Not as Good Upon Second or Third Viewing

Rating: 7/10 (25 January 2020)

My impression on first viewing this movie was very positive. It lost some of it's luster, though, upon viewing it multiple times a couple of years after its debut. The story is entertaining and the cinematography and special effects are excellent, but a number of things bothered me.
I didn't like the developments with Luke Skywalker and his character; I understand why Mark Hamill had issues. I didn't like how Leia disappeared from much of the movie, and I really didn't like how her near death experience was handled. The segment in Canto Bight was mostly pointless, as it turns out. The hall of mirrors scene with Rey didn't make sense. The new character, Rose, was OK but was not believable; she reminded me too much of Nurse Kelly (sp?) on MASH. And the relationship that supposedly happened with her and Finn was completely unbelievable. Finn was another mostly non-contributor. He had a fair amount of scenes but didn't contribute much. His one opportunity to be a hero got side-tracked, literally!
I really didn't like the Admiral Holdo character. She came out of nowhere and her motivation for not revealing the escape plan was never explained and thus made no sense. She seemed untrustworthy and acted mainly condescending and insulting to Poe. She just seemed out of place.
So, these many annoyances came to the forefront on my second viewing. I had been more swept away the first time, largely because there was a lot more originality than in the Force Awakens, but almost anything would have been more original than that. The wasted sequence in Canto Bight could have been eliminated and shortened to movie to a more reasonable 2 hours. TLJ is worth seeing but, in the final analysis, is not that great. I give it 7 stars.