I totally get that, I can be that way too. And I do like the new films and I also know they aren’t perfect either. There are good and bad moments in them for sure, but I still like them overall despite my own criticisms. And I’m not trying to say, “One day you’ll understand!”, but I maybe eventually you’ll have a moment where you’re like, “Oh, I get it now.”
While I came out of the theater enjoying the movie, there have been times where I’ve listen/read to a lot of criticism and wondered if I was wrong, but eventually I came to my own conclusion about why it works for me, that I’ve since heard from others who enjoy the film. So, you might always hold the feeling you would have done it differently, but hopefully you can appreciate it for what it is more overtime, so you’ll be able to enjoy the saga as a whole more (I can’t recall what your opinion on the prequels are).
And even then, I still think that maybe dialogue could have been worked on here or there to make certain ideas clearer to more fans in general. I think most fans are cool with the general shape of the movie, they just would have liked it more if certain ideas were executed either a bit clearer or with more subtlety.
So, even if some people will never like TLJ as-is, I think maybe some eventual TLJ fan edits might be able to help bridge that gap for them.
Then again, there are also films that just gain more appreciation from an audience overtime, so it might be too early to say certain things could’ve been done differently. I think a big part of it is just gonna be time, when people can look at these movies more in retrospect.
Speaking of which, I don’t see you on the fan editing side of this site as much as I see you on the discussion or preservation sides. Are you into fan edits outside of preservations? You may have discussed these things before on here in the past but I’d be interested if you had any ideas for certain fixes TLJ could have done to make the movie work more for you. That might not be your cup of tea, and I’d get it if it’s not.
To be honest I have never completely watched a fan edit, outside of the Despecialized Editions. I view a movie as the translation of a director’s vision. I enjoy analyzing the concepts and ideas, and their execution. For example I enjoy the PT mostly for the concepts, and Lucas’ wildly imaginative vision, but dislike how it was executed. In the same way I respect RJ’s vision for this movie, even if I don’t agree with every aspect of that vision, or how it was executed. So, while I appreciate the effort put into fan edits, and enjoy watching some of it, I generally prefer the original version, even if I don’t like many aspects of it, because it is the result of a multi-year creative process, that someone put their heart and soul into. It is a window into that creative process, and the time during which it was made. In a way Mark Hamill’s comments, particulary in the documentaries included with the film, are part of that creative process, and so the movie not only reflects the creative choices, but also what could have been. TLJ through its story mechanisms actually puts a lot of emphasis on the what could have been. It’s part of its DNA. It’s the risk of relying heavily on plot twists, that a viewer may remain attached to a certain story thread, even if the director’s intent was to misdirect. For example to his credit RJ makes it plausible that Rey and Ben join forces after Snoke’s death, and then subverts the expectations created by the film, by having Rey and Ben revert to their previous states, and so their union becomes a what could have been, an outcome that I probably would have preferred.