Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
Something something Force, recycle old plot points, something BB8 toys, Darth Emo something something, make a trillion dollars in marketing deals alone!!!
I think the take-away here is that the quality of a movie is inversely proportional to the number of advertisements featuring tie-ins to it. I think I'll skip the next Star Wars.
I start off in your camp, but not in conclusion.
This was the most derivative movie imaginable. New character in need of a force makeover with questionable parentage on a desert planet meets a legendary character to help her. Throw in a larger death star and a new father/son, good/evil quandary and shake.
I could have lived with that, was enjoying the new and old characters up until the lazy death scene for Solo. What I mean is that a) Han had no reason to walk into that believing he was going to walk out of it, b) while I get this was the way to make an otherwise whiny kid with impulse issues into a universally detestable villain, it was the cheapest and easiest route. I kept thinking, the three good guys can't keep one kid on the straight and narrow? Really? Didn't see it coming and let him wander off into the dark side?
The only thing I liked about the movie after the death scene was the set up for the second. Luke was always the odd character out. A whiny kid in his own right who slowly began to turn into something more substantive in the second film, only to lapse a bit (but what character didn't) in the third. The look and the moment closing out Awakens invested something necessary in his character.
I think the next movie should be much more original and interesting...unless they just make Luke into Obi-Wan and Rey into Luke II.