Yea, I've heard that argument but, personally, I just don't buy it. Vader proclaims at beginning of his duel with Kenobi "Your powers are weak, old man." So, we know Vader believes it. But, regardless of whether he believed it or he was just messing with Kenobi's head, were I Vader? I'd be probing Kenobi for weakness. A thrust here, a feint there, not just with his glowy-stick but with his force powers. The battle would have slowly escalated using both tools until Vader found a weakness. And then there's Kenobi deliberately and obviously lowering his guard. Were I Vader, I would have been hesitant to take that, fearing that it was a similar feint from Kenobi.
But none of that argument explains the scene on board the Tantive, where troopers blow the door open and secure the ship and only then does Vader appear. Contrast that to the scene at the end of R1, where the V-man goes in alone -- on a much larger ship, no less -- and quashes them all by himself.
That wasn't my point, however.
The issue for me wasn't how they could escape. The issue was two things: not only how they could be in the exact same situation twice but exactly how it happened in both cases. To the first point, in terms of story telling, to me, it's just too much. One such scene should have been it.
But then there the little problem of how they were even given time to escape. First, we have the dilemma of why Tarkin even fired at either target. Jedha I can understand. You could argue that he was attempting to please the Emperor given how much Palpatine wanted the Jedi destroyed. But they didn't fire on Jedha directly. If Tarkin wanted to please the Emperor, he would have told them to do just that. "Target Jedha." Instead, he left that out and conveniently gave our heroes enough time to get away.
And then there's the dilemma of Scarif. An imperial facility. Yea, I know the Empire has a nasty reputation of not looking out for the people that fight for them, but even if I accept that (I don't) there's still a valuable resource below. And even though it was infested by Rebels, it was contained and the battle was being won both above and below, but, yea... let's just blow it up anyway. Oh, and... yea, don't target it directly, target it at an angle such that, somehow, we place the expendable bad guy directly in the beams path but, you know... still hit far enough away so that the heroes have one final dramatic moment together.
Don't get me wrong, ESB has its flaws too, but... none of them stack up quite as poorly as in R1. I liked R1, I liked it best of all the Disney Star Snores but, IMHO, it was not the better of the two.
