I don’t think you can separate the characters from their context.
Star Wars was a good movie. The Force Awakens was a shitty, half-assed, derivative look-alike. The characters in it were derided because they were badly-developed characters in a bad movie. I’d say that included all the male characters as well.
Maybe you need to find a better movie to use as an example.
I do like that Cho’s Sulu is both gay and married to an Asian. I know some people don’t like either choice because they seem too on the nose, but that’s actually what I like about it. They are so on the nose that they defy expectations.
The horribleness of “The Dead Don’t Die” aside, I loved that it wasn’t an all-white cast with one brown or black person thrown in for flavor. When you have more than one minority character, there is less pressure to make that one character politically correct.
I didn’t say that I bought Anakin either, but the kid did grow up around racing and built his own pod, so it’s at least more believable but still kinda out there. Also I think Rey was to make a “point” about female characters, which kind of sours it for me.
I actually really liked her because the fact that she was a woman had nothing to do with it, she was the sage and he was the skeptical Western man (kind of hate that trope because it implies the East is special but whatever). Yet despite her wisdom and power she had secrets she kept, and in the end she still was hanging on to her final moments now that the time had come (which wouldn’t really count towards the female emotional problems).
What I don’t like most of the time is LGBT stories about how the love between two men is forbidden (or women, etc). It to me just reinforces the view of LGBT folk as damaged goods, when they are just people. It’s kind of why I like Tuca & Bertie because in there it’s just whatever, it doesn’t matter and they focus on other issues that (to me) are more important.
A 7 y old living as a slave in a junkyard makes match-winning jet-chariot in his copious slave spare time is more believable than someone growing up in a rough wrecker camp scavenging and hustling for every scrap of food being good at fighting? Sure, OK…
And he also spent some of his spare time building droids with human intelligence. Because that’s just something a 7-year-old can do, I suppose.
There’s missing the point and there’s missing Cuba from Havana… stories where the love between two people is forbidden don’t imply that those people are broken; if anything and not always, they imply that their society is broken. Neither Buttercup nor Westley are perfect, but nobody would come out of The Princess Bride thinking that the reason they’re imperfect is that their love is forbidden: the reason they’re imperfect is that they’re human and the reason their love is forbidden is because otherwise we would have a different story.
Sorry, I was wrong, apparently he’s 9. I’m sure that makes all the difference…
The Star Wars characters aren’t humans, are they? I mean it’s a galaxy far far away…
I’m not a Star Wars fan, so I just thought all the aliens looked human for the same reason Time Lords and all the rest look human. It saves on the makeup budget.
Anyway, if they aren’t human, perhaps a 9 year old would have the motor skills and maturity of an adult.
Nah, there are lots of aliens in the Star Wars movies who look reasonably non-human (see: Chewbacca, Jabba, Yoda, Greedo, etc., etc.)
Despite it being a galaxy far, far away, there’s never been anything in SW canon to suggests that the “humans” are notably different from humans on Earth, including their rate of maturation.
So, yeah, a 9 year old is a master mechanic and droid tech, and is such an innately skilled pilot that he can compete in (and win) a podrace which is generally considered to require reflexes beyond those of humans, because The Force. 
That’s some quality spackling.
Same idea, actually- Cho’s Sulu’s gayness and choice of partner is not exactly incidental, but it’s not a plot point either.
That’s one thing I think what makes for a bad minority character- when their minority status is constantly pointed out, or their presence is clearly intended to be PC, without being integral to the storyline or plot.
The other is when they conform so rigidly to stereotypes- gay men HAVE to be flamboyant, black women have to be sassy, latinas have to be sexy, asians have to be studious, etc… That’s why Cho’s version of Sulu is so great; he’s gay, but as far as anyone else can tell, he’s also a very masculine, brave and competent Starfleet officer.