Kad said:
I appreciated the fact Abrams dropped us right into the story without much explanation (or any tedious talk about taxing trade routes),
Where is there talk about taxing trade routes? It's mentioned in the opening crawl of The Phantom Menace, but never actually talked about.
though on the flipside I was distracted by questions like, "What exactly is the First Order? How does it exist if there is also a new galactic Republic? Since the First Order is a giant military force headed by space Nazis, why does the Republic need to covertly support a Resistance against them?"
It's a big galaxy. The Republic doesn't cover everything, and didn't even before the Empire. But yeah, I would have liked some more information about them. There were a lot of unanswered questions due to lazy writing.
Also: Oscar Isaac can get it.
I'm hoping for a Finn-Poe love story. They seem really happy to see each other.