This might be something ultra-important about the Disney contribution. Disney teams are probably all highly skilled in emotion portrayal. Lucas was, frankly, awful at that. IMHO structuring believable, resonant emotional connections between characters in the PT is the second most urgent task for any faneditor to tackle, the primary/foundational trifecta of course being the removal of Jar-Jar, midichlorians, and racist stereotypes. The emotional connections are the more subtle and difficult of the two to handle.
Yes, Disney are very skilled = and experienced - in getting that emotional portrayal across in their movies. I also think JJ and his team may have the same issue in getting people to like to the new crew in his first Star Trek film - probably a very important issue for him to handle that with a lot riding on the ST reboot - perhaps another tick in the box on the Disney ticksheet when going through the names they wanted to helm their new Star Wars film.