I'm going this Sunday if all goes according to plan. I'm pretty excited. Also, you never had a chance to see episodes 1-6 on the big screen? I don't care too much about 1-3, but when they brought 4-6 back to the big screens on one of the occasions that they did I jumped at the opportunity. That was awesome.  

There are a few subtle errors, that it might be wise to consider the whole franchise a fantasy and not science fiction
Also WTF first order? Instead of wasting your time building another death star just build an arsenal of nuclear weapons, they will be just as effective.
Anyhow, i liked the prequels more then Awakens becouse unlike Awakens the prequals had a good story, albeit one poorly excecuted

i didn't even like star wars things, and this was still disappointing. it was just... so petty and small.

it started off really well, but they should have spent more time setting up fn-whatever dude and action figure girl. have something that compares and contrasts their upbringings, separated from parents, learning to struggle to stay alive and learning how to fight, etc. as soon as they left the first planet, things went very very rapidly downhill.

"oh dear, it's another death star, but bigger"
"oh dear, they just destroyed the entire republic in an instant, and we all care so much"
"oh my, old carrie fisher said 'go blow up that big gun planet', and then they did it. how unexpected"
"huh, every planet is right next to every other planet, so we can get anywhere almost instantaneously"
"huh, ships can be tracked now no matter where they go in the galaxy, so it's impossible for anybody to hide ever"
"they're so progressive, including a black dude (but only one; can't get too crazy), a strong, independent woman who don't need no man (but also isn't above showing her 'sensitive side' or immediately falling for the first guy she sees), a cute little robot side-kick (oh, but we have to include the one from the other movies too, or people will get all upset)."
"oh, thank goodness, they explained every single thing that was happening throughout the entire film. i might have gotten lost otherwise"
"hey look, they couldn't bring back yoda so they found us a new tiny wrinkly bundle of wisdom, and this time it's a female, which is a big improvement!"
"check it out. stronk girl is crying again... and again.... and again. ooh, this time it's because she saw luke, a guy she didn't care, or even know, about approximately... wait, how long has it been? has any time passed at all in this movie? is it all one day? i can't tell..."

I didn't use spoiler tags, soo. Proceed with caution.

I was surprised they said the movie was by lucasarts and not by disney

Marvel is also owned by Disney and we don't have the Disney logo before any of the Marvel Universe movies When Disney bought Lucas Films and said Star Wars was coming back, a lot of people were upset that it'd be turned into a family show and it'd be some little kid movie. But a lot of those people likely didn't even know that Disney made The Avengers, and Iron Man, and Thor, and etc. Because Marvel.

i didn't even like star wars things, and this was still disappointing. it was just... so petty and small.

First of all, if you go in with the attitude that you don't like something you're going to find everything wrong that you can and exaggerate.

it started off really well, but they should have spent more time setting up fn-whatever dude and action figure girl. have something that compares and contrasts their upbringings, separated from parents, learning to struggle to stay alive and learning how to fight, etc. as soon as they left the first planet, things went very very rapidly downhill.

They did explain these things but not as clearly as you have described. My details are fuzzy as I saw this opening night so I can't say when it happened but it was definitely after their proper introductions. They described the background of Finn, the Storm Trooper. The First Order has resorted to kidnapping children from conquered worlds and train them to be ruthless, heartless, killing machines. But for whatever reason it failed on Finn. Because during this battle, presumably his first, he realized what he was doing was wrong. You'd think that for a regime as ruthless as the First Order they'd filter out folks like him by using prisoners of war as live targets and stuff.

As for Rey, they explained her background too. This I'm much more fuzzy on than Finn. I believe in the Lightsaber scene we see flashbacks of Reys life with her parents and then they are viciously taken away. Most likely by the First Order. So, with no support she learns to scavenge for herself and pawn her findings with the scrap dealer, who also seemed to have the Millennium Falcon. It's also through her that we learn the Force is more of a myth than a fact now in the galaxy (universe?). I believe she states that she's heard of the force but thought it was only part of stories. -- Cool fact, with Ep7 the writers threw out a lot of Expanded Universe (EU) stuff but didn't ignore it, they repurposed parts of the EU as stories told within the Star Wars Universe. So Rey could very well be referring to those stories along side the prior episodes.

"oh dear, it's another death star, but bigger"
"oh my, old carrie fisher said 'go blow up that big gun planet', and then they did it. how unexpected"

So much yes. I can't begin to number the recycled elements from previous episodes. I really wish the writers went for a more original story line over the tried and true Star Wars cliche.

"oh dear, they just destroyed the entire republic in an instant, and we all care so much"
"huh, every planet is right next to every other planet, so we can get anywhere almost instantaneously"

I don't think they destroyed the Republic. The First Order destroyed the Senate and from the looks of it resided on a few planets in the same solar system. Which might as well ultimately destroy the Republic, so you aren't wrong The traveling probably could have been written or represented better. Ep4 had great scenes inside the Falcon of Luke practicing with a light saber and it was a great way to show them traveling between solar systems and across the galaxy. But I think they only did this once? Maybe twice.

"huh, ships can be tracked now no matter where they go in the galaxy, so it's impossible for anybody to hide ever"

I think they were showing just how far reaching the First Order is. Basically the only places one can go from the FO is either to Republic planets or to remote/uninhabited planets. Like, with the jungle planet where we get the lightsaber. The FO had no idea where the Falcon ran off to until a spy(?) for them radioed in that BB-8, the droid they were looking for (HA!) was at this location.

"they're so progressive, including a black dude (but only one; can't get too crazy), a strong, independent woman who don't need no man (but also isn't above showing her 'sensitive side' or immediately falling for the first guy she sees), a cute little robot side-kick (oh, but we have to include the one from the other movies too, or people will get all upset)."

In this day in age, you're darned if you don't and darned if you do. Honestly, seeing Finn in the trailer raised several questions. As in Ep2 we learned all Storm Troopers were clones. And from that point forward I always viewed them as clones. All the sudden there's a black storm trooper. Wait what? Then when we learned of Finns story did it make sense to me. Again, with Rey. Darned if you do and darned if you don't. I think if someone took the time, Leia could be seen as a strong female lead in the original trilogy as well but only under modern society have such roles been over criticized.

Regarding BB-8, I'm glad there's a new droid because Star Wars isn't Star Wars without the droids. However we haven't had a new droid as a main character since, well, ever. I believe C-3PO and R2D2 make their story debut in Ep1, then weirdly, in Ep4 C-3PO claims he's never been here - referring to Luke's home with his Aunt and Uncle - before (or something) while in reality at least C-3PO has. I think both droids had their memory wiped but I'm not 100% positive. It could have just been part of the bad writing from the prequel trilogies.

"oh, thank goodness, they explained every single thing that was happening throughout the entire film. i might have gotten lost otherwise"
"hey look, they couldn't bring back yoda so they found us a new tiny wrinkly bundle of wisdom, and this time it's a female, which is a big improvement!"

I don't remember them explaining everything but they certainly didn't explain everything, I'll explain below. Regarding her, the Yoda-like chick also know as Maz Kantana, the cool - and bad? - thing about Star Wars is that it is incredibly diverse. It doesn't exist just in the movies anymore. There are books, comics, TV shows, etc. However, this appears to be the first time she's been mentioned in the SWU. We have Rouge One coming out in 2016 that takes place during (before?) Ep4. In Ep4 someone mentions that the plans for the death star have been stolen by rebels, this movie is about that rag-tag team. Star Wars is back in a huge way, and it's here to stay now

"check it out. stronk girl is crying again... and again.... and again. ooh, this time it's because she saw luke, a guy she didn't care, or even know, about approximately... wait, how long has it been? has any time passed at all in this movie? is it all one day? i can't tell..."

I agree they did a terrible job showing the passing of time. But there are so many other things wrong, or just questionable, with this movie. But, I really enjoyed it with all it's flaws. I think the movie is still in the newly-wed phase with the fans. Hopefully Ep8 will be more original since it takes place almost right after the ending of Ep7; there won't be enough time for the FO to build a new "Death Star" unless they have a back-up doomsday planet death star thing. I think I'd lose faith in Star Wars at that point.

Such as, how did Rey master the force so fast? My assumption is, since the force faded into stories over the 40 years and at the persistence of the FO, that Rey was finally seeing the Force and believing those stories. She read about the Jedi Mind Trick and other abilities and her she was thrust into the middle of all these people saying "Yes! I knew Luke!" "Yes! The force is real!" "yes!" "yes!" "YES!" that she decided to try out those stories. Her mind trick fails the first few times but she finally gets it. Then the light saber going to her hand after Kylo Ren downs Finn.

I don't consider myself a Star Wars geek because I don't keep up on the SWU and the EU. My only experience with Star Wars is through the movies. I know a little bit about the EU and SWU to piece together the backstory that isn't told. Which, as I said a bit prior, they don't explain everything. Everything they didn't (clearly) explain you just complained about, such as Rey and Finns background. To say they explained everything and then complain when they didn't spend enough time introducing us to the main characters seems a little hypocritical. And if they put the parts of the movie that explained their background in the start you probably would have had something to say about that as well.

Hope that clears things up.
Fun Fact #2:This has been 40 minutes of writing. \o/

I didn't even realize she said that. Good to know!

And yeah, it started out at like 18000 characters remaining then I finished off with like, 11000? It's part of the reason why I mentioned how long it took as that time was mostly spent typing. I did take a few mins to figure out the wrinkly yoda girls name though because I couldn't remember it at all. Maybe I should call myself a Star Wars geek.

Finally saw it last night. I've got to say @shmibs  really hit the nail on the head for how I felt about it. I was rather disappointed by it. It was fun to watch, and there were a lot of cool scenes. It just didn't feel like what I hoped for. It felt small, and almost teen angsty at points. The evil characters didn't really seem that evil, more like children playing at evil. There was non of the regal-ness of the original trilogies officers in the NO officers. The rebels felt like they had degraded into people who flew by the seat of their pants instead of knowing what they should be doing.

It was a fun movie to watch, and I'm going to watch the newer ones, but I was still disappointed in what I saw. I wasn't expecting a perfect movie, but I was hoping for a better plot et al then what we got.