An argument can be made that it was not derivative enough, but here goes…
Interpreting “originality” broadly, no PC for the sake of PC. We are already getting “Black: check. Hispanic: check.” everywhere and with everything.
I thought Ridley, Boyega, and Isaacs did a fantastic job, Ford couldn’t have carried the production to 2 billion by himself, but this series is supposed to be essentially a '30s-'40s adventure serial. Also, it was white male characters and white male fans that carried the franchise to greatness. The Black Panther movie is in production. Imagine how distracting it would be if they decided the lead was black for too darned long and there needs to be a white lead to demonstrate inclusion. I can’t wrap my head around a black guy as 007 for the same reason. To top it off, there’s just no way to divorce this kind of thing from the element of “Yyyyyeeeeeaaaaaahhhhh!!! Now we’re really sticking it to whitey!!!” Unpleasantly distracting. They’re lucky they had a lot of watercooler buzz.
On the business side, I don’t believe for a second that sales would have suffered if Finn and Po were fair blue-eyed white guys, all else being equal. Without the distraction, if anything, they would have blown past Titanic to threaten Avatar. Titanic and Avatar had white male leads, Jurrassic World had whites as the three principle males, and Avengers had all but one male as white (though an Italian American for Bruce Banner instead of Hulk was a slight switcheroo.)
I’m tired of the nasty, and even downright hateful attitudes that inevitably get attached to these PC efforts, and I feel the greatest problem with the PT was the refusal to be consistent with the OT in every way possible.
I still hope that the screenwriters will find a way to satisfy most everyone with this, but I’m still looking for that shamelessly '30s-'40s serial SW movie.
Edit: Where the hhheeeeeeelllllll are my indents?!?!? I need indents!