I initially thought TFA was great and ranked it even with, if not above, ROTJ. However it has not completely held up over time and I now have it slotted in solidly at #5. It’s clearly worse than the OT and Rogue One, but also clearly better than the PT.
I don’t have a huge problem with the rehash of story beats from the OT, but Starkiller base was a terrible decision - it was idiotic nonsense and quite frankly lazy writing. SKB is basically the Ewoks of TFA, not enough to ruin the film, but definitely a flaw.
I enjoyed some of the new characters. Kylo Ren was pretty awesome and I’m definitely intrigued to see where they go with him. Rey was a bit of a blank slate, but also very well acted and I enjoyed the character overall. Finn was very well acted, but I did think his “turn” was kind of ridiculous. He doesn’t want to kill villagers, but shortly later he has no compunction about mowing down Stormtroopers? People who were indoctrinated just like him. I didn’t hate the character, but I feel he could have been executed better. Phasma was minor character - but the scene with her lowering the shield was stupid and lame. Kind of hard to take her seriously after that.
I think TFA could have used 15-20 minutes of additional footage to flesh things out a bit more. The situation in the galaxy is not well explained and seems very thin. The film also could have used some more world building.
I know I listed a lot of critiques, but I did really enjoy the film. It was well made, well acted and it hit the right tone. Honestly I’m fairly happy with what we got given that JJ Abrahms was directing. I was fairly worried after seeing those awful Star Trek films, but TFA was much better than many of his previous efforts (and it’s clear he “gets” Star Wars much more than Star Trek).
While I don’t think TFA is a great film I do think it is a very good film and it’s definitely entertaining. If the Last Jedi ends up being great (which I think there’s a good chance of; Rian Johnson is IMO much more likely to produce something great than JJ ever was) then TFA may move up a bit (although I doubt it will ever pass ROTJ… but it may get back to the same level).
Overall as someone born in 1976 I’m pretty happy with what we’ve seen from Disney so far.