STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI Kicks-Off Its Box Office Run With A Massive $45M From Thursday Night Previews

@Supercat6376 - I knew it would be. Some people can't handle a story/character being taken in a direction they don't want it, and that's completely understandable. Leaving that aside and focusing on the quality of film-making on display, I'm at a loss to explain the hate.

@RorMachine - there were multiple red lines that had they crossed, would have made me walk away from the movies in the future. They walked a tight rope but didn’t cross it for me.

@Vadakin - Yeah he has a slight suspicion of the dark side and tries to kill someone in there sleep over it, thats something luke would do.

@Scarilian - Cause it's always the same story, in every movie, where the bad guys have the good guys right where they want them, about to defeat them, but like to play [frick]ing games with them that always allow the good guys to come up with a play to get away/win. It's always cat and mouse. They could have totally destroyed them, but decided to play [frick]ing games with them and sit back and watch. Let's just wait till they run completely out of fuel and are sitting ducks before we decide to finish them off. Let's just sit here wasting time till then.

@rebellion -

To put it in your terms, it's a phenomena known as 'Bandwagon love'

Star wars TFA;
A new Star Wars movie comes out, first in a long time, fans desperately want it to be good so claim it is. Critics want to profit off these fans so also claim the movie is good. Over time the fans realize they were projecting and pretending the movie was good - so end up hating it.

As such the movie is met with an initial good reaction via critics and fans which eventually lowers to a negative reaction via the general audience/fans - if future movies are worse then they may develop some nostalgia over this movie. Same thing happened with the prequels.

Star Wars TLJ;
Critics will say the movie is good for doing 'new ground' due to the minimal varying new ideas, but a majority will not remember The Force Awakens so wont be commenting on the plot.

Fans of Star Wars have now seen The Force Awakens and want something to improve upon The Force Awakens - they are now also more skeptical of the movie. TLJ instead decides to retcon aspects of the Force Awakens and the new aspects it tries destroy fan favorite characters and set-up a potentially bland sequel (Rey Vs Kylo)

As such the movie is met with a good reaction via critics and a negative reaction via the general audience/fans. In time it may be appreciated for trying to do something different (especially given Episode 9 is just the most generic movie set-up so far, Kylo Vs Rey for the third time)

@nickh0801 - if they're doing that then next week numbers are a sham and I'm right about pitch perfect 3 knocking it off. That says alot. Not that presales wasn't the first indicator that the studio was preying on fan loyalty to produce decent numbers.