Raised on it

Rating: 8/10 (8 May 2018)

I was raised on Star Wars, Star Trek, Lynch's Dune, and The Day the Earth Stood Still. My stepfather would buy the SW novelizations and I read them obsessively as a kid. I also read the kid series that he didn't buy (support your local libraries!). I think it's safe to say that I have some well-grounded, pertinent knowledge. I feel when rating a movie like this (with the well-publicized reactionary reviews) I have to present my bona fides first thing.
I liked this movie a lot. Was it perfect? No. Was it the worst movie in the series? HAHAHAno. How does it compare with the original trilogy? I think it compares rather well. But that also means it suffers from some of the same weaknesses of the original series while facing an audience less willing to handwave said weaknesses away.
The main thing I saw people who weren't being reactionary complain about were plot holes. Were there as many as people say? Well...not really. The phrase gets thrown around a lot when people are ragging on a movie, but the accepted definition is still the one in common usage. There were plot WEAKNESSES, definitely, but a plot hole is a gap in the narrative that (and this is the key point) "goes against the flow of logic *established by the story's plot*." Which means if something follows the internal logic that has been established...it's not a plot hole. There were a couple narrative choices that made me roll my eyes, there were moments that seemed illogical to me but fit the previously established characterization, and there was one section that just seemed so pointless. I didn't like those bits and it took this movie from a 10 to an 8 (well, more like a 9.5 to a 7.5). They weren't plot holes, they were just poor choices.
Overall, I think this movie has a solid standing in the Star Wars pantheon. I know fans who raved and put it as their new number one, I wouldn't go quite that far. But it's definitely in the top half of my rankings.