I have seen every Star Wars movie in the theater starting with the original back in 1977, I mean it was the cultural cornerstone of my youth and I was so excited to see more movies in the saga. The OP hit on a lot of my issues with the film; the introduction of things like hyperspace travel destroying a huge ship, Force powers that were never even hinted at prior, forced comedy, needless scenes... My biggest issue with the film the utter destruction of the Luke Skywalker I grew up with. I understand that we live in a new era, that many peoples heroes are being exposed for vile acts and the troubled anti-hero is the new norm but to apply this new dynamic to Luke was just too much.

They took a character who eagerly rescued the princess in ANH, who rushed to face the scariest man in the galaxy to save his friends in ESB, who GAVE HIMSELF UP in RotJ to save his father into someone who was so unlike that character as to be unrecognizable. To hear the Han had died, that the galaxy was overrun with evil, that his sister was in danger and still refusing to do anything was just depressing to me. I really want George Lucas' original trilogy to be adapted and published at some point (like they did with the comic adaptation of his first draft of Star Wars) to see what he originally was going to do. Mark Hamill has dropped hints that the first movie would have had the core trio back in action, the second film would have seen Han die in the opening scenes and new characters introduced while the third movie would have been focused on the new characters while Luke & Leia were just supporting cameos.

I know they are not making these new movies for me and my 12 year old son loved the new movie, but when I left the theater after seeing RotJ as a boy in 1983 I could not wait to see Luke back in action once again. I waited over thirty years to see a Luke who did not care about those he loved in the original trilogy and that was most certainly NOT worth the wait.

More concerning is that Rian Johnson is going to be writer/director of the next trilogy.

It really felt like the final movie of the trilogy, not the middle film. AotC had the start of the Clone War to get fans excited, ESB had the Han Solo issue and the Vader is Luke's Father question to keep interest but this one seemed to answer all the questions without really introducing any new ones. All that remains of the resistance is a couple dozen soldiers and the rest of the galaxy refused to help even with Leia's personnel plea, it will be interesting to see what they come up with for the next film.

Off topic but... has there been a really great Star Wars musical theme since Phantom Menace? The Duel of the Fates was amazing and I can still hum it to this day but nothing really memorable since.

“I pretty much fundamentally disagree with every choice you’ve made for this character (Luke Skywalker).” Mark Hamill told TLJ director Rian Johnson, "I said ‘Jedis don’t give up’ I mean even if he had a problem, maybe take a year to try and regroup… but if he made a mistake he would try and right that wrong, so right there, we had a fundamental difference, but, it’s not my story anymore. It’s somebody else’s story, and Rian needed me to be a certain way to make the ending effective.”

“That’s the crux of my problem,” he continued. “Luke would never say that. I’m sorry. Well, in this version, see. I’m talking about the George Lucas Star Wars. This is the next generation of Star Wars, so I almost had to think of Luke as another character. Maybe he’s ‘Jake’ Skywalker, he’s not my Luke Skywalker."

"I still haven’t accepted it completely," he concluded "but it’s only a movie.”

https://www.cbr.com/last-jedi-mark-hamill-reaction/

This whole scenerio reminds me a lot of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. It was released to generally positive reviews from critics while audiences had issues with its dialogue, storyline, and pacing. It wound up grossing $786 Million worldwide and was the number two movie of 2008 but the fan backlash pretty much killed all momentum for the planned follow-up which is just now getting started nearly a decade later.

Good on you for seeing it three times, it is the first Star Wars movie I haven’t seen more than once in the theater. Hell, it’s the first one I haven’t seen at least three times in theater (I managed AotC twice in a regular theater and once in IMAX which was much better since they had to cut some scene in it for IMAX) which makes me very sad.