Never thought I'd say this...

Rating: 7/10 (23 December 2017)

But this movie made me miss the genius that was Jar-Jar Binks. There were a few good moments here and there, but overall I don't know what this was supposed to be. It did absolutely nothing to advance the stories of the previous saga films, and instead turned the mythology everyone loves about Star Wars into bantha dookie. It's time for Disney to end.
UPDATE: I read a lot of reviews (non-professional critic reviews) and watched a lot of YouTube video reviews both positive and negative about The Last Jedi. The negative reviews mirrored my own feelings after watching TLJ. The positive ones touched on many things, some of which I hadn't considered with my initial viewing. I was all set to "never give Disney another penny" after TLJ, but after my fair research (I really wanted to like it), I gave it another shot/viewing. And i honestly did like it a lot more after seeing it again.
The initial viewing is so polarizing with what they did with Luke Skywalker and how they handled the Force and Snoke.
But the new Force powers (one of my initial problems) made sense upon the second viewing. Not to make this too long, their basically just extensions of Luke and Vader/Leia's ability to communicate through the Force in TESB. And Yoda sensed Anakin's feelings/pain in AOTC without the more personal awareness in TOT, so okay, it's an extension of this ability that progresses throughout the Saga. Actually, can be seen as quite clever. Maybe.
I still have a problem with flying Leia, but if we pretend that Kylo Ren, who couldn't get himself to shoot and kill her, assisted in her survival, it makes way more sense, and is actually pretty cool. KR couldn't shoot and kill his mother, the accompanying ships did it for him, and he used the Force to help will her back to the ship to save her. I mean it really makes more sense since she was in a coma when she got back, that she had help outside of her own Force powers.
Snoke's death. He died way too easily, although watching it was satisfying. What if Snoke, who was so powerful, and could "not be betrayed, not be beaten," and could see KR's thoughts and intentions, also foresaw his betrayal? What if Snoke was so powerful that he could, like Luke, astral-project himself into that throne room, manipulate the Force within that room (as he did Hux from a distance earlier in the film), and fake his death to Kylo and Rey, and yet still be alive elsewhere? What if he's just messing with Kylo Ren the same way he was messing with Rey in that scene? Then his alleged death scene becomes so much more.
Luke's character and his death. This is what p***ed me off the most after my first viewing. And probably most fans. But upon careful inspection, it does kind of make sense, from a certain point of view. After the Battle of Endor, Luke Skywalker became this mythical hero, this legend, this deity in the eyes of so many in the galaxy. Looking to rebuild the Jedi Order, and live up to this imaginary pedestal he's been put on, he moved forward with his new Jedi Order plans. When it failed, he didn't feel that he had failed, but that the legend of Luke Skywalker had failed; a legend too big to fail. So the let-down was seemingly much greater than an individual failure. And that's what drove him off, made him so bitter, and reluctant to try again. Jumping now to the end of the movie, Luke's redemption moment, when he appears as a Force astral-projection to "take on the entire First Order" (as he jested to Rey earlier in the film as it couldn't be done), the "spark" in the galaxy, the "New Hope" reborn, is the legend he left behind by single-handedly taking on the entire First Order, and Kylo Ren, so the Resistance could escape. In that moment, he lived up to the "Legend of Luke Skywalker" and only Kylo Ren, Rey, and maybe Leia knew about his failure of Ben Solo. The children at the end of the movie exemplify this final scene exactly. The Legend lives on, even with his death before twin suns, that similarly signified his birth (in the Force)....
It's got to lose a point for being so contrived and difficult to see at first, and even still, there are aspects that could have been better, (Canto Bight is nearly unnecessary), but honestly, I do not hate it nearly as much as I did in my initial viewing. I was ready to burn Disney to the ground, but it's actually much better if you give it a second chance and fair consideration.