First off, I loved the film, but that's not to say it didn't have it's problems. The entire thing was a rehash, but I get why, they needed to play it safe to get the initial installment off the ground. Disney, with $4B on the line couldn't get overly ambitious, they needed a sure fire homerun, so went to the tried and true formula. I have every confidence they will shake it up in the future now that they have a "history" of making good Star Wars films. I think they've done a generally good job of this in the Marvel universe, though after 10 years, I'm very ready to move beyond Infinity Stones. Still, all in all, the different franchises have had different feels and has led to a more dynamic universe. Future Star Wars should get better by becoming more diverse as well.
What really bothered me the most though was the scope of the movie universe. I get that Star Wars is about the people, but what's captured my attention in the past has been the size and scale of the universe. In RotJ, there were many Star Destroyers and many Rebel Cruisers. The action in Attack of the Clones and in Revenge of the Sith involved massive fleets and armies fighting important battles. (Discussing intent, not execution. I'm not saying the prequel battles were done better). In TFA, the best the resistance can muster is 2 squadrons of fighters against the biggest threat the galaxy has ever faced? I'm not ignoring the fact that the 1st Order just destroyed the Republic Fleet and headquarters, I'm actually thinking that drives my point home further. In the old universe, one would expect the Republic to have multiple fleets to patrol a galaxy with thousands of worlds. Here, they have 1 fleet, and it just stays at the capitol planet? That seems so small. Why is the Resistance's military might roughly equivalent to the Air National Guard for the state of Vermont?
As for the size of the universe, it also felt so tiny. In ANH, there was the scene on board the Falcon where Luke is training with the mask on while they travel. That scene added to the sense of the scale of the universe because transportation was not instantaneous. It takes time to get places. Here, in TFA, Star Killer Base fires from one system, it can be scene in the sky of another system, and hits a third system, presumably very far away since the premise here seems to be that the Republic doesn't care about the 1st Order since they are so far away. The scale of this universe seems tiny. The final assault on SKB is only launched after confirmation of the shields being down. Match that against RotJ when they are rushing to get the shields down before the fleet arrives. It took time to get across the galaxy so things had to be coordinated.
Finally, the final scenes. I expected Rey and Chewie to take off and have the movie end, just as it did in ESB. The fact that they took off and found Luke in 10 seconds just made me feel like they didn't have to look very hard. I get that you need to suspend disbelief, but this post isn't about that, I was totally into it. It just felt like this is a regional conflict, and not something that affects the entire galaxy. The scope of everything here felt all wrong to me.
