Just... no

Rating: 4/10 (22 December 2019)

I probably shouldn't have hoped for the film to be good. But I did. And no, it wasn't
I'm not a major Star Wars fan. But I like the original trilogy. The prequel trilogy came out at a good time for me to like it as a kid. However, that appreciation as waned since better understanding what makes a good film(usually it's the script).
I did like The Force Awkens when it came out. Not as much as the original trilogy. But I felt it had promise. The last Jedi ruined a lot of that promise. But I thought JJ Abrams might be able to pull off some magic in the final film to make it cool again. But sadly that just didn't happen. I think Disney's biggest error was taking the scripts one at a time. They should have developed an entire story for the trilogy and then made each film one at a time. And if necessary made small changes based on the reception of the each of the first films releases. Instead each director was given liberty to write their own story. And Rian Johnson seemed to wreck the story JJ Abrams bad developed so badly that JJ couldn't resurrect his grand plan within the last film. And it really looks like he tried. But tried in vain.
The whole thing feels rushed or uninteresting. There isn't time taken to build the emotional investment into the characters. To be fair, at this point that interest should already be present. But that's no excuse to pretend it's already there when it's not.
They cut out all the MCU or Mrs. Maisel style writing that was out-of-place in the last film. But they went so far that they removed a lot of the fun or appropriate contextual humor that we've grown to expect in Star Wars.
Also, a lot of it just doesn't make sense now. Why in force awakens did they need to find Luke to train Rey If Leia could have trained her from the beginning? Why was there never talk of the planet killing ships before the last film? Why did people need the force to reason basic concept like: killing innocent people is wrong? Why was Rey suddenly able to use the force in completely new ways? Why did Rey suddenly feel in love with a character who she never seemed to like before.
The new trilogy managed to seemingly resurrected the stuff from the original Star Wars trilogy and thrown that narrative aside all at the same time. And somehow managed to do both in a really displeasing way. Now debates will invariable arise over whether the prequel or Disney Star Wars trilogy is worse. And both can really make a good argument that theirs is worse. I'll happily admit that I think the Disney series has the best movie between those two series. But at leas the prequel series ended with its best movie of the 3 rather than whimpering to a finish like the Disney trilogy.