Eh, I liked it. Leia was always supposed to be gifted with the force in the old Expanded Universe novels, so it seemed like a nice nod to that to me.
Her being gifted doesn't have to manifest in dumb ways.
I'll admit, that scene could have been done better. That being said, my jaw dropped when Leia was sucked out into the vacuum of space the first time I watched. It felt both emotionally devastating, and because of Carrie Fisher's passing, also a bit like salt in a wound.
I was both relieved and really confused when she lived, I really didn't want Princess Leia to go out in such an undignified and tragic way.
So, you mean, the scene in a movie *gave you emotions*? That's so weird and out of place, movies giving people emotions, right? If anything, the Leia move felt like... pretty much bullshit move that serves no purpose other than to make it look like Leia did a thing in the movie too. I would have accepted her death because it would serve a purpose in the story - as much as Star Wars is noblebright, people can still die, and would also make previous scene where Ben hestiated from firing meaningful. Instead it's just cheap "you thought she died but then FORCE MAGIC and she is fine buy the figurine Leia is badass", and now they have to fucking worry how to kill her off in next movie since Carrie Fisher is dead.
Speaking of that, what the insane fuck was the goddamn pink haired Mary Sue Leia-lite (and to lesser extent the big-nosed Leia-lite)? What was her purpose in the plot other than to be condenscending and basically incompetent, as she didin't tell anyone of her plan
*for no good reason* which directly lead to said plain failing miserably. What the fuck is with all those random-ass characters that appear out of nowhere and suddenly we are supposed to think they're important or something, just to get them killed next scene/movie? Is this all just to get more characters pushed into merch?
What's with all those random dumb gags? The whole Finn intro with him banging his head and in leaky suit, and all those goddamn fucking completly retarded and out of place jokes? The fucking irons on the ship? Great fucking joke, wow. I get it, comic relief is a thing, but I'd prefer if comic relief didin't came out as forced. For instance, initial Luke Yoda-ism was pretty decent, as it was a nice callback to Yoda, and was somewhat justified by him being an old grumpy hermit now.
I mean right, old Star Wars had a fuckton of background characters who then had their own stories developed, but none of them felt like they got forcefully inserted and got too much spotlight for no real reason, it felt natural and consistent, meanwhile in the Mouse Ears Trilogy so far it has been incredibly hard to form any sort of attachement to any character. Ironically enough, the one of more popular characters at the time was the memetic TR-8R who was one of few characters to follow old scheme of "we find which characters people like and only then we merch that shit".
I'm not even starting to complain about the implications that constant use of hyperdriving where noone has yet hyperdrived in those movies create (why the fuck even bother with guns, just hypedrive small ships into big ones), curving blasters, gravity bombs in space (although I must say I liked the idea of B-17s in space, but the way it was actually pulled off... eh), the apparent lack of any other political entity in Galaxy than First Order (was entire New Republic contained in that one system that got blown up? Where the fuck is everyone? Why does it seem like the First Order which formally is just bunch of paramilitary dudes is more powerful that Empire ever was?) and other shit because that's just nitpicking.
Probably though, my main problem with this all is... not even all that bullshit. It's that EU died for this. Solos died for this. Mara Jade died for this. Kyle Katarn died for this. Yuuzhan Vong died for this. The New Republic and New Jedi Order died for this. Goddamn Thrawn died for this (before you say it - that's not my Thrawn), and dozens of years of relatively self-consistent writing and pretty damn great stories died. We will never see the true new trilogy as it should have been, thought out and retconned to hell and back to create something that makes sense, and that is a goddamn shame.