This is a good movie.

Rating: 8/10 (17 December 2017)

I have to disagree with most of these reviews here. If you give this movie a 1-3/10 you are not being objective. I suspect many people expected very specific things from this movie and their disappointment over not getting what they wanted influences their rating/review.

The biggest theme for this story is "the old must die to make way for the new/young". Both the strong dark and light side leaders pass their torches. Snork is tricked and killed by his apprentice while he is blinded by his emotions - that is the Sith way! And Luke sacrifices himself and passes on his wisdom to teach a final lesson - the traditional Jedi way.
The next big theme for me was: balance. This culminates in the scene where Ben/Kylo has to make a decision. Everything stops for a moment, everything is possible and a new balance is created. Same goes for Rey. These moments were absolutely amazing in my opinion. Great story telling, very tense and unexpected.

The audio/visuals were unbelievably good. This is pure StarWars. The space battles, the orchestral music, the sequence when Admiral Holdo jumps and there are silent explosions forcing the whole theater to hold their breath - brilliant. The various animals, how the camera captures these beautiful paintings of nature and people in artistic moments... Eye/eargasm.
There are issues, yes, this is not the best SW movie ever.

The plot with Finn is unnecessary, they obviously didn't know what to do with him as a character. And they put them in a situation on an exploding cruiser that requires several deus ex machina to get them to safety again.
The chase which serves as the countdown of the movie doesn't really build tension and introduces various plot holes. Why does every action/sci-fi movie ever need a constant countdown throughout the whole movie? Why? It's impossible have anything else than a constantly rising drama curve when you do that. You can't have a real breather, you can't use forward time jumps for character growth and most of all everything that happens in the movie has to be rushed and quick.

Honestly that is my biggest gripe with this and many other modern movies and that is the one thing that I would change to make it better. Imagine the fleet being chased by the first order all over the galaxy for months and months, while Rey can actually train for some time instead of just mastering anything she tries within seconds. And then you can still start the "chase-countdown" later on when it actually makes sense.
Final thing. Luke. That is the point that most people have issues with I think. But I personally think they were spot on. Anybody read the Thrawn trilogy? Luke is not the shining knight that solves things by slicing and dicing. He's a pacifist. He believes in reaching people and in creating balance instead of fighting. And he completely failed. Yoda mentions this to him. Luke should teach them how to deal with failure. But Luke still has to learn that lesson for himself and that's the second reason why Yoda speaks to him. Even though Luke is a true master of the Force he's still human - like the rest of us. Overcoming the failure he experienced with his school and Ben allows him to create that spark of hope with his last action as a physical being. Like a true Jedi he does not charge in and destroys an army, he reaches out to one important person not to destroy but to create calm, to distract and to reach his goal without violence. IMHO it's brilliant.