Excellent but too familiar...

Rating: 8/10 (19 December 2015)

I'm going to do my best to not share any spoilers here.
This movie is a lot of fun, it excels in most everything but 1 thing, it reminds me of the A-Team TV show, where each week the overall plot would be the same, but the sub-plots were different and entertaining. TFA overall plot was designed to have clever references to Episode 4, but ended up being too similar. This was done intentionally. The fans whined about the prequels, so Abrams gave them what they wanted, a movie just like the original. When Abrams did this in the last Star Trek movie I thought it was clever, but this time I was longing for a newer plot.
Otherwise the movie was good:
Humor: Lots unlike the prequels
Special effects: Practical effects combined with CG were excellent
Creativity: Low because of the overall plot, but the sub plots were fun.
Bad guys: Kylo is a good character, but could have had more background and buildup on him. Snoke was 1 dimensional, but so was the Emperor initially.
Plot holes: No major plot holes, but they didn't explain how the First Order came about, where the Republic army was, or the feasibility of death star #3.
New characters: Finn, Rey and Poe were excellent.
Old characters: Han, Leia, Luke & the droids were fun to see, though except for Han the others didn't do much.
Music: Good, but nothing new and epic like the Imperial March or Duel of the Fates.
After watching it again, it makes more sense and I like it more. It's not perfect, but is enjoyable.