I feel like the problem with 8 was how ham-fisted it was. Like, I get wanting to break the norms, go a different direction, and not rely on nostalgia to direct your story. But maybe taking what everyone loved from the first movies, going "actually all this stuff you loved is SHIT and you were stupid for ever liking it" and then literally burning it all in front of everyone was the wrong way to go about that.
It felt like the writer held some deep seeded hatred for Star Wars and its fans, and went out of their way to make that known.