While I believe The Force Awakens played its narrative extremely safe by sticking to the template provided by A New Hope, there were a few subtleties that separated the movie from A New Hope. I like how there were more battle sequences in The Force Awakens, and they all felt very tense and believable. The opening sequence with Finn touching a fellow downed storm trooper was especially well done with the smeared blood remaining on his mask after touching the remains. It felt like he was literally paying in cold blood for all the terrible deeds the First Order had done. It was nice to see quite a lot of action early on with BB-8 on Jakku. I enjoyed the being captured by a passing trader, then by the servants of the greedy merchant, then almost by the First Order a lot better than the Jawas simply claiming R2-D2 as their own after a simple blast with a stun gun. I also enjoyed how far we've come from the Death Star simply destroying Alderaan with a quick explosion to actually seeing people on the planet realizing their imminent doom. That said, I couldn't really connect with these people the same way I could to Leia losing her home world. They were just some random people meeting their doom.
What truly bugged me about the movie, however, is the sheer number of coincidences. It just so happened that Rey and Finn stumbled upon the Millenium Falcon, which just so happened to be picked up by Han Solo and Chewbacca. Rey also happened to be at the place that held Anakin's old lightsaber, she learned Jedi mind control at the most convenient of moments, and she developed force abilities faster than Luke Skywalker did in three years. The latter is the most forgivable considering that Anakin went from good to evil in the span of a day in Revenge of the Sith. Additionally, it felt a bit too convenient when Rey and Kylo Ren were separated at the end of their lightsaber duel by the ground collapsing between them. That said, after discussing this scene extensively with someone, I can respect it as a metaphor for the separation between the light and dark side. The one thing that truly was unexplained is how R2-D2 suddenly switched on and had the missing parts of the map at the end of the movie. It felt like J.J. Abrams buried himself into a plot hole, so he just used the laziest way possible to get himself out of it.
Returning to Kylo Ren specifically, I found it extremely hard to take him seriously after he removed his mask. He seemed like the personification of teenage angst, not an apprentice of the dark side. The actual scene of him removing his mask was so much less influential than Darth Vader's grand unveiling. I love the build-up to the moment of unmasking in Return of the Jedi when we first see the back of Vader's burned head in The Empire Strikes Back as he puts his helmet back on in his force meditation chamber.
Kylo Ren also lacked character depth in this movie. I didn't really feel the conflict in him, because most of his backstory was handled by dull conversation between Han and Leia, poor visual cinematography that would be more at home in The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones. Still, I felt that Kylo Ren provided a truly scary villain, the likes of which we haven't seen in Star Wars yet. The opening scene in the village, the flashback Rey sees when touching Anakin's lightsaber for the first time, Kylo pointing his lightsaber at Rey in the green forest, and the final lightsaber duel in the winter forest had a more heavy, tense, horror vibe to them. I'm in definite agreement with MW7 that Rey retrieving the lightsaber from the snow at the end of the movie when Kylo Ren thought he was doing so, and the subsequent look of consternation on his face, was fantastically done.
Unfortunately, what should have been his most epic moment, the killing of Han Solo, felt somewhat unconvincing. Han Solo is the type of character I'd expect to go down guns blazing, not to lower his defenses in front of someone trained in the dark side, even his own son. I understand that Han shouting, "Ben!" to Kylo Ren was supposed to add a more human feel to the father and son confrontation, but it felt very sudden and out of the blue. There was also a lack of closure for Han's death. Only Rey and Leia's hug and Chewbacca's forlorn howls and expression really captured how important of a character Han Solo was for the franchise. If Qui-Gonn Jinn received a proper burial send-off, Han Solo should have been a mourning ten times that. It felt strange for Luke to not even acknowledge his longtime friend's passing at the end.
One more smaller criticism I have about the movie is the lack of memorable new music. The new music I heard sounded a bit generic, like something you'd find in a typical action movie. I was grateful for the few times some classic Star Wars tunes were heard.
Overall, I'd rank The Force Awakens at the middle of the pack for Star Wars movies. It was a great action film, but there were too many inconsistencies and borrowed elements from the original trilogy, although some did have their own twists. In retrospect, the safe narrative of The Force Awakens has made me appreciate that George Lucas took more of a risk with the prequels, even if many elements of those movies did not pay off. That said, I've seen the first six episodes countless times, so it's hard to compare this new movie to them. My opinions on the film are still fluid, and will no doubt develop over the coming weeks, months, and years.