As long as it remains good and respectful to the original flavorful work that was done on the era. I will never forgive bioware for desecrating that specific lore with their MMO. Their first RPG was very respectful and proved to be a work of fans of the original Golden Age of the Sith and Kotor series, but what they did after was... unforgivable in my book.
To be honest my very sceptic view I had at first towards the new saga has changed a lot since then. I am very intrigued and hopeful. I see that they have their mind in the right place and want to come back to the roots. I have just decades of shit and lore desecrating stuff behind not to be extremely cautious with everything SW related. Also, I do not trust JJ Abrams the slightest bit.
Also, where did you see that about references to the old republic era ?
Minor Spoiler
[spoiler]There's a reason Kylo Ren is wearing basically Revan's faceplate. From what I've been reading there's a lot of connection between some old republic business and the new movies. There's going to be sith temples, there's going to be ancient sith lords, shit going to go down.
[/spoiler]
Mega Major Spoilers do not read if you don't want to spoil the fucking movie. Too late for me, it is. Choosen poorly, have I.
[spoiler]-Nothing ended up exactly happily ever after after the Battle of Endor. The remnants of the Empire regrouped (now called the First Order), and the Rebels consolidated (Now called The Resistance). Think of it more like a cold war between two governments. The galaxy is back to shades of grey with competing factions and shifting allegiances between the two power blocks, etc.
-Most of the movie follows our main characters and revolves around getting Luke's original lightsaber back to him, it's sort of the McGuffin the plot moves around, giving our new younger movie leads a tie to the older cast. Luke has been in seclusion and self exile since not long after Endor.
-Our new hero in the stormtrooper armor was conscripted by the Empire against his will, he participates in a village massacre early in the film and gets thrown in the brig for not wanting to pew pew the civilians. In the brig he meets Po and they escape together (the hangar getting shot up by the tie fighter). They end up on the desert planet and meet Kira (Leah and Han's daughter, who is there undercover to pick up Luke's saber (long story). Jedi shit is mad scarce at this point and all super valuable and important.
-The main baddie Kyko Ren (Adam Driver) is actually Han Solo's Son. Assembling and collecting ancient Sith and Jedi artifacts. That image of Vader's melted helmet is from Kylo's private quarters. There just might be ancient sith lords possessing and/or influencing him. You'll recognize this Sith guy from one of the last eps of the Clone Wars show, the sith lord Yoda confronts in the samurai outfit.
-Solo doesn't make it out of the movie alive, cut down by Kylo near the end of the film, Han buys time for the movie heroes to escape the final showdown. Harrison ford was basically only going to do this movie if they would finally kill han solo.
-Kylo's lightsaber looks shitty because it's hand made by him, improperly, etc.
-Luke is barely in this movie aside from an extended flashback sequence, and at the end.
-Luke does set up a new Jedi academy after Endor, but long story short shit goes down, all the new padawans get murdered, Luke blames himself, exiles himself. I've heard a few different versions of this part of the movie. One version basically has luke becoming too powerful and unable to control himself, and he exiles because he can't control his abilities and he's just all dune god emperor. The other is more of the sith stuff killing the students. in any case he's not in the movie much, him and leah are more in part 2 and 3. The flashback of the luke stuff you see briefly in the trailer, when luke puts his hands on r2, that's basically after witnessing all the dead padawans.
There is much epic space pew pew between Resistance / Empire. They both have built new 'superweapons' and they go at it. The Empire HQ is on an ice planet like hoth (seen in the trailer) There is much consternation that Leah would support building a terror weapon to combat the Empire, but think of it like USA / USSR with mutually assured destruction nuclear weapons. If I remember right the Resistance's superweapon does not go well during the battle.
The climactic battle is at the ancient sith temple, yadda yadda pew pew solo dies good guys have to flee. I've heard various versions of this fight, one being this is where Luke shows up and goes all jedi master apeshit on Kylo and cuts him to shit, forcing his 'cyborg' look from the concept art. Other version is Kylo 'wins' here and the good guys flee after Solo dies. Movie ends with handing Luke back his saber.
I missed a ton of stuff but these are the bullet points. [/spoiler]