The hate from a vocal section of viewers is hugely over the top and can be answered with simple logic. This is a GREAT film!

Rating: 10/10 (25 April 2018)

I am a Star Wars fan who grew up in the late 70s and 80s watching the original trilogy. I am also a fan of cinematic brilliance overall. My favourite two Star Wars films are The Empire Strikes Back and the original Star Wars (Episode IV) which I rate among my top 10 films of all time along with my 3 favourite Alfred Hitchcock directed classics Vertigo, Rear Window & North By Northwest, It's a Wonderful Life, 12 Angry Men, Once Upon a Time in the West, The Godfather Part II and Lawrence of Arabia. These are all highly acclaimed true greats of cinema. They are works of art and created with genius skill so their quality far outshines whatever tiny flaws there might be. The Last Jedi similarly is not perfect but its qualities, in my opinion far outshine any imperfections. The internet has created an online forum of hate where everything that is popular gets attacked, usually in a really exaggerated way. This film has attracted a lot of vocal online hatred but as usual this hatred is over the top and ignores logic. By applying logic I will answer some main criticisms I remember hearing:
1. "This is just a badly made film which betrayed fans expectations":
Umm no way. As a nerdy fan of cinema who despises brainless movies with poor writing I would say it is blatantly obvious that this film has huge cinematic quality. It looks beautiful. The battle scenes on Crate with Kurosawa inspired visuals are incredible. The 1927 film Wings inspired panning shot through the casino is superb. The light speed ship smashing silently through the dreadnought is magic. The fight in Snoke's throneroom is fantastic and visually stunning. The film has excitement, humour, intelligent dialogue, engaging acting and dramatic surprises. The shock choices of Snoke's death, Luke's death, Rey's parentage etc are heavily criticised by the haters but nobody can argue it was predictable or bland or just following the original films. Those story choices were bold, challenging and hugely dramatic as truly great cinema should be. I want films to be original, challenge me and surprise me if they are going to rise to brilliance.
Those story choices are not illogical or bad, it is fair enough if a viewer finds these choices not what they wanted to happen but that does not mean they should not have done it. Yes I was gutted the great villain Snoke was killed off but it was a great twist that satisfies me as a film fan and it elevates Kylo Ren as a villain. We can find out more about Snoke in extended universe films, TV or novelisations.
The Force Awakens got criticised for being too formulaic in following the pattern of the originals yet this gets criticised for being different and making unexpected choices. Just because fans have dreamed up what will happen does not mean blowing those ideas out of the water is a bad choice, it just upsets those who want fan serving, crowd pleasing, predictable choices.
2. "How can Rey be so powerful and how can Jedi just spring up out of nowhere?":
Well this shows a total inability to understand the whole Star Wars story in terms of what the force is and what the Jedi are. The Jedi is a religion. Not everyone who has the force is automatically a Jedi, they never were. The Jedi found force users and trained them in the Jedi religion and disciplines. Without the Jedi, force users would still be born and still be equally powerful but would not be trained in the Jedi ways. You could view Luke as losing his religion and realising that brainwashing children to follow that religion was not necessarily the best way. People determining their own path and harnessing their raw power may put them in danger of the dark side but making your own choices is a pretty good aim.
Luke was virtually untrained when he defeated the super powerful Lord Vader. Luke had one lesson with Obi Wan and a couple of days with Yoda yet beat the mighty Vader. Now people cannot accept Rey's raw power matching an injured, unbalanced young former Jedi apprentice. This was entirely believable.
3. "Luke would never give up and hide away":
Umm that is precisely what Obi Wan and Yoda did! The two mightiest Jedi gave up even though Obi Wan had critically injured Vader and Yoda had a pretty 50/50 battle with the Emperor. They ran away into exile and hid for 17 years before sending a young, hardly trained boy to fight both Sith by himself. Now fans cannot cope with Luke hiding away after he feels failure from losing his nephew to the darkside. Again, people are being silly and inconsistent. Luke is following his two Jedi mentors exactly so this is consistent, logical behaviour. It is also understandable human behaviour to hide from your troubles and failures. Additionally, Luke finally gives his life willingly to save his friends so his character does the expected heroic thing in the end but in an unexpected way. By the way, his death makes sense as it was a super powerful use of the force which drained his energy. He also was happy & ready to transform into the force, he did not fight it.
4. "Leia using the force in space was dumb":
Again this is a grumpy unwillingness to accept a perfectly logical idea. Leia is a Skywalker, daughter of Anakin and twin sister of Luke so logically she would be force powerful. In Return of the Jedi, Yoda and Obi Wan speak of her as the other hope in the battle against the Empire. Vader speaks of turning her to the dark side. Luke tells her she has the same power as him and only needs to learn to use it. 30 years later is it really unbelievable that Leia would be able to use the force to control her breathing for a few moments and pull towards an object? In space there is little or no gravity so scientifically it is consistent that any slight push or pull will cause someone to float in that direction. Space does not necessarily instantly kill even a normal person in real life, you would die in a minute or so. Leia avoided this but fell into a coma.
5. "There is no character development and no engagement with the characters":
Seriously? Are they watching the same film? In what way was there more character development in the original trilogy than in these new films? The characters are very well acted and their actions and dialogue show depth, inner conflict, progression, emotion and humour. This is just a throw away criticism with nothing to back it up. Give evidence of how original trilogy characters had more depth than the new characters. They are at least equally good in these new films.
6. "The porgs and the 'alien seal' being milked are stupid":
This is a matter of taste. Most importantly, the total screentime of the porgs and the 'alien seal' put together probably makes up 5 minutes of a 2 1/2 hour film so why would this be a big issue? It is a very minor aspect to the film. Anyway, personally I find the porgs cute and hilarious, providing nice moments of humour amongst the drama. The alien seal being milked by Luke is weird, no doubt, but I also found that funny as well as showing an aspect of how Luke lived on the island. What is the difference between these scenes and the ewoks, the ugnauts fighting over C3POs parts, Salacious Crumb, the swamp monster swallowing R2 and spitting him out or the creature on Tatooine belching after eating another creature? People are just miserable when viewing the new films and ignore similar stuff in the originals.
7. "Why did Vice Admiral Holdo not tell Poe the plan to stop him trying to mutiny?":
This is a fair question but it is clear and believable that Holdo does not trust Poe because he is a maverick who fails to follow orders. She keeps the plan secret in an attempt to avoid any chance of it being ruined. This is shown to be wise when a plan is leaked unintentionally via Finn and Rose to Benicio Del Toro's backstabbing character DJ who betrays them to the First Order. Holdo clearly did not foresee a mutiny and when Poe does this she reacts angrily and so still does not tell him the real plan. It is logical that Holdo does not trust Poe and does not tell him the plan, it is therefore logical Finn and Rose go on an expedition to get a codebreaker to carry out their plan. Their plan failing provides yet another unexpected twist which is so much better than the predictable storyline of Finn and Rey going and successfully switching off the shield. That would have been attacked for being like A New Hope, Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens. In this they twist that expectation to a great surprise.
Also, Finn and Rey's journey is not pointless in terms of the overall story as it is important for their character development showing their growing relationship and Rose's anti-slavery, anti-exploitation motivations. It also shows an interesting new world and sets up the idea of young force users being inspired to join the resistance which may be vital to the next film.
8. "Luke would not try to kill young Ben Solo"
This criticism fails to realise there is a false flashback when Kylo Ren lies and claims Luke tried to kill him. He did not. It is shown that Luke momentarily lit up his lightsabre but immediately decided to not harm Ben. It is perfectly reasonable and logical that Luke would panic at realising the darkness and danger in Ben and momentarily reacting. Luke did NOT decide to kill Ben so did not act out of character.
A lot of fans created their own ideas of how things progressed after Return of the Jedi or read other people's fan fiction/extended universe stories and have become so caught up with what they personally want to happen to the characters and story that they cannot accept the new films making different choices. A lot of people pre-judge the new films and never give them a chance. Haters spout tirades of over the top criticisms without applying logic or consistency. Some view this film with grumpy unwillingness to accept its qualities, criticising things which they would happily accept in the original trilogy. I rate this the third best Star Wars film so far.