Blame RIan Johnson and Kathleen Kennedy

Rating: 5/10 (24 December 2019)

It is painfully obvious that this movie was an attempt to fix all the plot lines blown up by Rian Johnson in the last Jedi. From Rey's lineage to the the villain, to paying homage to the original trilogy...all of it had to be done at the cost of quality in story telling. If you took out all the necessary exposition used to explain what was happening and why it needed to happen, i'm sure the movie would have flowed better, made more of an emotional impact, and feel more satisfying for audiences. What it was, was sort of clunky, at times outright awkward, and the occasionally visually entertaining. I'm not entirely giving Abrams a pass because there were definitely scenes of audience pandering, and I'm not sold on if the entire direction of the trilogy was the way to go. Out of the four new Star Wars movies Rogue One still stands as far superior and closest to the original trilogy. As a fan, this was the first movie that I didn't rush out to see, and that should scare Disney. They better find some better story tellers for the next go around, or their investment is not going to be the cash bonanza they hoped for.