Originally Posted by
Powerboy
Just saw it today.
There are some great things.
First, while I agreed with many of the political points from "The Last Jedi", overall, Johnson more or less ignored or "subverted" everything Abrams set up. I would go so far as to say that "Subversion" now apparently means, "Go against expectations just for the sake of going against expectations even when it is only unexpected because it makes no sense". Nevertheless, Abrams had a choice. Even though Johnson ignored and sabotaged everything Abrams set up, Abrams could have gone with what Johnson did. Thank goodness he did not. Unfortunately, that meant he had to spend a significant amount of the movie explaining away and undoing the stuff Johnson did.
Stoke was literally a creation of the Emperor (note cloning tank as the Emperor explains that). Ryn gets back into the mask (though, admittedly, that was a trivial thing to waste time on). Luke catches the lightsaber and remembers that he's Luke Skywalker, however many years removed, and not some other character. While I certainly agree that it is a good point that someone doesn't have to have a special bloodline to become significant, the first movie set up that there was a special secret about Rey's history. So Abrams did need to get his story back on track.
I suspect a lot of people who loved Johnson's departures will hate this movie and a lot of people will give it bonus points just for undoing Johnson's story. I'm in the latter category. Whatever stars I would have given it get doubled just for that.
But the story does far more than that. It utilizes some characters more than perhaps any previous Stars Wars movie. It does more with 3PO and takes him to a level beyond what we've seen before like he's actually a character that can grow while still being comedy relief. Chewbacca also gets more development which is pretty amazing for a character that can only growl.
I never really bought the Mary Sue accusations about Rey and always felt, even in the Last Jedi, that they were more about her being a scrawny girl whupping male butt than that she was any more unrealistic than Anakin or Luke or the movie Karate Kid or any character that in no time gets good enough to fight a champion that has trained for years. It's just that TLJ "subverted" (I now hate that word because TLJ has so trivialized it) her background.
It's not perfect. It needed to go the way of "Endgame" and be three hours long. It felt too rushed. There were meaningful and touching moments but most of them had to be rushed through and we didn't have time to thoughtfully or emotionally reflect upon them and they were not given enough time.
Rose is relegated to almost non-existence. She just makes cameos to remind us she is still there while doing nothing important as if Abrams realized she was so disliked in the second movie that he doesn't want to deal with her but also doesn't want to pretend she doesn't exist.
In some respects, this is a one hour movie because an hour, more or less, has to be spent undoing or retelling the second movie instead of going forward from the first moment. There's also the Deus ex Machina of the Emperor. I hate that sort of rewrite of history while claiming it isn't a rewrite. It instantly reminded me of the Beast Master television show from the late 1990s where, in the third season, the villain suddenly had this deal for power with a dark god and this was true all along but anyone watching the first two seasons knows it was made up out of thin air for the third season. This had that feeling. Oh, the Emperor was really alive and behind everything all this time but not a hint or clue of it until now but it was always true in the previous two movies. Maybe Abrams meant it to be hinted at in the middle movie but Johnson didn't care about furthering the story but scrapping it and writing his own story.
That's really the biggest flaw of this trilogy is that you needed the same person directly in charge of all three or at least someone who could maintain the same vision.
I really loved this movie. As I said, I suspect deviating from TLJ, by itself, makes me love it more. It had its flaws. Events were rushed. It had to undo or explain the previous movie. I loved the ending.