what they were aiming to do and that the intended audience was people who had a passing acquaintance with SW as much or a bit more than those closely familiar with it. They knew they needed to not do anything too flashy or outside the canon because of the big time fans but also needed to get a new cast launched and open it up to new viewers.
As a result, they kept the story simple and easy to follow (and perhaps derivative yes). And also they did things like the live John Williams music, the heavy emphasis on practical effects over CGI, the emphasis on making sure it "felt Star Wars" and so on. Even things like the lightsaber fighting being emotional and lacking in fancy moves. Where they succeeded was in launching successfully their new characters (Rey, Finn, Poe, Kylo) all of whom have gone over well.
Where did they miss to me? One major area was unexplained plot elements. In a two and a half hour film time should have been found for at least some exposition on exactly what the First Order is, where did it come from, why is there a Resistance, what are the Knights of Ren and so on. Some scene like having Leia addressing the Senate of the New Republic for a few minutes early in the film would have done nicely. Also, show me things like how Kylo got off of Starkiller Base and such.
Still and all, I liked it overall and it was WAY better than the prequels, which are three of the worst movies ever made.
I get where you're coming from but I think you're being a bit too generous overall. Yes, it makes sense to hit all the original chords but some things were absolutely gratuitous such as the Death Star redux...redux.
It was done
twice in the original trilogy. Then they decided to recycle it for episode VII. (It was also done in Rogue One, but we can overlook that as it was part of the original story.) That makes three separate times that they used the Death Star as the central focus of the story.
Three. That is ridiculous and shows a shocking amount of cynicism on the part of the creators of the new series of movies.
Finn and Rey were fine, albeit a bit rushed, but it's a movie and there are time constraints so it's expected. Poe was a bore. His instant friendship with Finn was not believable. Again, I get the need for time constraints but their camaraderie fell flat because it was so obviously spoon fed to us. And Kylo Ren came off as petulant and confusing. I get that they were saving his story for later on when Luke got re-introduced. But they could have given us more to chew on other than that he is a spoiled brat with mommy/daddy issues.
I also agree with you about the First Order. And the CGI of Snope or Snape or whatever was laughable. I didn't get a feeling of malevolence or evil from him the way I did from Vader or the Emperor in the original trilogy. That was a glaring misstep in terms of story telling.
None of what I suggested can be attributed to marginal, fanboi whining. There's no reason they couldn't have hit these notes and fine tuned the story without worrying that it would alienate any new and/or casual fans. They could have used a different type of weapon other than the Death Star. (How many of these damn things does the Empire have in dry dock???) And what was the point of having that chrome-plated First Order storm trooper chick in the movie at all? She did nothing other than intimidate Finn. And what's worse they didn't show her get her comeuppance in the trash compactor, they just talked about it, that's all. What the hell is that about??? So we're supposed to believe that they left her alive and tied up in a closet somewhere? What happened to her? Again, what was the point of her character at all? (And how is this not a legit complaint on my part? When they pour hundreds of millions of dollars into creating a movie there really is no excuse for these kinds of holes in the story. No excuse at all.)
There's more of course but I'll stop for now. Suffice to say that episode 7 cost far too much to produce for it to be as flawed as it turned out to be. For that kind of money perfection should be guaranteed.
I did not really like The Force Awakens or this last film The Last Jedi but Rogue One was fresh and new and was 100% Star Wars in my opinion.
