When I saw Force Awakens back in 2015, I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was not only great to see the original characters again, but, I was very intrigued by the idea of someone leaving the First Order and trying to find his way. I actually thought Finn was going to be the main focus of the trilogy. I don't recall any indication that it was a movie solely about Rey and her journey (of course I haven't seen it in ages and I could just be forgetting something massive from the movie).
And even as good as it was, I remember saying after it ended to a friend, "Yep. I absolutely loved it. I thought it was great! But, let's see what they do with the next one."
For all intents and purposes, Force Awakens was a re-calibration and reintroduction to the Star Wars universe. And in many ways, it was sort of unfair to the new cast, because I don't believe for a second every fan going into that movie was excited to see what these new characters bring. No, they were more excited that they were going to see Han, Chewie, Leia, and the Falcon again. And look, I was one of them, too.
What I ultimately am dissatisfied with is how this new trilogy invalidates just about everything that was done in the previous one. It wasn't something that occurred to me until Poe says to Lando, "How did you do this last time?" Sure, they destroyed the Death Star (twice), took down Palpatine, defeated Vader, and, for the most part, crushed the Galactic Empire -- though the fall of the Empire took a while. Out of that rose the First Order which is just the Empire with a different name, more modern-looking Star Destroyers with a glossy black interior (because black means evil; though I, myself, wear nothing BUT black
) that still looks every bit like its predecessors. Starkiller base was just a much larger Death Star and then Palpatine turns out to have never died in the first place?
