Watching Star Wars: The Force Awakens demonstrates that J.J. Abrams understands, appreciates and adores the visual motif of Star Wars.
But The Force Awakens gets a lot of heat (and deservedly so) for mimicking A New Hope instead of branching off and establishing any real Star Wars lore of its own.
Perhaps it’s because The Force Awakens was too important to fail.
Lucasfilm was gambling by bringing Star Wars back to the big screen, and it needed to connect with mainstream audiences who weren’t following The Clone Wars in animation.