After much thinking I have decided that I enjoyed the film visually, but found it unsatisfying and in some ways offputting.
WARNING - actual spoilers and poorly formed truly offensive arguments to follow.
Not to say I won't see it again, as I likely will, but the overarching messages were handled with all the deft subtlety of a 50-megaton nuke being used to drop a bridge in some backwater place noone has ever heard of. This really is, in my opinion, an anti-male screed by Director Rian Johnson and it colors the movie in a number of awful ways.
Two of the six original characters are now 'dead', and it is the two leading men. The third leading male character, Chewbacca, has been relegated to comic relief with some pillsbury doughboy flying bird thing, and the droids were hardly seen at all.
I did enjoy Hamill's portrayal of a broken hero but found his arc to be a bit formulaic and the very end, while achingly well shot, to also be extremely unsatisfying.
Under Leia's girlpower leadership, the rebels (now a 'resistance' which I see as a wholly unnecessary nod to the current political climate here in the States) have been utterly decimated.
Don't get me wrong, I have always liked the Leia character, the original Leia, who was strong, driven, confident, and who totally rocked a metal bikini - this Leia is not even remotely the same. Some of that I chalk up to Carrie Fisher's long absence from not just the role but also film acting as well as the long term impact of her addiction problems - the rest I chalk up to piss poor writing in TFA and poor direction in TLJ.
Laura Dern's uber-ballsy maneuver in the Third Act was a saving grace, since I despised her character from her introduction, but that aside, the leadership of this resistance was a coffee-klatsch cliche, I mean who the fuck wears a nice blue evening gown while trying to rescue their soldiers and support staff from the combined might of the Empire Part Deux?
Poe was made out to be some careless/reckless flyboy when his actual job is to be a confident steely-eyed man of action who will do anything it takes to secure victory, at least that is how he was sketched out in TFA. His constant dressing down by the estrogen brigade in this was truly aggravating.
I have decided that I do not like Finn or Rey, at all - don't like their characters, don't care for the actors, and as such just can't get into the story where they are concerned. Not sure what Lucas, or anyone, sees in Daisy Riddley especially, she does not strike me as a good actor. John Boyega has a chance to redeem himself in Pac Rim 2, but that is a crap shoot.
Snoke was TOTALLY wasted, literally thrown away - while the manner of his death was very well executed, from a story-telling point of view it was a complete waste of a potentially awesome and scary villain ala Emperor Palpatine/Darth Sidious.
Adam Driver, my God where do I begin - what a hot mess. I don't know him from any other films as far as I know but he is just not scary as a villain and totally lacks the fear-inducing intimidating presence of Darth Vader or Darth Maul, or even Darth Tyranus (Count Dooku as portrayed by the awesome Christopher Lee). He's like some angry emo/goth wannabe 11 year old boy - Hayden Christensen's much maligned Annakin Skywalker was far more scary.
The class-warfare resistance-lives-matter occupy-Canto Bight casino planet arc was utterly and poorly fabricated and added absolutely nothing to the story, although I did enjoy Benicio del Toro's character. The very caricature-ish way that the wealthy were portrayed completely ignores the privileged upbringing that the Organa family offered Leia, or even that of certain rebellion members throughout the lore. It really pisses me off when, and almost all Disney properties do this, the rich are portrayed as despicable, evil, irredeemable wretches and the poor are saintly, virtuous heroes, blech. How about we simply recognize there are good people, and bad people, from all walks of life and not program our kids from an early age to despise caertain types of people based on income or wealth and instead learn to judge people on the content of their character?
I have found the lightsaber action to be wanting in these new installments, although the pinnacle fight of TFA had a spark in it - TLJ was completely unsatisfying in this regard and other than the first act, the space battles really weren't even battles - I am not sure that the Mon Calamari Cruiser ever actually fired a shot. Don't recall capital ships ever having full on shields either, deflector screens yes but full on shields for cap-to-cap combat no. Hell, it took a planetside generator to shield the Deathstar II in ROTJ or the Rebel base on Hoth.
There is probably much more but that covers for me my feelings in the whole after having some time to think about my impressions.
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