I saw it an hour ago and I loved it. What's funny is I watch this movie and like others have said, it really enforces the notion that the prequels were AWFUL. This movie also had the right mixture of Star Wars elements and JJ Abrams' style of directing movies. Spoiler warning
Case and point: The character of Rey. She all the sudden discovers the force and knows how to use it to her advantage as a warrior. The movie implies that she clearly is a gifted jedi who has a mysterious backstory. That took me off-guard but knowing JJ Abrams and his tendency to make his stories mysterious, I think her backstory and power will be explained with time. Also, I watched her character and thought to myself, This is how they should have done Anakin Skywalker in the prequels. Someone who unknowingly has this power as a jedi and slowly but surely knows how to use the force to become a legendary fighter. Atleast with Anakin, even if he didn't know his own power as a jedi, the audience would have because we knew he was going to become Darth Vader. That's what makes the character of Rey so interesting. Her character has so much potential.
Something else that was phenomenal was the character relationships. Particularly between Rey and Finn. You got the sense of a budding friendship between the two from their interactions. Even though Finn had the hots for her early on you could see both him and her clearly connecting as people and having each other's back. Could they later fall in love as the trilogy goes on? Who knows? The movie leaves it open-ended between the two of them. Compared to yet again, the prequels, where all the relationships are told to us instead of being shown like with Obiwan and Anakin's "friendship", where you don't see them interact much together throughout the trilogy (Heck in AOTC you get more of a sense that they resent each other), or more infamously, Anakin and Padme's "love", where their relationship a. Doesn't make any sense and b. Is all told through awful dialogue.
You could also see the continued chemistry between Han/Chewbacca and Han/Leia. Han's death still shook me even though I saw it coming when I saw him talk with with his son. I'm going to agree with the more positive view of Kylo Ren in that I thought he was a great villain. I may have already said this somewhat with Rey, but Kylo Ren was what I think George Lucas wanted Anakin to be. An almighty sith lord who is power hungry but confused and may still have some good in him as a person.
I agree that "The Force Awakens" borrows a lot of elements from "A New Hope", but I saw it more as adding something new to these elements as opposed to blatantly ripping them off. The movie keeps you invested the whole time. You can't honestly tell me there were parts of this movie where you were bored, unlike the prequels. There was a scene of sitting and talking but the difference between that and the prequels was that something was happening during the sitting and talking scene that furthers the plot.
Overall, the movie, even if it left me with some questions, lived up to the hype. I hope to see it again soon and can't wait for episodes 8 & 9.
I mentioned the prequels a lot in this rant but it's just, to me, the prequels had so much potential to be great movies and they were absolutely awful, and "The Force Awakens" reminded me of what a Star Wars movie should be. The prequels on the other hand are not what Star Wars is about. So much of the story doesn't make sense. It's very boring and hard to follow. You don't care about the characters. They go with a "tell-don't-show" approach. The only reason why all three movies are connected is because they say that they are. However, what sticks out the most to me is that prequels demonstrated that George Lucas did not understand the mythos of Star Wars. There was a deeper meaning to becoming a Jedi than just swinging a shiny burning sword to kill people as told in the originals, but in the prequels, they in fact go against the real meaning of a Jedi. I will say "Revenge of the Sith" is the only enjoyable prequel out of the three, but it is still a very flawed movie.
But yeah, loved episode 7. Well done Mr. Abrams and good riddance Mr. Lucas.