It's not exactly a new problem for the franchise, but the new movie is so openly propelled forward by convenience and even contrivance that it's hard to buy that this sequence of events could convincingly link together. One character does one fairly ridiculous thing which leads to another, and introduces them to this character, who leads them to this guy, and so on and so on. Some of the most memorably implausible and convenient moments include Rey not selling BB-8 for food portions because she vaguely humanises it, Han and Chewie meeting up with Finn and Rey, Rey's ridiculously fast assumption of the Force, Poe Dameron returning out of nowhere at a pivotal moment, Finn surviving a lightsaber strike that would probably kill anyone else, the ground breaking away and separating Rey and Kylo Ren mid-battle and probably much more. Sure, plenty of fantastic movies are ridiculously convoluted (The Dark Knight, The Avengers and Skyfall,), but the movie isn't just a series of unlikely events linked together, it also verges on deus ex machina at times (especially regarding Rey's force abilities), and reeks of lazy writing rather than Lawrence Kasdan attempting to fashion something complex. It doesn't sink the movie by any means, but it definitely impacts its narrative integrity.