What's always been hilarious about TLJ hate is that when me and my friends walked out of the initial midnight screening we all agreed "wow, they took out all the flaws of TFA and really reinvigorated the series! Fans are gonna love this."
How little we knew
I'm not what you'd call a "Star Wars" fan. I like the series, though, but never really been a part of that fanbase. I like them, or dislike, them as movies that stand or fall on their own accord.
I will openly admit... I'm not very fond of The Last Jedi. It does a lot very well. I like the actors, I like the cinematography, I like a few key moments... but as a stand-alone film, I found it mired by some really baffling character arcs, plotholes, and confused messaging that did the cardinal movie sin of taking me out of the film many times.
I don't HATE the film, however. I don't think it's a very good film, and it's critical reception to me seems a bit... inflated, I guess? The fan's toxicity can be just as bad. I found it a C+ film in a series full of much better outings (and some much lesser ones).
Which is why I am at least curious to see how TROS will impact the fanbase moving forward. ESB was divisive at release and its reputation improved immensely in the context of a completed trilogy, but from an outside perspective I see Disney returning so quickly to Abrams for this film as almost an admission that their "let the past die" mantra of the prior film was pretty misguided. Star Wars never will let "the past die" because the main reason they come to these new movies is a deep, passionate love of the original material and a desire to have that same magical feeling watching new adventures. It's why I found TFA to be both a supremely well-made film, but also one that almost xeroxed the most beloved moments of ANH, beat for beat, because Disney knew that those moments were the moments fans remembered and loved. It had Star Wars and it leveraged that nostalgia to great success, and TLJ rolled off that pretty high honeymoon, even if TFA isn't quite as good as that initial impression felt. We were all just happy to have Star Wars back in a big way.
So will TROS "fix" things? Probably not. But I'd be thrilled if that was the case.