Ironically I felt that the ST lacked the political context that the PT suffered from, like it would have just helped to see what the Rebels had fought so much for so we knew what the stakes are within the story.
It’d be cool if the resistance were the surviving elements of the Republic Fleet. An opening scene in TFA could be the Republic Fleet pursuing and outnumbering the First Order, only to be entirely wiped out by the ‘Mysterious Hyperspace Weapon’. Perhaps Leia senses the trap and jumps away in the Raddus just in time.