JJ set up TFA by making a big deal of everyone—whether in the Resistance or Empire—looking for Luke Skywalker because BOTH groups knew of his power and the difference he could potentially make in the conflict. TFA opened with an entire village getting slaughtered just because a person there had handled the map to Luke's location.
RJ chose to keep Luke on the island, and have his only contribution to the entire ST-portion of the saga be a 5-minute distraction via Force projection to Kylo Ren.
Imagine, for a moment, if JJ in Episode 7 had written that Han refused to help Rey when he found her, and instead stayed on his big smuggler's ship for the entire movie. No leaving with Rey and Finn on the Falcon. No conversation and shootout at Maz's place. No meetup with Leia. No return to the Resistance base to participate in the planning for the attack on Starkiller Base. No actually going to Starkiller Base with Rey and Finn to help in the attack. Just stay on his ship where Rey and Finn found him at the beginning of the movie and be grumpy. And then—at the last second—change his mind, but still not leave his ship. He shoots a special hyperspace missiles from across the galaxy to damage the Empire's ship and be a distraction that allows the good guys to escape. Firing the hyperspace missile makes his own ship explode, however, and he dies alone, having never left his ship for the entire movie.
Harrison would have chucked that script right in the bin. I have immense respect for Mark Hamill reading Rian's script and not walking away. He expressed his honest opinion, "Rian, I disagree with everything you've written for my character." But then he chose to be professional, and finish the story in the way it was written by the person to which Disney had entrusted the story. He will always have my mad respect for this.
But please don't try to convince me that Rian's decisions in regard's to Luke gave him a good "arc." Not gonna happen, but I wish you a good day.
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