By the time I got to see the movie and find this thread, it was already 76 pages long. I slogged through the first 40 before I started seeing the same posters cycling through the arguments again and again.

I can’t contribute anything that hasn’t already been said over and over other than:

a) I’ve only seen the film once (lucky to at all with a newborn),
b) I came out of the theatre conflicted about whether I actually enjoyed it,
c) I’ve thought about the film everyday since I saw it, and finally
d) I like it less and less each and every day.

Perhaps subsequent viewings may soften my stance, but as for now:

a) I won’t pay to see it again theatrically, and
b) Barring a major course correction it will be the last Star Wars movie I see theatrically.

I don’t disagree the political arc chosen for TFA and TLJ is a “realistic” or even “probable” one, and that the Rebel Alliance couldn’t establish a utopian government post ROTJ. Despite feeling like a rehash, I was willing to buy into that “reality” with TFA.

The travesty here is the character arc chosen for Luke. Despite all pro-TLJ lobbying, I simply cannot believe that this hero would have responded the way he does in TLJ.

I don’t want my heroes to be “fallen”. Some may applaud a “James Bond” movie where the protagonist is portrayed as a recovering alcoholic and sexual predator as “realistic” or “honest”, but that’s not why I would choose to watch a Bond movie. And that’s why TLJ will be the last Star Wars film that I see in theatres, the same way I stopped going to see “dark and gritty” DCEU movies after “Man of Steel”.

To be honest, I would rather they never had made the ST and I wish that Mark Hamill would have had the option of reading a script before being contractually obligated to make this film.