This movie is a disaster :(

Rating: 2/10 (30 December 2017)

As a life long Star Wars fan, who saw The Empire Strikes back when it first came out in theatres, I've tried to be very fair in watching this movie. I've tried to be apolitical too - though ultimately I could not be, since the movie insists upon being political and so is bound to provoke a reaction one way or another.
So where to begin? By bluntly stating this movie is a disaster. The critics deliberately lied when they said this was a great movie; I can only assume they were paid off by Disney, or feared being blacklisted by Disney, or are determined to advance their far-left SJW agenda by praising a movie they know to be bad (you can see evidence of this in other movie reviews by professional critics lately e.g. for the 2018 version of A Wrinkle in Time).
At first I could not believe how bad The Last Jedi was - I knew it was bad, but tried to convince myself it was 6/10 bad and still better than The Phantom Menace. I even wrote a review to that effect. But I am now changing that review and my rating to 2/10, because I realize I was so shocked and crushed by how bad it was that I was lying to myself and others. Even Jar Jar's Warner Brothers cartoon antics at the Battle of Naboo have nothing on the abomination that is The Last Jedi. The Phantom Menace did not make me never want to see another Star Wars film again, but The Last Jedi has accomplished precisely that.
I have never been more genuinely angry or disappointed by any movie, ever. This movie has deliberately dishonoured the Star Wars universe and legacy, which for me as for many people has been a major part of my life. That is over with now. I am thankful that I am a fan of fantasy and particularly The Lord of the Rings, which is a more mature and sophisticated work anyway and which has a source text which cannot be adulterated by anybody. The bright side to the spiritual rape of my childhood by Rian Johnson, Kathleen Kennedy and Disney is at least I will now have more fruitful places to invest my imaginative energy.
What I liked:
1.) Kylo-Rey interaction was intriguing as the interplay of a villain who could almost be redeemed, and a hero who skates dangerously close to the dark side.
2.) Luke Skywalker - how powerful Luke ultimately proves to be at the end, demonstrating Yoda's dictum from ESB that the dark side is quicker, easier and more seductive than the light side of the force, but by no means stronger. Luke has achieved power through the light side of the force beyond Kylo Ren's dreams, while dark sider Kylo is on a self-limiting path of stagnation. Unfortunately...well, see below.
3.) Great visuals - I would expect nothing less and was not disappointed in this regard.
What I am equivocal about:
1.) New force powers - I found these interesting to a point, but it is unclear why we have never seen them before. Were they forgotten by the Jedi at some point before the Prequel Trilogy and then rediscovered? This needed to be explained, and then ties into some of the points below about the characters and their inexplicable abilities.
What I disliked:
1.) Too many parallel sub-plots, and too many new throw-away characters - actually these problems are so intertwined I count them as one major problem. The entire Finn and Rose sub-plot, for instance, would have made a good episode or two of Rebels if that show were made live-action and set in the future. What is it doing here? The entire sub-plot could have been struck and it literally would have made no difference to the main plot, other than the movie being more tightly-plotted and faster-paced. Finn and Rose were just shoe-horned in with DJ, and a battle with Plasma thrown in at the end (again we see less of her than we would like), but the whole thing just didn't fit.
2.) Character actions that make no sense. Why didn't Admiral Holdo just tell Poe what her plan was? He is her best fighter pilot, there is no reason she wouldn't fill him in on her battle plan even if she is annoyed by him, unless she is a lousy commander herself (in which case how did she ever become an Admiral?)
DJ flipping on Rose and Finn out of the blue, just because this made for a plot twist - obviously he could have been written out too and the movie would have been better for it.
Worst of all, Rose stupidly and selfishly stopping Finn's heroic self-sacrifice so that she could deliver a platitude. Think about this, she has no way of knowing Luke is about to arrive and save the day, so as far as she knows only Finn can save the day - and she stops him? They are right in front of a bunch of First Order walkers and probably seconds away from both being vaporized regardless, so she decides to make sure the First Order can wipe out the entire Resistance just so that she can have a few more seconds with him? Or is she so stupid she doesn't even realize she has almost certainly doomed the Resistance, even though her sister, who she revered, willingly sacrificed her own life for it, which sacrifice is now rendered futile by what Rose has just done? This makes her character seem contemptible, and the whole scene is just ridiculous.
3.) The humour. I agree with the point a lot of reviewers have made made that there is too much Marvel influence here. One cheap laugh a minute after another, at the most inconvenient times, almost none of it funny.
4.)The pursuit of the Resistance fleet - the First Order can't hyperspace jump just ahead of the Resistance fleet? They can't send out faster Tie Fighters and Bombers in vast numbers to destroy the fleet's capital ships? They can't use tractor beams?
5.) Leia - Specifically Leia in space - the power she exhibits to survive her own death makes her as strong as or stronger than Darth Plagueis, with NO force training? A ridiculous scene, and to think this was in poor Carrie Fisher's last role before her tragic passing. Very sad.
6.) Snoke - it might have been an interesting twist to have killed him towards the end in a reversal of ROTJ, with Kylo Ren doing what he thought Vader should have done in ROTJ to become the new dark side leader himself. But this happened too early on for such a dramatic scene. More importantly, to have explained nothing about Snoke's background is a massive slap in the face to Star Wars fans. Even just a couple of lines like Hux saying "Since Snoke found us in the Unknown Regions" or better yet Snoke saying "Since I abandoned the path of the Sith for a third way", would have gone a long way here. But the character is built-up only to be casually thrown away without even attempting to explain his place in the mythology of Star Wars. An insult to the fans and, yes, bad writing too.
7.) Rey is nobody? I sure hope that isn't true, as it makes the entire build-up of who she was in TFA ridiculous, and fails to explain how an incredibly powerful force-user who doesn't even require training from Luke Skywalker (!) could have parents with no connection to the force. Was she an anomaly or "vergence in the force" like Anakin? If so, why not hint at this? Again, an insult to fans if true, but perhaps it is not and Kylo was merely manipulating her - though I think that is too much to hope for. More likely she is an archetypal Mary Sue and the product of terrible writing. As one reviewer said, she is also the ultimate Millennial symbol, achieving everything she wants effortlessly just because - sums up what a lot of kids today think about their own abilities and how the world works/should work. It is a lie, and Disney does a disservice to young people by feeding the lie that you can get something for nothing.
8.) Yoda destroys the Jedi library - are you kidding me? They even ruined Yoda!
9.) Luke Skywalker - the hero of the original trilogy who believed in his father even though he was a monster who all others had lost faith in, and redeemed his father from the darkness against all odds, now tries to kill is own nephew because of his fleeting vision of a possible future. He flees the New Republic to avoid even helping the side of good again - and therefore left behind a map so that he could be found for what reason exactly? He uses an amazing force power no one has seen before, proving he is perhaps the most powerful force user who ever lived - and then dies just like that? No wonder Mark Hamill is so bitter about what they've done to Luke that he even criticized this character as "Jake Skywalker" with no relation to the Luke he played in his youth.
In conclusion - could JJ Abrams can salvage something here for Episode IX? Maybe Snoke isn't really dead and/or Kylo was lying to Rey about her background? I strongly suspect none of that will prove the case, all the more so now that I hear that Colin Treverow was fired from Episode IX and JJ Abrams brought onto it because Colin agreed with Mark Hamill about Luke and many other things, while JJ agreed with Rian Johnson.
And as for Rian Johnson, who took visible delight in destroying the Star Wars legendarium and its iconic characters - you definitely should have your own trilogy taken away from you - you have not earned the right to this honour, not by a long shot.
Finally, Kathleen Kennedy and Disney - you are a disgrace. And the Force is NOT Female - nor male, nor a vehicle for you to engage in SJW virtue-signalling.
PS - Don't call me a bitter White man for hating this movie blah blah blah...My part Native American wife watched this movie and was bored out of her tree and thinks it sucked. And she liked The Force Awakens and loved Rogue One, much like me. Women do not buy the idea that a movie that panders to and patronizes them through "diverse" female characters who can do no wrong is therefore a good movie, rather they find this insulting and rightly so.
PPS - As context, I would rank the SW movies in tiers as follows:
Tier One - ANH, ESB, RO
Tier Two - ROTS, ROTJ, TFA
Tier Three - TPM, AOTC, TLJ