Rey did not rise above Mary Sue in Last Jedi.
That's a matter of opinion I suppose, but Luke Skywalker was always at least as implausible as Rey is, and Luke was arguably even more implausible.
Poe finds himself constantly emasculated
That's factually incorrect. Poe wasn't emasculated, and nor did he find himself emasculated at any point. He was insubordinate and reckless, and he was punished for that by his superior officers. His X-wing was not an extension of his penis, for fuck's sake. Sucks to be anyone who looks at it that way.
Poe learned from his mistakes, and he helped save everyone at the end, critically by realizing that Luke was doing his own kind of pranking, to delay Kylo long enough for the remaining members of the Resistance to escape, not unlike how Poe had pranked Hux in the beginning, thus informing Poe of the exact move to make at that point, trusting in Luke and namely to seek escape by going deeper into the mine.
Finn was used for little more than comedy relief.
Finn was used for com[ic] relief, but it's factually incorrect that he was used for little more than comic relief. One of the climactic scenes involved his engaging in the sort of self-sacrificing heroic behavior that cost Rose her sister, that was all for naught, that incidentally was of the sort that Poe was chastised for, and that provided part of Rose's motivation for saving Finn from the same fate, which is actually what Leia had been trying to do for the whole attack team in the beginning. Whether and how to expend or preserve precious, dwindling resources in the face of annihilation is a major topic of the film, so, again, that's just factually incorrect, what you're saying about Finn.
Rose Tico is a female fanboi insert and little else.
Again, that's factually incorrect. What I said about Rose already applies here. She also played a critical role in bringing the whole team together, by preventing Finn from running away, however well-intentioned that might have been in his own mind, given that besides saving his own ass he also wanted to save Rey's.
To make matters worse, the murderous Kylo's now a guilty pleasure sex symbol because he had one shirtless scene and the various slash-fic skype sessions with Rey.
That's quite a misreading of the "Skype sessions." It's the sort of thing that sounds like it was written by Beavis or Butt-Head, who can never seem to stop laughing long enough to pay attention to anything after hearing the word "hard." It might help understand them better to remember that it was Snoke who was making the connection between the two in the hope of seducing Rey. In other words, it's a story point that it was born of evil. It didn't work.
Yeah that sucks, but Han was never much of a character anyway, after he was thawed out of the carbonite. What a moving death scene though in TFA, wow! YMMV.
Luke not acting like Luke
Yeah I disagree there. I thought that Luke was very much in line with what to expect years later, especially given what happened with his new Academy in the meantime. It's patently more realistic than expecting him to be the same ol' guy, and TLJ establishes a multidimensional arc for his character. YMMV.
and the various smoke and mirrors employed to hide Carrie Fisher's failing health
Yeah, humans are mortal. Sucks to be human. We seem to be made to suffer; it's our lot in life.
there's little left to hold up the franchise.
Well, I couldn't disagree more. I came out of TLJ wanting to see more adventures of Rey, Finn, Rose, Chewie, R2, 3PO, and Poe too, vs Kylo and with possible appearances by the Force ghosts of Luke, Yoda, and maybe if we get lucky even Obi-Wan, Anakin, or Qui-Gon, though I don't actually need any of those three in this. [
ed - Oh, snap! I forgot BB-8. I love him.]
I'm sold on Rey at this point, and on all of the new characters.
And the cherry on top is to say the above just opens myself and anyone else to accusations of racism and sexism.
I think it's quite clear that you don't understand what emasculation is and what doesn't qualify as it.
Some of us actually enjoy movies as movies and don't just praise them based on their politics and The Last Jedi had issues.
This is generally the sort of remark that says more about how the speaker looks at things than it does about how the sentence's subjects look at things.
But, I'll just speak for myself. This isn't about politics. My politics don't shape my principles and beliefs. It's the other way around. My principles and beliefs inform my politics, as well as my tastes in film. In contrast to my politics, my beliefs do not determine my tastes in film, though, and I'm capable of liking a film even if doesn't agree with my principles, and quite often especially when it doesn't.
