That's part of the problem of course, it's basically a rehash, except now you're expected to know all these plot points that are apparently laid out in non-movie materials. Sorry, but these are movies to me. I'm not going to read books and websites, and watch cartoons to understand the story. The movies are the core, they should stand on their own.
These sequels are ignoring the Extended Universe, and rightly so IMHO. I haven't followed a lick of it, and don't care to. If it was an EU of an original book series upon which the movies were based, that would be one thing, but these are all books by third-parties who expanded a universe developed in a movie trilogy, without the original creator's involvement. They can do and say anything, so what's the point?
Some of the story will be the same because it was sort of where the story was supposed to go in the first place, which is what some of the EU utilized as canon. But what we NEED to know will be demonstrated on screen eventually.
Remember, there will be two more direct sequels, and there are going to be individual movies on the side that will give us more of the backstory that fills in the gap between 6 and 7, which is awesome IMHO.
I think 7 had the role of basically getting everything started and pointed in the right direction. So it went through some of the same things to get new fans involved as well as quickly set up other plot elements. The back story movies and the sequels will now be able to move on full steam ahead.
In that regard, so 7 wasn't the most original of the series, but I thought it was perfectly done as it stands, the cinematography was terrific, directing and acting done right... I was very very pleased with the movie. In terms of cinematography, I think it was the best of the series, but by all other measures of a movie's worth, it was on par with the original series.