This is a very interesting point. I do agree with you that objectively speaking TFA is better on a technical level in every facet, and imo certain story things that happen in ANH, would not be as acceptable if it happened in a later installment, such as Luke being so easily accepted in the assault on the Death Star just because why not. However I still would rate ANH over TFA because JJ used Episode IV as a crutch to form his story. All the episodes across all the trilogys "rhyme" a bit to their corresponding installment but TFA excessively echos ANH it that I can't imagine what this movie would've been like without Episode IV to refer to.
That's a justified sentiment.
Though I will argue that TFA does have one
very significant difference from ANH, one that maybe personifies why someone might find TFA a better "cover" of ANH than the original, and why I do think that TFA is clearly
better written than TLJ: the three new characters and their individual arcs are absurdly strong compared to the par for the series, even for the standard set by the OT.
Finn, Rey, and Kylo are all either major twists or outright inversions of the archetypes from ANH, all of whom have pretty
damn good character arcs in TFA.
Rey and Kylo are basically deliberately reveresed variations on Luke and Vader: where Luke was a loved member of a family struggling with wanderlust and a bit of immaturity at the start of his story, Rey is a loner abandoned by her family obsessively clinging to denial but otherwise wise beyond her years unless that denial is challenged, and while Vader is a confident, heavily scarred and injured but veteran commander with a cynical edge, Kylo is an insecure and unstable neophyte in comparison with a twisted idealization of Vader. Finn, meanwhile, is a direct refutation of the "Stormtroopers are nameless and faceless automatons" archetype, and arguably the best "Everyman" character in the franchise, not even having the skills of a Solo or Padme, simply being awesome with mundane abilities and bravery.
And their arcs are all excellent. I'd match Finn's arc up against any other single film arc in the Saga, and pretty confidently say Finn wins it: he goes from a nameless and faceless grunt in the background to the Resistance big deal that successfully and believably humiliates Phasma, helps blow up Hux's favorite toy, and holds off Kylo long enough for Rey to get back up for round 2. Meanwhile, Rey and Kylo are in diametrically opposing arcs: she rises to the occasion and finally embraces the destiny she wanted to deny while he falls to his own self-destructive decisions while foolishly trying to become something he's not. All are beautifully executed, to the extent that the film can convincingly use multiple dialogue-lite scenes for all three characters.
In contrast... I'd have to say that TLJ has some of the
weakest and most
poorly constructed character arcs and interpretations for the Saga, including the PT. That's not to say that the PT's cast was giving anywhere near the performances that Rian Johnson and the cast provided in TLJ, or that TLJ lacked for potential and ambition in character arcs (...except for Finn's, which I'd say was the definition of unambitious and apathetic). There's inspiration behind the
ideas of having Luke go through a total deconstruction/reconstruction arc, and for Kylo and Rey allying against Snoke with Snoke ending up dead and Kylo replacing him, for a Space Chase or for Rey being a Random instead of a Related. But the arcs are determined by myopic narrative convenience rather than growth or believable change:
-Rey is never given a reason to sympathize with Kylo since the film never addresses what he did to her and her friends,
-Kylo and Rey both fail to develope into genuine Big Bad and Lead Heroine since neither one trains and Johnson wants Kylo as a protagonist instead of anatagonist and just doesn't know how to write Rey as a lead,
-Rey's parentage being Random is supposed to have an egalitarian and non-Skywalker-tied autonomy, but she's boringly overpowered and only just so because Kylo is,
-And at every step, the Space Chase is a mess of self-defeating contradictions and logical fallacies.
Luke's about the only risky gamble taken by TLJ that actually had care and patience put into it... But arguably went way too far in its deconstruction, enough that Mark Hamill disagreed enough to accidentally provide critics with the "Jake Skywalker" argument that Luke was written out of character.
