Not a Star Wars fan, but still loved it nonetheless

Rating: 9/10 (21 December 2015)

So to knockout any confusion, yes, I have seen the other Star Wars movies, but only a handful of times. The prequels and originals alike I have seen, but not very many times. That said, The Force Awakens was truly spectacular!
To begin, you did have many throwbacks to the original trilogy including the addition of characters from said trilogy; I would assume this to be a very welcome feature for the real Star Wars lovers in the world, so ultimately that remains a positive factor of this film. And yes, Han Solo does get killed by Kylo Ren, which I thought felt just a little rushed to be honest: there was not much buildup to it despite Han being such a major character in the Star Wars film franchise.
This leads into the characters, which were generally written and portrayed by their actors very well. This time around, they actually felt like human beings and not robots standing in front of a green screen as with the prequels. While the only initial Jedi in the film was Luke Skywalker (who actually shows up very briefly at the tail-end of the movie), the female lead, Rey, discovered her sensitivity to the force about halfway into the film and became a true Jedi during the final confrontation with Kylo Ren. I appreciated this addition, because you finally get a human female Jedi (who can be taken seriously!), and it was an unexpected yet vital transformation (you had no clue going-into the film that she even possessed sensitivity to the Force). The trailers lead you to believe that Finn is the main protagonist/hero, but he gets tossed to the side without much effort by Ren in the final lightsaber duel, giving Rey the opportunity to take the lightsaber.
Kylo Ren and the other major antagonists were fantastic! Though he may appear to be just a basic Darth Vader clone, Kylo Ren barely fit the bill here, even when taking into consideration his helmet and costume design in the film (VERY reminiscent of Darth Vader from the original trilogy). Rather, his villainy was written very differently, and he was much more aggressive in behavior (specifically, there was one moment where he hits the berserk button and tears apart a control module with his lightsaber. So while he was perhaps an overly-aggressive antagonist, he was by-no-means cheesy). This film appears to be setting up the sequels in a similar manner to the OT, as Kylo Ren is explicitly the heavy villain driving the plot in TFA, but is just a lackey to a greater threat, who, in this new trilogy, is known as Supreme Leader Snoke, who holds the appearance of a deformed reptilian species of a sort (not to mention that he is an obvious expy of the Emperor from both the prequel trilogy and the original trilogy).
Unlike the films in the prequel trilogy, lightsaber presence in The Force Awakens was very limited/conservative. From my recollection, I believe only two showed-up in the whole movie (the blue one that Finn and Rey wield and of course the very distinctive red lightsaber belonging to Ren). Unfortunately, this does in-fact mean directly that there was only one lightsaber duel in the whole film, which was the final conflict between Ren, Rey, and Finn. However, I must add that this was one fantastic fight sequence, done less in the vein of the fights in the prequels, which were more flashy on an unnecessary level (rather it was more similar to what you would see in the original trilogy). But in regards to the ship battles, they were much of the same, yet were still generally entertaining to watch. One should also make note that the effects, most notably the visual effects, were improved vastly from the prequels.
For not being a huge Star Wars fan, this movie was great! It certainly captured the true meaning/essence of Star Wars. 9-9.5/10 for me!