7 was pretty much homage city to the originals. It's the deathstar! But bigger! And we blew it up too!
8 was... weird. Why develop new technologies and space fleets when you can just hyperspace droid/remote piloted 'missiles' into them? Giant capital flagship? More like giant target board.
Palpatine shooting that giant lightning storm out his hands was pretty cool not gonna lie. But... it absolutely did nothing. The ships all started short circuiting sure but... nobody died and the ships all immediately went back to business as usual. So.... what was the point?