This was not a good movie.
The Good:
- The opening scrawl gave me hope. It sounded genuinely interesting. In practise it was abandoned almost immediately.
- Some parts are gorgeous. The Death Star 2 bits look great.
- I liked the Han Solo cameo. I thought that was well done.
The Bad:
- Hux. An odd waste of the character. He was the spy because he didn't like Kylo? He didn't leak them any meaningful information, and really really obviously existed to free Poe and friends before dying. His death meant nothing. It developed no one's character.
- The whole final confrontation was kind of... generic? The arena looked generic, the way it was visually presented was generic, the format was generic. One of the things I was excited about after TLJ was that this trilogy wouldn't end with our protagonists offing an old wizard in a cloak. This trilogy then went on to end with our protagonists offing an old wizard in a cloak.
- Most of the Leia scenes. It was quite obvious that they were working with dregs in terms of the live action stuff.
- The rules for Palpatine dying (and surviving death) seemed oddly loose. There's a bit where he's trying to get killed because that's how the Sith pass on their power, then he realises he can just suck the life out of Rey and Ben, and then she kills him anyway, but presumably doesn't get the Sith spirits passed on to her?
- Likewise whatever it was that Leia did with Ben when she died seemed to be played a bit fast and loose. I get that they needed to remove her from the film somehow, but it was put together in a very odd way. My first reaction was that Rey caused her death by stabbing Ben while he was connected to Leia, but I'm assuming that this isn't the case because that's never touched on?
The Ugly:
- Palpatine being reinserted into the plot with no finesse or build up. The scene almost literally involves him going 'I did all of that shit and I'm alive for reasons. Don't ask any questions about any of that, just go with it'.
- Rey Palpatine. Awful. Unnecessary. Ultimately meaningless. Would the plot have been any different if she had not been a Palpatine?
- The metric shit ton of fan appeasement. Awful.
Things that didn't fuss me either way:
- Finn is Force sensitive now. Weird flex, but alright.
- Knights of Ren not amounting to anything. It would feel hypocritical if I said this bothered me, because I literally did not care that they weren't in TLJ.
- The copious fan service. Nice that they got all of the actors back to voice the Jedi. It didn't really add anything.
Next time Disney, can you plan this shit before starting the trilogy? Or at least not give it to the world's most generic director to resolve.