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I've only seen the movie
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I was shocked when Rey asked Luke, "What are those things?", referring to the Jedi temple caretakers. They were obviously sentient beings of some type. Rey grew up on a planet and in a universe full of other sentient beings, many of whom don't look human. So why would she call ones that she wasn't familiar with "things", instead of phrasing it as "Who are those people?" or "Who are they?".
[update, 2018/01/04]The 2nd time seeing the movie, I heard Rey say "Who are those things," not "What". That doesn't sound as bad. [/end update]
That brings up a related question of how people in this universe determine who is worthy as being treated as a person, versus being treated as an animal. It can't be done simply on the basis of whether or not they look human. Obviously (as shown in the next parts) there are some kind of distinctions made in the Star Wars universe between "sentient/talking/important beings" and "animals/unimportant beings".
I was disappointed when Luke was shown spear-fishing, and carrying back a large fish he killed, presumably to eat. But it's a movie made by humans, most of whom eat animals for food, so it's understandable for that kind of thing to be in the movie. Even though Luke was a Jedi and a hero and otherwise a good person. And that big fish probably ate other smaller fish, so why shouldn't it get killed and eaten too? Isn't that fair? But I digress.
I was shocked when Luke was shown milking, or sort of punching milk out of the tits of, some being of unknown type which was sitting on some rocks. I'm vegan. I don't drink milk. To me, humans taking the milk of other animals for themselves is disturbing in that it demonstrates how humans feel superior to other beings, and how they feel that animals are there for them to use. But this scene was even more disturbing. As I mentioned before, in this universe, how does one know whether an unknown being is sentient or not? For all we can tell, Luke is going up to some female being, possibly sentient, and groping her, and using her body for his own purposes. Like, really? In a Star Wars movie, really? And that's supposed to be somehow funny or a joke?
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Poe disobeyed orders in attempting to destroy the dreadnought ship. He spurred the bomber pilots to attack it, even after Leia had ordered them all to withdraw. They finally succeeded in destroying the dreadnought, but at great cost to their own fleet and personnel. My reaction to this was, "Ah... so the writers are showing that being an order-disobeying do-it-my-own-way hot-shot isn't always a good thing. Sort of." Good for them; I get tired of that kind of story-line.
I was surprised by Vice Admiral Holdo's outfit, a drapingly feminine skin-displaying gown. It seemed very out of place. Shouldn't a military leader be wearing a uniform, or some other more functional clothing? But then I thought to myself, she's in a position of command. She's there to make decisions. She isn't a pilot or a fighter, so I suppose there's no real need for her to dress like one. I thought to myself, maybe the writers wanted to make a point that you can be a strong commanding person and also be feminine, at the same time.
Poe's reaction to Holdo and her outfit seemed in line with my own reaction. He said something like "That's not what I expected her to look like."
But then, (we must assume) largely because of her feminine appearance, he didn't take her seriously. He butted into her private command meeting, questioned her tactics, disobeyed her orders, and even went on to lead a mutiny against her.
[update, 2018/01/02]: Another part that bothered me was Poe's flippant "she'll never go for this" comment about Holdo, when discussing the plan for destroying the tracker with Finn and Rose. I think Holdo very well might have "gone for it", if they had only deigned to discuss it with her. She might have even come up with some other way to sneak on board the other ship, without needing to go off in search of that code-breaker person. [/end update]
In the end, we find out that his doing all this leads to the destruction of most of the remaining resistance fleet and fighters. So in a way, it seemed like a commentary on how females are not taken seriously like they should be. Except like, set in the Star Wars universe where I thought they were beyond that kind of thing. But maybe not.
As Poe was encouraging others to mutiny (as well as when he was disobeying the other orders), I was aghast. Why isn't he following orders?! He's in a military outfit; everyone's supposed to follow orders and the chain of command! But then again, it occurred to me that they're the rebellion, the resistance. I suppose that any order-following person wouldn't have joined the resistance in the first place. Perhaps this is also a commentary on how you shouldn't go along with things that don't seem right, just because you've been ordered to.
So, overall, no clear moral to the story, but sort of interesting things to think about.
[update, 2018/01/04] Additional thoughts upon seeing the movie a 2nd time: In their first interaction, even though Poe deserved it, Holdo was more snide than seems appropriate for a commander, and one can see why Poe began to dislike and distrust her.
Before Poe started the mutiny, not only did he storm into her space without permission, but he became violent and kicked things around. So it makes total sense that Holdo doesn't choose to explain her plan to him then. Should she have reassured the crew by letting them know of the plan before then? Probably so. The little speech that she gave in the beginning after being introduced didn't seem very reassuring at all. [/end update]
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Rose is an awesome new character (or did she show up in the first film anywhere?). Rey using the light-saber was awesome. Kylo Ren was sort of awesome too, in spite of his badness. Both him and Hux are sort of cute in how they both keep ending up looking foolish and young and inexperienced.
Other reviews have mentioned there being a sexual tension between Rey and Ren. I didn't notice that. I felt a connection between them, which I assumed to be because they were (supposedly) related in some way, or even simply the commonality of them being strong in the Force. In the end, Rey is said not to be related to any of the other heroes of the story. Oddly, that felt a bit of a letdown to me, as I had come to expect the opposite, even though after watching The Force Awakens, I had originally hoped she wasn't related to any of the other characters.
And last but not least, the 8th movie, and they're still fighting all these big space battles? Sigh, I guess that is why it is called Star Wars. I'm tired of all this interminable fighting, though. All these unending bad guys and resistance and on and on and dying and killing. In that universe and this one.
[update, 2018/01/04] The plots and plot details of this movie seem even sillier than episode 7. Finn and Rose can figure out how the hyperspace tracking works, just by a short discussion. There are only 2 people in the whole galaxy who are capable of sneaking aboard Snoke's ship, and one of them can always be found in a particular casino. Only the main ship would be tracked. Small transports are ignored. The rebel base has a gigantic shield door. The First Order has a gigantic machine for blowing a hole in the gigantic door. The machine has to be towed into place, instead of being dropped in the correct position to begin with. Etc, etc. My suspension of disbelief wears thin. Even the "spark of hope" theme seemed silly to me.
So while I enjoyed the movie overall, it's only because I like the characters, and because, I think, I am still invested in enjoying Star Wars movies, considering that they were always my favorite movies since childhood. [/end update]