Originally posted by Slowpoke
The biggest issue with TFA was that instead of a balanced and new " new republic vs the villain", it just wanted to pick up the formula of "Rebels VS empire", so the new republic collapsed that easily, which, was stupid and undone EP4-6's effort.Even the old republic had to take Palpatine decades to change to empire. Even the empire took the rebels years to finish off. The new republic simply died after a capital was blasted? And TLJ further nailed the coffin.
Yes so the main plot didn't make much sense if we actually think about it.
Like at the beginning of the movie while the New Republic was still there, why was a "Resistance" even needed? Could have simply tweaked it to the Republic Commandos or even the Intelligence agency, and Voila would have made make perfect sense. Should have been new tech and vehicles as well, like hybrid Empire/Rebels stuff, kind of like the Old Republic was. But like you said it was intended to be a sequel/reboot, like Superman Returns, where it's a sequel that's as much like the Original as possible in every possible way (especially the Look).
So at the time Audiences basically turned their brain off for that film and were just like "Yipee Star Wars is back, and we've got rid of that Blasphemer Lucas, and it's all Disney, so we will love this no matter what."
Having said that, I will admit it was a well directed film, and the new characters seemed exciting and had potential (at that point), so probably still the best of the trilogy (which is a pretty low bar).