I will say that I think JJ and Kasdan mirrored ANH more for the sake of familiarity, but I felt like Rian’s parallels had more of a narrative/thematic purpose than TFA did. Although I still think TFA does.

I do agree that the First Order could’ve been a little more nuanced or better established, but I’ve felt the cycle of light and dark, good and evil, peace and war, history repeating itself, is a theme of the new films. Maybe they could’ve touched on that more in a direct way?

EDIT: I’m gonna leave this up but I keep forgetting this is the box office predictions thread! Sorry Dre.