I came out of TLJ thinking, “Well, that was not what I expected, and I’m not quite giddy, but this is absolutely the best Star Wars movie I’ve seen since ROTJ, and it may be better than ROTJ.”

A cohesive theme, a mature consideration of where this franchise needed to go, setting the table for a final act that would not simply be rehash of ROTJ, exploring a Kylo who has finally got what he thinks he wants, the Resistance poised to rebound, Finn all-in, Poe sobered and matured beyond a cliche. Even Canto Bight hinted at a galaxy that was larger than the OT-redux power dynamic that TFA crammed down our throats. If I had some concerns, it’s that a slow-speed chase was not super compelling as a framing device and they probably just should have had the Rebels get to Krait sooner, that the lack of a time-skip meant we couldn’t get as much off-screen hand-wavy character development, and some of the dialogue is a bit Marvel-ized. The Holdo maneuver could be (and was, though clumsily) waved off in the next movie (e.g. “She was able to lock onto the Hyperspace tracker!”). Given the sstate of play left by 7, I loved Luke’s arc, and understood it as a frustrated man still trying to do the right thing even when it was painful. That is ABSOLUTELY what might happen to a Luke Skywalker who found his beloved nephew was a path to genocidal evil, and even then the man who took his weapons into the cave, who risked the galaxy to save his friends, was only impetuous enough to ignite his lightsaber. Luke was at peace at the end of ROTJ, but it’s silly to think he was utterly changed from his younger self. No one is. He did way better than most.

Overall, TLJ was much better than TFA or any of the prequels, and frankly the filmmaking choices and George’s gaps in interest/talent still leave the PT hard to watch, even if the overrarching plot is less disjointed. I was excited to see Episode 9 in a way I hadn’t been in a long time, only really hoping they’d consider splitting it into two because TLJ needed to clean up the mess of TFA’s nostalgia fest (which could have been much better with only minor tweaks). But no, JJ and the powers-that-be acted like cowards and bullies’ toadies, actually wasting time to lampshade how much TROS was not TLJ (e.g. “Come with us Rose!” “I can’t! Leia gave me homework!”). This of course pissed off everyone, as of course the TLJ fans were put off, but it also completely missed the point of what those with concerns about TLJ disliked about it, as well as reminding them of it several times.

Finally, and in conclusion, find you someone who looks at you like JJ Abrams looks at a Hyperspace skip. 😂

There are a lot of things I really love about TLJ and overall it gets a lot of unnecessary hate, and usually a lot of the arguments are not well constructed beyond “I didn’t like it”. The main three gripes I hear about it are: a) Finn’s side story was unnecessary (which, sure - maybe. I could see both sides of that argument so won’t fight about it) b) Luke was nerfed from his Legends persona (arguably, was a fantastic decision) c) the immediate death of some characters.

Legends Luke’s power is stupid and god-like. At one point he walks on the surface of a black hole, which is absolute trash fan fiction. Legends makes a very poorly/quickly trained Jedi into a Master and the absolute strongest being in the universe, who is so powerful that he basically isn’t human anymore. It makes for a very boring character, similar to Superman. TLJ makes Luke into a believable character, considering his background and what’s happened to him since we last saw him. 30 years is a long time and he’s seen some shit - all without a lot of the proper Jedi training that other Jedi received since they were children.

As for the deaths of Phasma and Snoke: who cares? The main reason for them to be around was to be monoliths for Finn and Kylo Ren to overcome. They weren’t interesting characters otherwise and we find out why Snoke wasn’t developed further in the next movie. Also, Kylo Ren should be the focus of a movie in the Skywalker saga, not the newbie Snoke. Removing him was a good choice. Finn’s monolith being removed gives him an opportunity to move to a new phase in the next movie, which was then not utilized by JJ. Furthermore, Phasma was supposed to be the next Boba Fett: just a marketable character who was pretty boring in the original trilogy but looked cool so his action figure sold well. TLJ does a very sensible thing overall: It takes unnecessary characters and writes them out of an already overcrowded character list.

TLJ also examined what went wrong with The Force Awakens and fixes it: namely that TFA is so safe that it leans into a boring rehash of ANH. TLJ at least had the guts to do something different and take the franchise in another direction, one SW sorely still needs thanks to JJ and Disney’s refusal to do something different. So much of SW in the last 2 decades has been incredibly safe - except TLJ. It really goes to show how little originality and small vision JJ Abrams and Disney have as creatives that they couldn’t figure out how to handle TRoS, which is arguably the absolute worst SW film - and outperforming AotC in that regard is truly impressive.

Last point, the last 20 or so minutes of TLJ really understands the origin of SW: Japanese samurai/ronin sword duels. It’s also visually beautiful.

TLDR: SW fans go brr, hate everything anyway.