Are you guys kidding me here? I thought any reasonable person would be able to realize that the massive success of force awakens was because of the original actors reprising their classic roles and the whole "now this is star wars, not that prequels crap" vibe. Why the heck else do you think that movie was that popular????
Because people like me really enjoyed it and saw it three times? And I kinda enjoy* the prequels too, so that part of the theory can obviously be put in the bin.
Plus, there’s all the kids (and adults, based on some comments we’ve seen floating around here) that had it as their first Star Wars movie, and apparently liked it just fine.
*I hate the ‘prequel crap’ so much, that I saw it in cinemas, brought the discs twice, and have the novelisations. Oh, and watched/brought all the cartoons that directly spun off from them.