Had it's problems, but still a great movie and a powerful ending to the saga. (no spoilers)

Rating: 8/10 (31 December 2019)

This movie has been out for a week and I can already say it's extremely underrated.
First let me explain the issues with this movie-
1 The plot in the first act was really rushed and could have fared much better with an extra maybe even 30 minutes.
2 The movie would have been much more cohesive had there been no change in directors for the last jedi, it could be focused on Abrams' POV rather than jumping ideas.
3 This should have been planned out from the start. Something I never understood with the sequels is that they made the plot as they went along. It would have made much more sense to have a preplanned idea where we could see certain characters grow and theorize in different ways.
That being said, I feel that this was the strongest movie of the sequels. Reasons?
1 Instead of copying old movies (Force Awakens) and wasting time and cool characters with random/boring side stories and character changes (the last jedi), this movie was focused on one main storyline and one main villain with other new characters showing up to help out. The entire movie was focused on Rey, Finn, Poe, Chewbacca, and C3PO's group, plus Ben Solo. This is what should have been done from the start instead of all these characters having out-of-the-blue storylines from previous movies. This movie also brought its own feel while still connecting to previous movies.
2 The fan service was good and greatly brought nostalgia. There are a lot of critics upset about the nostalgia this movie brought with it, but isn't that the whole point of Star Wars? Laser swords fighting, giant evil empires, a classic battle of good and evil, all mixed with imaginative stories and sci-fi greatness? That is what Star Wars is and is what Star Wars fans what, so why is the nostalgia so hated? This is the END of the Skywalker saga so bringing in all the past is essential to have a strong ending.
3 It did its best considering the disappointments that came with TFA and TLJ. They strongly used all of the sequel's original main characters in a perfect attempt to have a new story while also spending time to fix the mistakes made in the previous movies. The emotion is extremely strong, actors performances are amazing, showed a lot of potential new stories for Star Wars to follow.
4 Again, it fixed a lot of TLJ (which made people really angry?), I don't want to say what changed in risk of spoilers, but I'm happy that there was change. And a lot of people are against this, saying that Abrams' ruined the sequel that Rian Johnson helped bring to a high, but really, TLJ ruined TFA. Abrams' started and ended this trilogy and its only fair that he ends it with his vision.
5 Most characters got to play their own role in one way or another. So many reviewers state that Finn and Poe were extremely useless throughout the movie, but really, I feel as if each of the main characters did something important in various parts of the movie. Of course the main focus was Rey as she is the Jedi, but that doesn't mean the other characters didn't get enough time. The only character that was sidelined completely was Rose (the directors do explain why, but still). I never liked her character, thought she was boring, random, wanted Finn to be with Rey,etc. but the way she was sort of shooed out of most of he movie was a bit ehhhh to me. Sure, she really wouldn't bring that much to the story (and she really wouldn't have), but you could have at least somewhat included her.
6 We see that Rey is becoming stronger due to training and not "wow i can fight out of nowhere" (which a lot of people and me were upset about in TFA). A lot of questions and confusions are answered and resolved (again, no spoilers), and a lot is clear if you watched the Clone Wars and Rebels to see how certain characters are able to do certain things.
7 This is supposed to be the end of a whole saga AND a trilogy, after having a change of directors for the previous movie. That's a lot of work and a lot of pressure to be put for one movie, and a 2h20min time slot just makes that so much harder. I do feel that they could have done with maybe and extra 40-60 minutes but given the time they had, the writers did the best they could and tried to fit everything they could into the movie, and that is respectable. This did cause an extremely fast paced movie though.
8 Predictability. I've seen so many comments hating on how predictable the movie was, but I felt that was important. With the fast pace, it was pretty needed to have a predictable movie so that people aren't completely lost behind in the first act.
Overall rating. This movie was honestly great and did everything it could have done, but it suffered from the pacing. It still concluded the Skywalker saga in a way that was incredibly satisfying to me and tied in so much of what we have seen in Star Wars canon, even including little VOICE cameos (this is so small that it isn't even a spoiler) from Clone Wars and Rebels characters.