People who complain that ' The Force Awakens ' is basically a rinse and repeat of ' A New Hope '

In some ways (start on Tatooine, end with Death Star), but in other ways it was decidedly not A New Hope at all. A couple examples spring to my mind. The mentor figure does not sacrifice himself in a dual, for instance. It doesn't start with a naive hero. Plans aren't stored on a droid (there's no Macguffin at all, in fact, in Return of the Jedi, where the main goal is to redeem Darth Vader, not (just) blow things up). So while the locations that bookend the movies are similar, the execution and plot beats are not. RotJ also finished the story started in ANH, it wasn't soft-rebooting it.

that's what made it hurt even worse, they doubled down in tfa after people already didn't like rotj being too much the same as anh.

anh should have had jabba's palace on a different planet and the death star should have been something else. but at least rogue one came along and made the death star seem more important to the overall story of the ot and made the 2nd death star seem more acceptable.

Not really. Although reusing the Death Star in ROTJ was definitely pushing it.

No and Luke had a complete Hero's Journey arc. Mary Sue Rey was just girl power and no struggle while turning Luke into someone that doesn't make sense for his character to be.

Whataboutism. It doesn’t excuse doing it for the 3rd time.

Gary Kurtz, who produced the first two films, fought George Lucas over the rehash of the Death Star run in the 3rd act of ROTJ, and eventually left/was fired by Lucas.

There is a big difference, though. A New Hope: the Empire has the Death Star. The Rebels need to destroy it. Return of the Jedi: the Empire is building a bigger and better Death Star. They are still in power, so there is nothing particularly odd about them doing so.

Force Awakens: the First Order is created from the remnants of the Empire, which was defeated in RotJ. These remnants of a spent and defeated power are somehow MORE powerful than the Empire ever was, and they have built an even BIGGER Death Star, the likes of which the Empire couldn't even have dreamt of. Just... how?

Leaving that aside, ANH and RotJ were part of the same trilogy. If one was a rehash of the other, so be it, but that makes it even more inexcusable for the first movie of a new trilogy to rehash the exact same thing AGAIN.

It is kind of poetic that Han Solo becomes the “Obi-Wan” of the Force Awakens since he mocks Kenobi throughout the original Star Wars.

it's a bullshit argument that people latch onto. It's based on very surface level stuff. "There's a death Star in both!" or "A bad guy with a lightsaber wearing a helmet in both movies!" These are not intelligent arguments.

There is no Finn character in ANH. None whatsoever. An Imperial defector is something that was never seen in a movie before TFA. And to be one of the "big three", no less. Not to mention he uses a lightsaber. We have NEVER seen a non-force user fight with one. His personality and backstory is nothing like anyone from ANH.

Ren is nothing like Vader. Ren literally worships Vader. Vader is brutal, but calm, cold, and calculating. Kylo Ren has no self-control and openly has temper tantrums. But hey, they both wear black and carry a lightsaber, so they're the same. Ok. That's the kind of stuff they say.

The old guy's in each movie couldn't get any further apart if you tried. Han and Obi Wan might be the least alike duo in the entire series, but hey they are both old and in charge of each group of rag tag individuals, am I right?

And which part of ANH hope is about a fractured family? Was Obi Wan divorced? Did I miss that?

It's a lame ass argument from people who can't come up with anything concrete.