Quite honestly Abrams and Mindel stepped up their game with the cinematography of this film. There's so many wonderful shots in the movie and it's a hard choice to pick a favorite scene.
For instance, this shot. Visually, there's a little of Kubrick in it. And the use of colors...the black, blue and red on the ceiling. It's a cold, violent image, but it's also beautiful.
Reminds a lot of 2001 and A Clockwork Orange. The cold beauty and elegance of 2001, combined with the unsettling violence of A Clockwork Orange. Despite some who are labeling TFA a mere popcorn flick, this is a visually rich and layered film.
It utilizes the visual language of cinema in a way that most blockbusters don't.
The various landscape shots on Jakku are worthy of David Lean and the various battle sequences remind of Peter Jackson's work in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. There are no doubts in Rian Johnson being able to hold his own in continuing with that level of visual quality, but one hopes Colin Trevorrow steps up his game and gets a better D.P. than the one he worked with on Jurassic World for Episode IX.
However it is a bit frustrating though that the
editing of the film has resulted in some mistranslations of the cinematic language to the audiences in regards to the world-building information that it tries to convey.