The Force Awakens - Setting

Star Wars: The Force Awakens appears to be a Prophet story, with Rey succeeding when she recognizes her own special gifts, using them to survive against Kylo Ren.  Does the recent in-universe history match with that?

Star Wars: A New Hope, with an evil Empire and its Stormtroopers, was World War II: There are The Good Guys who are opposing The Bad Guys to prevent horrific acts (like blowing up planets). Many of the shots were even directly copied from World War II movies, with The Dam Busters being a famous example. Luke, Han, and Obi-Wan appear to be Hero, Nomad, and Prophet, which makes sense for a Crisis, as with World War II. That would not work as well for World War I or Korea, nor were the stakes in those conflicts comparable to what the Rebellion is facing.

If considering a corresponding war for The Force Awakens, meanwhile, the obvious choice would be Vietnam. It begins with civilians killed and a village being torched, and continues with other references, including a later shot lifted directly from Apocalypse Now, using TIE fighters instead of helicopters.

Maz Kanata's castle looks a bit like the temple in Apocalypse Now -- all of Takodana resembles Vietnam, for that matter.

The more one looks into the actual (fictional) political situation, in fact, the more appropriate it seems.  In the film, it is mentioned that the New Order is opposed by a Resistance which is supported by the Republic. Good Republic and Bad Order seems so similar to A New Hope that the implication may have slipped by: The Resistance is an externally supported insurgent force fighting to neutralize the First Order, which is the remnant of the Empire that still controls part of the galaxy.  That means that the Republic is supporting a guerrilla war against a separate nation, while trying to keep itself out of the fighting.  The historical parallels are varied, and the preferred one probably depends on personal political leanings, but the Viet Cong in South Vietnam works well - as long as you are willing to consider General Organa as comparable to Ho Chi Minh.

(If that offends your political sensibilities too much, you could instead consider the Resistance as equivalent to the Nicaraguan Contras taking on Ortega. Which will naturally bring up objections from another part of the political spectrum. That could be why the political situation was mentioned in the opening crawl and hardly brought up again.)

This happens to fit well with the timing of other events in-universe. Rey, Finn, and Kylo Ren are all in their 20s. Other sources confirm that it has been 30 years since the Battle of Endor and the death of Emperor Palpatine. About 30 years after the end of the previous Crisis is when an Awakening would be expected to occur.  The rusting hulks littering Jakku, being rummaged for valuable bits of scrap, underline the time that has passed. There was clearly a huge battle fought, but those days are long gone. The poverty of Rey and others on this insignificant planet - that old woman who has been scavenging for years - shows that whatever might have been the expectation of the post-war period, there is injustice still.

It does look like the events are set in an Awakening, matching the Story ... and the film's title ... and Snoke's observation, "There has been an awakening - have you felt it?"