Steered back to the direction Abrams envisioned

Rating: 6/10 (21 December 2019)

Most of the extremist reviews are misguided by passion. The movie is not terrible, but not epic either.
It felt like it didn't really know what to do with the established story.
You either love or hate The Last Jedi. Personally, I think it was great, it was daring, and it was a pretty ballsy move to exlpore new dimensions of the charaters, to go into the grey area. Well, yeah, flying Leia and the pointless sidequest with an unnecessary sidekick was rather dull and was met with dissatisfaction. Alltogether it was different. And anyhow, even if you hated it, it was a story that was supposed to be continued.
But no, Ep IX simply grabbed what it liked, like the force bond, and the possibility of a redemption story arc, and discarded everything it didn't like, such as the nearly total annihilation of the Resistance.
Witers couldn't handle the passing of Snoke either, they had to revive a known archvillain and planetkiller weapons which felt rather forced. Rey's heritage is once again important, her parents are not nobodies anymore, Kylo reforges his mask, a clear and visible message that Abrams is steering the story back to his vision.
And that's all right. But he spends so much time on it that he doesn't have enough left to establish and execute and actual story, it just throws one scene after another. And they are great scenes. But there is no beginning, no real end, no story to properly tie them togerher.
On the other hand, there is a tremendous amount of fan service. For Junior to a certain reward a certain character finally gets after 42 years, a lot or things that will be truly appreciated by those who followed the saga for the past four decades.
But in the end, it wouls have worked much better if either Abrams would have made the middle entry to keep the whole trilogy in accordance with his vision or if he wouls have been creative and/or brave enough to continue where the previous entry ended.
It was a decent movie. Enjoyable.