Exciting, but overall empty.

Rating: 5/10 (19 December 2019)

Director Abrams' closing chapter in the star wars saga gives a rousing send off to all characters involved, but unfortunately, this is a key stone cops style caper bumped up to A grade hollywood blockbuster polish. Some of the early scenes show great visual flair, and Abrams sure knows his way around large scale action sequences. But boredom soon start to creep in as all the action sequences look more or less the same. No degree of FX or production value can mask the wafer thin plot, which involves our heroes zooming around looking for one thingamajig after another. Star Wars mythology such as the return of the Sith lord Palpatine seem to be dropped into the story at random; there isn't a cohesive attempt at enhancing the star wars world building. We suddenly find out Palpatine is alive, there is a huge invasion under way, and if you've seen episodes 4 and 7, this is basically the same plot threads recycled, with the FX and action upgraded. Old characters mysteriously just show up for fan service for a scene or two. Everyone hugs at the end. Other than Adam Driver (Kylo Ren) , none of the other characters get much characterization beyond basic character beats (meaning - they all act teary, earnest and determined all the time). The Sith planet should have a certain terror to it, but it is just another impressive visual backdrop that seems less than integral to the world building. Technology of the universe seems selected at random and there is no effort to build up some logic (every bit of data transfer appears to need a serial port, guess they didn't invent WiFi , eh). However, ships can go at lightspeed and suddenly, every other destroyer has death star capabilities. Even with such supposedly terrifying weaponry, people just go around on horses blowing them up. In one cool but ludicrous scene, a ship just goes to light speed at random and pops up in the middle of all manner of floating space debris, planetary obstacles, and right in front of the gaping maw of a giant worm thing. It's almost like Abrams went "logic be damned, I just want to make it look cool". Kylo Ren is sometimes the villain, and other times a hero. The whole movie just seems arbitrary and made up by a panel of Disney marketeers. At least, the non human characters all do better than their human counterparts - it was fun to see C3PO and Chewie have their fair share of screen time.
The same action scenes from ep IV are all regurgitated, like Abrams had a fan check list. So expect planet hopping, return to tattooine, rescuing someone from a battleship, and so on. And one really wonders how the empire became such a superpower when the rebels have so many friends that can just appear in a minutes notice with enough firepower to destroy a large invasion ready battle fleet? I thought the Empire was crushed at the end of ep 6? Why are the rebels still rebels after 20 years. It would have been better if, say, the rebels had reformed the republic, but it was subverted from within by the first order. That probably would have made a better movie, but I guess Disney wasn't too interested in risking a new direction in the narrative.
As for a star wars universe point of view, there are so many important points that don't make sense. Aren't the Sith supposed to work in pairs? Who was Snoke? Was Kylo Ren a sith? Who turned him to the dark side? All of that just goes out the window, this trilogy doesn't stay true to the internal logic of the star wars universe. There is no build up to who the villains are, what their motivations are, everything is just kind of fuzzy - like a cartoon facsimile of the story we all know and grew up with.
I would say this is a terrible star wars movie which does nothing to continue the narrative of the saga but rather more intent on milking the first trilogy for all it's commercial potential - nostalgia is the overriding objective here, not storytelling. George Lucas, for all his perceived faults, at least wanted very clearly to tell distinctly separate stories. Eps 4-6 was a kind of western, while Eps 1-3, was a Greek tragedy in space. Sadly, Eps 7-9 is the glossy update of episode 4 (yes, it just concentrates on repeating a single episode) without any continuance of the saga, without any real character to the stories. Yes, they should have called it star wars episode 4.1.
In short, very disappointed. For the record, to me ep 3 Revenge of the Sith was the best ever SW movie.
Thanks Disney for spoiling the franchise. Great work. I'm giving this 5/10 stars due to the impressive FX work and production values. But this is a very disappointing end to the whole star wars saga. Please get George Lucas back on board if you want to make any more movies in the series.