Come on, guys, it wasn't THAT bad

Rating: 8/10 (21 January 2018)

Well, it seems like many people here don't like this movie. Honestly, i can understand them. Some of the changes and moves in this movie may seem a bit radical. But that's actually a good thing.
Star Wars is now 40+ years old franchise, it needs to change in order to survive. Some people won't like this changes, some other would. Myself, I'm in the second group.
Action and visuals were amazing in this movie. Most of the actors did excellent job with their roles (with shout-outs to Mark Hamill, Daisy Ridley and Adam Driver). I was worried that this movie is going to be predictable, but i was honestly caught off-guard several times. I really didn't expect Snoke to die in second episode, but he did. That's probably for best, Kylo Ren is much more interesting villain than him.
Rey's story continues to be intriguing, especially now when she is joined by Luke. It was very interesting and that planet itself was interesting place (although those lemming-birds-whatever were a bit overused at times).
Poe, wonderfully played by Oscar Isaac, is the biggest star of this movie and is probably the best character in this trilogy. Even though the plot on the rebel's ship wasn't that interesting, he made it watchable. Kudos to him.
Subplot involving Finn and Rose was probably the weakest one, mostly due to it's shoehorned political message. It was still enjoyable at times (like when Rose went full fangirl on Finn), and it was nice to see Benicio Del Toro in Star Wars (even though he was underused). Romance between Finn and Rose was completely unnecessary.
The biggest problem i have with this movie is that it forgot some stuff that were set up in previous installment and that it didn't explain some things. For example, i was really looking forward to see Knights of Ren, whom we saw in Rey's vision, but they don't appear nor are mentioned. Another problem is that we still don't really know what First Order is. Who created it? What do they want? Are they offspring of the Empire or are just copying them. I don't say that Snoke needs a huge and complex backstory, but it would be nice to at least know where did he come from and where did he learn to use Force. Is he Sith Lord? Or something else? My guess is that Rey's parents will be revealed in next movie.
Overall, this movie was a lot of fun, despite some of it's issues. It isn't the best Star Wars movie, but it isn't the worst one either.
8/10