Goddamn am I disappointed.
I read somewhere a phrase that perfectly described the Star Wars universe. It was in an article discussing the Millennium Falcon, with its many scrapes and bumps, looking 'lived-in'. It went on to say the entire Universe feels** 'lived-in'**, a history that seemed built into the stars themselves.
Of course we don't know it, certainly not in specifics, but we can imagine things happening there. We can imagine a family of Gungans going on vacation. People on Alderaan debating global warming. A mother putting sunscreen on her baby girl before traipsing across Tatooine. People did things, they lived their lives, they existed!
It took me almost two hours after watching VII to put my finger on what bothered me about the movie. Because I loved it. How could you not, it's Star Wars! I shed tears of joy the second the second the scroll began. I saw Han coming and I still gasped. Ray was indescribably perfect, Finn and Po and Chewie and BB-8, everything was magnificent.
But I cared about them as characters, not as citizens of the vast galaxy so many have fought and died for. There's so many different ways to make the audience care about the big picture, and for some reason TFA used none of them.
The obvious misstep is the lack of political set-up, but that's been fleshed out in other comments. Just the smallest sense of 'largeness' would've made the difference, something that shows why the Republic was even founded. What does the First Order even want? Who is being harmed or helped? We get a two second shot of some worried faces glowing in a red light, and then we're meant to feel a sense of loss? Of tragedy, of oppression?
Instead I was left with a sense of emptiness. Yet another quarrel between the Light and the Dark, The EmpireFirst Order and the Rebellion New Republic Rebellion. I got the sense that the entire Universe is rolling their eyes at the two going at it again while they keep living their lives.
There's no threat here. The First Order seems evil only because it's supposed to. No threat to the galaxy, no reason for fighting, no reason for the Rebellion, no reason for me to care.
That said, I fangirled out and loved every single second of it, and will without question see it again. I'm just disappointed this is simply another sequel, and has too many missteps to be a good movie on its own merits.