I don't think that there's any conspiracy with regard to the audience reviews. The fact that good peeps like JAWS, Wor-Gar and others who grew up with the OT, loved RO, but still hated/strongly disliked TLJ tells me that it's just a genuinely divisive film. We all have our perspective but to me a movie like JL was a crappy movie that I enjoyed whereas TLJ is a great movie that lots of people hate. It is what it is. If getting a film with so many great and shocking moments meant that it had to be so risky as to turn off a lot of fans then so be it.
Obviously when the animosity is so great and by so many there isn't too much to discuss past "well I thought it was great, I enjoyed it, my kids enjoyed it, bla bla bla."
I will throw a couple things out there for my fellows who liked this movie though. Just reflecting on the OT after watching TLJ a couple scenes take on slightly new meaning to me.
One is Han's line in the Falcon, "Hyperspace ain't like dusting crops boy. Without precise calculations we could bounce right next to a supernova or fly right through a star." Pretty cool to think about that after Holdo's maneuver IMO.
Also thinking about Yoda's speech about the Force to Luke on Dagobah gives even more gravitas to him helping Leia and the Resistance escape at the end of TLJ. He actually manifested Yoda's ultimate teaching and left his "crude matter" behind. I know a lot of people wanted him to go all "RO Vader" on the bad guys, slicing and dicing and pulling Star Destroyers out of the sky but I find it so much more poignant that he did it the way Yoda taught instead. He saved the day the "right" way and while manifesting a power that pretty much surpasses anything done by any character in any trilogy. But it was also bittersweet and sad in that he was still technically alone on an island and not truly in the presence of his friends and family. Sure he got to say his farewells and make peace with Leia over Ben but still it's not quite the same as if he was fully there physically. And I don't see it as an "Iron Man 3" cheat because unlike when Stark used remote suits to fight from far away Luke did not do it as a means of self-preservation because he knew that his time was at an end either way.
Anyway JAWS feel free to pick apart everything I said as usual but that's my take on the movie and I don't see it changing, lol. When Luke faded away at the end and I knew that Leia would never be back because of Carrie's passing I couldn't help but feel like I was watching Star Wars come to an end before my eyes. Even though there's going to be tons more movies and most likely Luke back as a ghost it just hit me that I was watching the end of a grand 40 year saga. And not because it was terrible and "SW was dead" (people have been saying that as far back as ROTJ, maybe even the Holiday Special), no I found it to be a true and worthy finale.
And now I will step back and let those who hated it continue to bash it to your heart's content.
Aside from the people here, I have yet to have a conversation with anyone who thought it was good. There are things I liked, ghost Yoda, snoke battle, the opening scene, but I just can't look past all those what the **** moments. I expect that from transformers but not from this
) and Slashfilm (the um, site where Rian Johnson is an occasional guest reviewer... no conflict of interest there!!!!) clickety-clacked out a queasy article titled "The ‘Last Jedi’ Backlash is Another Example of Fandom Gone Wrong" whose "balanced" analysis has this whiny grade school note to the teacher:
