|King Joker|
Your Excellency
I liked The Force Awakens a lot when it first came out, but its appeal has admittedly dwindled quite a bit for me. It just gets to a point where you can't really handwave a lot of the criticisms levied towards the movie, especially since many of them are legitimate. At first, I didn't really care that The Force Awakens basically ripped off A New Hope, but the more I think about it the more I feel sort of insulted at the blatant copying. I still don't think I'll ever truly dislike The Force Awakens, though, since I do find the characters endearing and the story fun, but my leniency on The Force Awakens will be non-existent with The Last Jedi if the latter pulls the same bullshit.
As for Rogue One, I think the only real flaw is the lack of character development, which I doubt many people would dispute. Jyn Erso, unfortunately, feels sort of dull to me—and given that she's basically the main character, she drags down the rest of her ensemble who have more interesting character traits that don't get as much attention. But besides the character flaws, I think the plot was extremely compelling and Director Krennic very interesting, so I could forgive the aforementioned character problem.
I feel like there are more technical story flaws within The Force Awakens than with Rogue One, though, which is why I find Rogue One to be a better movie. The exposition (or probably lack thereof) within The Force Awakens, as well as the exhausting similarities to A New Hope, makes it impossible for me to truly believe that it is a better movie than Rogue One, which actually accomplished something fresh and interesting (despite its accompanying—comparably minor—flaws).