Overall, I liked it a lot though it wasn't without things that I would have changed. For the longer version of that view below.
Johnny Novgorod said:
1) Was that supposed to be Coruscant?
2) I'm more than a bit spiteful of Han's death. The only reason I tolerate it is because I suspect this is Harrison finally getting his revenge on Lucas.
3) Oscar Isaac is amazing and Episode VIII could only benefit from focusing exclusively on his character.
4) That ending... Matrix Reloaded, anybody?
5) C-3PO's random red arm was hilarious. What a half-assed jab at selling new toys.
6) Did anybody get where the bad guys came from, at all? Why are we back to Emperor/Vader/Moff & Death Star? Who are these people? At no point is the Rebellion's victory in Return of the Jedi acknowledged. What happened that everything sucks again?
1. My understanding is that it wasn't actually Coruscant as that's not the New Republic's capital.
2. Han is my favorite character so obviously I didn't want him to die. Speaking as a writer though, I'm fine with important characters dying as long as their death has meaning or lives up to the character. I felt his was lacking slightly.
3. I wish he was in more scenes.
4. It felt like a lot of build up to a lot of nothing.
5. Unless they're going to elaborate on it at any point, it was sort of a pointless addition.
6. From what I get is they're a radicalized splinter group of the Empire, but honestly, they really should have explained that better.
As per things I would have changed to better improve the movie without really replacing any assets-
From the opening there needs to be a bit more exposition on who the New Order is and who the Republic and Resistance is. That can be elaborated on throughout but something needs to happen during the opening crawl. Also it needs to be better established that Kylo Ren is still fairly new at this whole Sith/Jedi thing to explain some of his weaknesses while still giving the character a lot of room to grow and develop.
When Poe is captured he is taken back to that planet destroying mega-weapon. Currently that thing just sprung out of nowhere on us. Now when Finn helps Poe escape, obviously they're further from Jakku and need to get back to it, so they successfully steal a shuttle and still fight their way out. Poe is now part of the main ensemble now. So he gets some additional character development.
When Han and company land on that bar and the New Order attacks, I would have made Finn much more competent with the lightsaber for reasons I'll get into later and have the fight between him and the Stormtrooper be much more evenly matched, Han finishing it off mid fight though (because you're not really going to just stand around now are you?). Rey will be captured and as Kylo is carrying him off to the ship Han then shouts "Ben!", Kylo turns around briefly before entering the ship and away they go. From there you can elaborate on Kylo being his son. I felt there wasn't much drama around that.
Back at the Resistance base everything goes on as it had in the movie, except they do find Luke's location off of bb-8. I find it hard to believe that they couldn't look at that huge chunk of map and simply match it up with some data they had. However at this point the Republic capital is destroyed and Luke has to wait.
The mission goes on very much as it had been. Rey doesn't have quite the awakening she does. It can be more elaborated on, and she only mind controls the storm trooper enough to let loose a couple of the straps holding her down, using her freedom to kill the trooper and free herself the rest of the way. Han dies however not after getting in a final word that will have some form of lasting impact because as it's been greatly shown, Han will always try his best to have that last word.
Skipping forward now, Finn, now having some experience with a lightsaber and shown to be fairly capable with it, is cut down very swiftly by a very angered Kylo, establishing him, even when injured, as extremely menacing. Rey picks up the saber and begins to fight, clearly outmatched. Chewbacca shows up and the two manage a decent fight however need to pull back when the planet begins to rupture and rescue Finn, bringing him onto the Falcon, which Poe is now piloting, because he's actually part of the main ensemble now remember?
The world slowly breaks apart more and more however isn't destroyed. It can still serve as a military powerhouse although the superweapon is completely useless. Kylo for the first time gets in touch with Supreme Leader Snoak, informs him of what happened and Snoak tells him he will help him finish his training.
The movie progresses much the same until the ending wherein Rey finds Luke (without offering the lightsaber), he turns around, clearly seeing his own green lightsaber on his waist (not Anakin's), says "hello there" just as Old Ben did to him when they first met, and the credits roll.
