Better but not great: 7.3

Rating: 7/10 (22 December 2019)

First off wow, this movie is chaos, not persé in a bad way. But so much happens, and I shared this thought with the others I went to see this with in theaters.
Do I think this was a decent ending to the ST? I do, it stays in theme of the ST, good and bad. But once again it tries to connect with the OT (and ignore PT) but it fails to do so for me.
Things I liked:
1. Toned down the ridiculous amount of (bad) comedy and silly stuff in TLJ.
2. Rose, the ''crazed finn stalker fan'' has been toned down and is pretty much friendzoned in the movie.
3. Kylo dies, although personally still is an irredeemable character and his death was too ''good''.
4. Finn finally doesn't feel utterly useless, but the suggested love plot with the other deserter FO trooper is a bit weird with Rose still ''in the picture''.
5. Visuals, just stunning all around.
6. Rey and Kylo's relation and struggle, yes it has many faults, but it was good...before the kiss, let's forget about that.
What I did not like:
1. May be surprising but the MUSIC, felt... weak. The only emotion throughout this movie I got was adventure and *star wars*. The entire movie felt so lighthearted, even though it had a lot of dark moments. I felt so much more sadness during Padmé's funeral than I did at Leia, nor Kylo.. And that was the prequels, and Padmé wasn't as instrumental as Leia, nor as charismatic/lovable. Rey's theme and Palpatine's theme were the only ones that stuck out, because they are amazing, but for the rest...not much.
2. Kylo dies, of course he climbs out of the endless pit, used his ''lightside'' to heal Rey, give his life and die. (Darth Plagueis reveal? ;)... I guess thats fine, personally I'm not sure on this yet.
3. Palpatine.... he's back, ofcourse. No I did not like this, and I felt like his voice didn't match up either. So what we are to assume is that he cloned himself, (as we see a snoke clone(?) in some fluid tank) and then raised an army from...somewhere. Like how does this work, did force palpatine clone himself? But how can you then ever kill the sith? He can just do this again?
4. In the end the story felt weaker, it was more about the personal individual journey of each character, but they never had a focused pay off, why does Rey fail training at the start of the movie, but minutes later gets handed the lightsaber back (with some odd dialog from Leia) and thats it..she's good I guess?
5. Rey and Kylo kiss, hmm. For someone that killed Han, Luke, Leia (indirectly) and countless rebels + planets he seems easily forgiven, he should have faded away before the kiss.
6. I don't know why they try to keep making unique characters and troopers if they don't differentiate them. Zori Bliss, badass looking bounty hunter type, nope, just a cheesy love plot. Okay. What about these badass looking red stormtroopers? Exactly, they are storm troopers....but RED! Cool right?! (+extra sith jet troopers). Seriously I was so looking forward to a unique stormtrooper(s) and we got actually nothing! + Deserter horse girl wit bow and arrow, she was okay, but again, love-ish plot. Where are just the downright bad characters.
7. Knights of ''who cares'', so Kylo trained these guys I guess by the name? Elite warriors, who.. walk around, always one step behind, and get killed by Kylo at the end because for some reason they are on Palp's planet.
8. Almost FORGET, WTF HUX?! This plot twist is so damn weird. I feel like he just wanted out, and the writers had no clue what to do with him.
9. Personally too much goddamn nostalgia callbacks. And I'm happy this saga is over so that they can CREATE the future nostalgia because half of this movie is OT characters doing their OT thing.

Well.. thats it so far. More negative things than I thought but all in all I stand by my 7.3, for what I expected, it managed to surprise me in some good, and bad ways, but it was fun.