Its the movie the fans deserve, but not what we wanted. Reasons to love it.

Rating: 7/10 (20 December 2017)

SPOILERS!!!!!!
After first seeing this on Sunday, I was moderately disappointed, being a huge Star Wars fan and understanding the mythos and history of it all. But I knew i had to give it a couple days, not only for it to sink in, but to understand what they had done.
Luke- Seeing Luke removed from the force, tattered, grumpy and afraid was something completely different than the Luke we all know and love. And as an audience we were expecting badass Jedi Master Skywalker. But why would we need a story where Luke was the same. Much as no one wanted to see Anakin as a child, growing and learning and then fully transformed into Vader. This was Luke's transformation, paralleling his father as Vader in the OG trilogy, but understand that Luke is the polar opposite of Vader. In the flashback, Luke goes to confront Ben, terrified of what would become of his nephew if he would succumb to Snoke (similar to Anakin going to Palpatine and Mace Windu). Then Ben slaughters the entire Jedi academy and sets it aflame. And Sound familiar? Anakin is on a quest for more power, as is now Kylo, but as for Luke he does the complete opposite and shuts himself off from the force and then goes into hiding (similar to Yoda and Obi-Wan).
When we first see Luke, we want that old Jedi wisdom, but we don't get that. We get a flippant toss of the lightsaber, assuming this is a nod to Yoda tossing out all of Luke's stuff in ESB. At first you think it's a trial, but you quickly are aware that he is far from the Force and wants nothing to do with it. His story is a carefully structured arc that reveals itself quite shockingly in the third act. A shadowy figure coming down the stairs, (similar to his first appearance in ROTJ) gives Leia a farewell kiss and throws C-3PO (and us) a wink.
The battle between him and Kylo is fantastic as it demonstrated Luke's abilities, something you scoff at, but we have never seen before or has been demonstrated by any Jedi in the mythos. This deep meditation drains him of his life force and he leaves to the Force (same as Obi-Wan and Yoda) exiting the same as he entered Star Wars, with a binary sunset.
Rey instilled hope and faith back to the Force, making Luke return (Return of the Jedi) to save the last bit of the Resistance.
Snoke- We wanted answers, but we got none. Who was he? Still don't know and will we ever? But why do we need answers for a powerful beings past? Oh because Lucas did the prequels. In the OG trilogy, Palpatine was introduced physically AND killed in the same movie. I never seemed to have a problem with that, as well as many others. We are also introduced to Darth Maul, who also has no back story (until books and comics) and gets cut in half in the first movie he appears in. Count Dooku and General Grevious are also introduced and killed off with no explanation of backstory. So why should we be waiting for an immense backstory to Snoke? To Rey it doesn't matter. The reasoning doesn't seem to have any significance at the moment so why delve into who he is. On the contrary he served as a stepping stone for Kylo, for once he's killed Kylo could take over his position with no one in his way and can design the galaxy to his vision of his empire.
The CGI vision of Snoke was great, as most Star Wars movies have proven, as they try to push the boundaries of technology. Andy Serkis delivers a terrifying performance that makes you hate him without even knowing who he really is.
The death and consecutive fight scene was superb. Something that showed a glimmer of hope for Kylo, and for once showed light and dark balanced and working together. It was once again, nothing we had ever seen before.
Leia/Poe- At first I thought the slow-mo space battle was a bit ridiculous, but then again the opening to Star Wars was exactly that. ESB had a slow moving space battle that the Millennium Falcon only escaped by going into an asteroid field and then attaching his small ship to the Star Destroyer. Does it seem that theres a plot hole of speeds? Maybe, but most Star Wars movies have vehicles flying at almost similar speeds. Even if they say that "It's the fastest ship in the Galaxy".
Nonetheless the space battle starts very strong with Poe being defiant and doing what he does best, fight. It seems like a victory but many lives and ships were lost, leading to Leia demoting him. When the ships bridge is destroyed Leia is sucked into space and uses the force to protect and save herself. Did it look weird? Yea, but the idea that Leia was more Force aware than we took her for granted threw us for a loop. Which is exactly what should have happened. AGAIN this is the first time we have seen something like this, which I believe is what people are most upset about. They want familiarity rather than the unusual. This scene is as powerful as when Yoda raises the X-wing out of the water in ESB. Many people believe the Force to be exactly what Rey thought the Force was. And I'm paraphrasing "A power that allows you to lift and move things and control peoples mind" which Luke said what you have just said is completely wrong.
After Leia is comatose, the purple haired Admiral takes control, has a plan that Leia told her to do, yet does not disclose the plan to Poe in order to make him shut up and not do anything stupid. But he's too hot headed and does this anyways. They come up with a seemingly great grand scheme plan in typical Star Wars fashion, where Finn and Rose have to go find the Master coder on a casino planet, Canto Bight. (This is continued in the Finn/Rose portion).
After Poe learns that they are fueling the cruisers for an escape, he seeks to create a mutiny to put into effect his grand scheme plan. When he's about to jump, the plan fails miserably and he looks like a chump. We are all mad, asking why didnt this work? Because the plan was exactly what it seemed to be, too good to be true. In an ESB good guys lose style, but it made you want this to play out so bad that you feel cheated. Of all the cockamamy Star Wars plans, this was a huge time that we see a plan fail immensely, multiple times. Even the plan to escape to Crait fails. Ships are picked off before they land and the dog fight on Crait destroys more than most of the Resistance. A polar opposite ESB walker/speeder fight. All they can do is escape by running away again. We dont like this, we see the Rebels/Resistance at its worse and they are running away. But it creates the heroes at their "all hope is lost" moment.
Finn/Rose- Their plan to go to Canto Bight seems far fetched and farcical, and well it is. Poe bets this plan will work that he puts the lives of the entire Resistance at stake. But we forget in TPM that Qui-Gon bet on Anakin in a podrace to get a hyperdrive for their spaceship, and if he lost they would lose the ship and be stranded a very long time. In AOTC, Obi-Wan goes to a fat four armed alien in a diner to figure out where a poisonous dart came from, which he knows within seconds of looking at it, then sends Obi-Wan directly in the middle of the entire plot of the movie.
This time its our heroes Finn and Rose, going to find a codebreaker on Canto Bight and then sneak onto Snokes ship and disable the tracker. Within minutes of being there they are thrown in jail for a parking violation. Seems odd, but once again its something new. In all other Star Wars movies we see scum, villainy, the slums of the Galaxy. And finally we see some high class society, and of course that type of society would absolutely complain to the police about their parking abilities.
While imprisoned, they just so happen across a master codebreaker and they escape. Only to be chased into the whipped and abused stalls of the creatures used for racing, accompanied by slave children. Why are we mad we are seeing this? Because its terrible and real, but you forget Anakin was once a slave along with his mother. We never saw how terrible it was since Watto didnt seem abusive, but still there is slavery amongst the galaxy. And at one point Chewbacca and other wookies were slaves in some books. I'm glad it came back, just to show that throughout that long time ago in the galaxy that its still an issue.
Finn and Rose escape on the giant creatures, destroying as much as they can in the process and leads them to a dead end. And being saved by their last hope, the codebreaker. It almost seems that Finn and Rose were willingly choosing this codebreaker, but it's BB-8's who teamed up with the codebreaker to save Finn and Rose. This is the person that they have to trust at this point since time is of the essence, they have no other choice.
When they get caught, DJ cuts a deal (much like Lando in ESB) to save himself. He tells them of the ships leaving and where they are going, and Leia's plan begins to crumble as well. All hope is lost with the Resistance. In a last breathe effort the purple haired Admiral light speeds through Snoke's and surrounding ships to disable and help the remaining Resistance ships escape. Which was really awesome and beautiful. This also creates havoc on the ship allowing our heroes to escape, along with some Captain Phasma killing. And in keeping with her Boba Fett status, falls to her demise.
Finn and Rose land into the Crait battle station in a screeching crash, (similar to ROTS and Anakin and Obi-Wan crash landing).
When the Crait dogfight comes to a conclusion, Finn looks like he might be the hero, but is saved at the last second by Rose. Why!?! Well she couldn't save her sister, and she felt the need to save Finn, since the war wouldnt be won by fighting but by saving the ones you love. Would the sacrifice have been better? Yes. No. Maybe? But in allowing Rose to save Finn she completes her small character arc