Quote Originally Posted by SheltonChoked View Post
I saw it Yesterday. Still unpacking. I feel like this was meant to be a movie that requires multiple viewings, which is ambitous, but being a Star Wars movie, completely in line with what the fan base will do.

Spoiler space.


I give it a B right now. I like it 4th or 5th in the series so far. But I think it will move up on repeat viewings.

My main critique/ disappointment is something that is out of the franchise control. It's clear to me episode 9 was to be the Leia centric movie of the 3. (Han in 7, Luke in 8) Probably using her death as the hook for the turn/redemption of Kylo Ren. With Carrie Fisher's death, that is no longer possible. And knowing Leia is dead, makes the death of Luke harder to process, as all of the main cast ( sorry Chewie) from the first films are gone.

That aside, I'm still working on how Luke's explanation of the Force resonates across the whole series. How it explains Vader (and the real way he Balanced the Force). How Rey and broom kid mirror Vader and Luke vs the Sith and Jedi. How the Universe will move forward. And maybe how a Knights of the Old Republic series will show how far the Jedi moved from the original intent...

And that's the real point of Del Toro's character, and the casino planet. To show how the rest of the Galaxy "lives" while all this fighting goes on.

As for Snoke, while I'd like to find out his backstory, he's a McGuffin. I love that scene. It's how I wish the Return of the Jedi scene had gone.

I loved Yoda in the movie.

Luke's arc was jarring, but I think filled out nicely. It could have moved faster, but I think that's the point. He's so afraid of the dark side, and becoming his father, he's retreated to save the universe from him.

I hated the slow speed chase. I wish they had cut that to be a siege on the Red salt planet. Remove the super laser, and keep the rest of the plotlines. You could even keep Dern's sacrifice. However, I guess you lose Poe's character development from Hot head Pilot to leader on screen...
To me what I didn't like about it was it was slow in spots that didn't really need to be slow and then fast in spots that I wanted to last longer. I get that they used the casino planet to show who is really profiting from the ongoing war and they sell to both sides. It just seemed to drag on to me. I found myself getting bored and zoning out.

Building Snoke up to be the big bad only to kill him with basically a sneak attack (which was probably the only way to kill him) and have no description of who or what he was. Kylo could have given her a brief synopsis in the elevator or something.

Rey going into the Dark side hole only to just see her reflection stretched out when she was looking for her parents. Maybe I missed something but it made no sense to me. Yoda being able to call down lightning, so can force ghosts interact now? I understand just completely overlooking the midicholrian dumb plot point but basically saying Rey's parents were just nobodies, why did the Skywalker lightsaber speak to her? If it was just because she was force sensitive, why wouldn't someone else have found it in the 20 years it was in the basement. If little kid with a broom can already do things then why wouldn't one of the thousands of people that go through that bar have had the same reaction as Rey? Surely someone else would have been force sensitive in that amount of time.

It just seems like Rian basically just took the notes that JJ had made for this sequel and threw them in the trash. The humor a lot of times felt forced and took away from the mood also. It seemed like they tried to make a Marvel movie with Star Wars characters.

Also with Holdo's sacrifice, it was just plain dumb. You have all these idealist fighters that are willing to die for the cause, why would someone else not take control of the ship. Holdo is supposedly a badass tactician, would the resistance not benefit a lot more from her to continue on and let the janitor continue to pilot the ship?

Along with Snoke, they also kill off Phasma I guess as a nod to the shitty way Boba Fhett was killed. Finn was a damn janitor, he wouldn't be able to stand toe to toe with one of the First Order's best fighters.