Also, the release of the rest of the Sequel Trilogy might retroactively make TFA a better movie given added context.
Or make it even worse. If The Last Jedi is good, TFA will still be a very weak (and bad) entry. I’ll probably just skip it and watch The Last Jedi immediately afterwards Return of the Jedi.
I don’t see how you could expect The Last Jedi to be good.
I always have faith that something good can happen. I don’t judge in advance. 12 years ago I was very surprised by ROTS big jump in quality over AOTC, I might be as well next december.
I imagine you also don’t like the second half of Return of the Jedi.
I’ve put my ranking somewhere with a strong 8 (or 8.5 ?) to ROTJ, so I really like this movie… and the second half kicks ass. Besides I still think ROTS is a good SW flick while TPM is “decently mediocre”. As fanedited versions they are quite good movies I can easily enjoy in the context of a 6-part story (9-part story maybe ?).
So if the last Star Wars movie released that you thought was “good” from start to finish was probably The Empire Strikes Back,–given 6 successive irredeemably horrible failures to impress after that, I don’t see why you should even bother watching The Last Jedi at all.
In fact, R1 is the only one I dislike that much. I’ll watch it a second time when it’s officially available to be sure (I can change my mind, though I doubt it). First SW ever I was bored to death in the theater. Even AOTC is quite fun the first time you watch it. Even TFA was quite pleasant the first time as well. For some reason, R1 has deep issues in how to tell a story which make it - to me - the weakest SW to date. My review is somewhere on the proper topic where I explained that these issues are emphasized during both Darth Vader sequences (especially the second one). The way this movie was built around obvious fan-service and mythological deconstruction is very questionable. If you add weak characters into the mix (the only interesting one being killed ridiculously), it’s hard for me to find anything good about it.
So you’re wrong: 8 SW films, 3 great (among them 2 masterpieces, whatever the version/edition is), 1 good, 3 bad/mediocre but watchable and very decent when fanedited (well, except TFA which is still short of an edit I would agree at 99% with), and 1 I consider to be the worst (R1). I mostly like SW dude, like you 😃