When I first saw the force awakens in theaters, I was blown away and excited about it. But shortly after I noticed errors in the plot and didn't approve of the movie. One thing they DID get right was the scenes, decorations, and costumes. But here are some reasons The Force Awakens gets a thumbs down.
1: REALLY, ANOTHER DEATH STAR! The Star Wars franchise is one of the most important movie series of all time, and Abrams just decided to copy A New Hope. The story is irrelevant, especially when the third death star was introduced. "Oh boy another death star. Lets go blow it up, piece of cake." Why not an interesting new plot that no one can predict. Nope. Just had to screw up and be lazy with the plot.
2: Where did Snoke come from? He's just some random force weilder who owns the First Order. His significance as a character is almost 0. He has no past, just intentions on ruling the galaxy. I hope future star wars movies give him significance or bring back the emperor.
3: Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think in star wars Legends the emperor returns as a clone of his original self and the Empire rises again. Hey! There's a plot that could have been used instead of the copy of a new hope.
4: The stormtroopers looked kind of dumb. If the original stormtroopers were made of clay, the new ones are smoothed down and rounded, having no interesting features whatsoever.
5: What would George Lucas say? Would he approve of the plot? He's been such a good storyteller and now the new Force Awakens takes his story, copies it, and puts it somewhere else in the timeline. Abrams did a much better job with star trek.