judging TFA alone [...] JJ (having left it all hanging with no answers) is now going to have to resolve in a satisfying way.
Here's the thing, though. As much as I hate JJ's "Mystery Box" approach as regards many things (and definitely TFA, because we dearly needed to have been better updated on what had happened over the intervening generation) pisses me off, you can't judge Star Wars on the same metric as standalone films, or even "universe-building" franchises like Marvel, since the second one. Their inspiration was (and with TESB they definitely nailed it) Saturday morning serials, which very definitely
can't explain everything within a single episode. They answer some questions, raise others, and end on a cliffhanger to strongly motivate people to come back next week to see what happens.
That said, if they're ending the numbered episodes with IX, then yeah, things need to be tied up with a neat bow. Which pisses me off, too. This was their big chance to undo Rick McCallum's reinvention of Star Wars and restore it to George's vision -- that is,
not Skywalker-centric. That was Rick. Not George. This was their opportunity to say "the Prequels are about Obi-Wan, the OT is about Luke, this trilogy is about Rey, the next one will be about whoever the hero is after that". A multigenerational frikkin'
saga (i.e., more than just nine films) following heroes who are related by circumstance, not necessarily blood.
--Jonah