I was with you until you did the no true scotsman fallacy here to determine who is fan and who is not, and gave malice as a cause rather than ignorance in the form of only watching it once.
TFA is a film that gets worse the more you rewatch it or think about it, and it's clear they only watched it once much like they do with most Half in the Bag films. Rey for example only truly gets bad once you take her actions and being past the first third of the movie, since that part with her in the wastes was actually pretty well done IMO; it actually was nice to see some slow pacing at that point. Then she instantly knows how to fly machines with no explanation and can beat down trained Dark Jedi.
JarJar tries to prevent your brain from noticing that, but it will if you reflect on it. I had a similar set of realizations for example with Prometheus after watching it, which also rapes the shit out of a franchise I love.
I wouldn't call them fake fans, they are trekkies (mentioned this already, might've been here or the RLM thread), so they always came at it from the "this is kiddie shit" angle if you wanna call it that, while also being a lot younger and everything that comes along with it. add to that they are sometimes a bit too far up their own ass, and you'll get the worst foundation for people taking everything they say as gospel and ultimate argument.
otoh I cut them some slack in that they have their own stuff they care about and can explain why (watch the STD/patrick re:views when they try to comprehend in horror what's happening, karmic retribution if you wanna go with that) and way back they were much smaller and probably didn't expect the plinkett reviews to blow up that much. fuck, even back then a lot of people thought it as autistic rambling about nerd shit similar to mauler now, just with more comedy bits to slap you in the face it's not meant to be entirely serious - yet here we are. if they would do the the plinkett reviews now (with or without the ST) they probably would look a lot different.
as for the reviews itself (from what I remember), they mostly criticize the craftmanship and writing of the PT, which let's be honest there's plenty to criticize. the ST doesn't necessarily have that problem, but glaring flaws in other aspects - which are way worse for people that are more invested in star wars. where the ST did a better job in making normies miss the overly shit parts with quips and effects, it completely bombed when it came to what made star wars star wars, and I don't think that's something they ever really cared about much. this is also the reason they like the OT, because they were good movies with good characters and good story and not much left to be contrarian about, but that's it. it's about the movies, not the universe. that's why jay simps for daisy ridley and would deny she's a mary sue even if she tried to bite his face off, and why rich thinks "there's nothing outside the OT" (which I always found particularly stupid considering he comes from comics and plays videogames, so at least he should be aware of how settings can have more than one story - and SW as a setting is ripe for that, as has been proven).
The problem with both of these statements is the manner in which RLM went about attacking GL over the PT. They aren't nearly as bad as they made it out so seem. They clearly
were fanboys who grew up with Star Wars and then were disappointed it didn't fill that whole inside them like it did when they were a kid. The joy and malice they displayed in not only their PT reviews but throughout their collection with the mean spirited jokes, attacking GL for other films that weren't ST was unbecoming to say the least. No benefit of the doubt was given to GL and what he was trying to do due. And they enjoyed it.
ST getting fucked right now is their penance.
I only saw TFA once and knew it had a shit ton of problems. That movie broke the rules of SW before TLJ and they ate it up. It broke basic story telling rules as well and they ate it up.(Rey beating Kylo) And instead of owning up to them recommending JJ and getting BTFO by it actually happening they downplayed it. Which is dumb considering how much impact they are aware they have with their PT that got then famous in the first place, how many industry people they have gotten on the show and how they are basically the origin of youtube movie criticism.
And here's the thing, their criticism of the PT is so surface level and so much in the vein of 'Wah, This isnt the OT' its laughable looking back on it now and looking at the PT in its complete story of 1-3. The PT is flawed, has execution issues, and performance issues from the actors involved. But, a lot of the criticism comes from audience projection more than what the films presents on their own. That's not fair to any movie. Preferences != Criticism.
So yes, RLM is partially to blame for the state of SW, they have said themselves they are not SW fans(which I believe stopped being the case when they were disappointed in TPM). Karma is a bitch.
In Mando news: Cyrill should reread LOTF(series after NJO not the comic book). While I have no issues with mando's being capable of killing jedi, Karen Traviss clearly shaped that perception in a purposeful way that wasn't there prior to her work imo. It is understandable why people don't like her or mando's that much due to some of what she comes off as the author pushing and manufacturing certain events that make Mandos stronger/more important than they were before.(Particularly the second to last book in the series iirc. A character does something with
Major implications and importance to the series and the way Mandos are involved was made necessary but another author wouldn't have done it that way). Again, I like mandos(main in OG SWTOR was a BH due to it being the closest you could get to being a mando) but Traviss hate is understandable imo.
No faith in Disney making a Luke movie. They've killed him. Let him die. Theres no way to fix him without changing(read eliminating from canon) TLJ. We know how his story ends and it's absolutely retarded and out of character to the Luke of the OT not to mention the Luke of the EU. But let's ignore the EU since only needs like us know it.
The OT Luke had space Hitlerx10 for a father. Somehow he still held out that he could be redeemed
after daddy Vader
had committed multiple genocides. Fast forward and Luke gets a
vision that
may or may not come true(always in motion, the future is) and also may have been planted by another force user(tbf no idea if Luke is aware of Daddy Sheev pulled this trick on Aniboy) and as a Master in his new Jedi order does he meditate on this? No, that would make sense, he goes to his nephew, who is sleeping, pulls out his lightsaber and holds it above him without killing him. Btw, that's worse characterization than anything in the prequels. And I mean anything. That's worse than Jar Jar, thanks worse than whiney Anikan of episode 2, worse than 'Sand gets everywhere' it's worse than 'So you're blinded by love' 'You're breaking my heart' and all the rest of Natalie' poor performance in RotS.
SW is dead, Disney killed it. There should be no faith whatsoever that they can bring it back to life. Mandalorian is a decent show but even the first season has cracks in it that
I know will be growing into fractures in season 2. The best hope for SW fans is Disney is forced to sell it(Hopefully for a loss) and the next owner will decanoninize the ST, recanoninize the EU, and the Mouse's stewards ship is remembered as the Dark Times and nothing more.