Not the Star Wars we all loved

Rating: 3/10 (23 December 2019)

If this movie would have been a standalone film, I would have given it a 5/10. Decent sci fi movie, with plot points seemingly drawn out of a hat.
However, the fact that this movie was meant to close off a trilogy knocked my score down further. The story was a mess and seemingly didnt know how it was going to end until the credits rolled.
Worldbuilding- One of the coolest parts of the first 6 movies was all of the interesting places we got to see and explore. This movie seems to be aware that people love this, and decides that all of the main characters jumping to about 7 planets in 12 minutes is how you accomplish this. What we end up with is a bunch of completely forgettable locations flashing so quickly that it gives the movie the vibe of an epileptic fit rather than a story.
Plot- Some people didnt like that the Prequel Trilogy spent too much time on galactic politics, but what that gave us was a galaxy spanning story line to follow. This movie dumbed the plot down to the equivalent of 3 side quests in a video game, with some parts (looking at you, random dagger that for some reason is a map to another map) being so random you could insert that exact plot point into any number of bad 90s B movies and have it fit in fine.
Plot-expanded- Alright future Star Wars content creators. NO. MORE. SUPERWEAPONS. What this movie managed to do was completely invalidate the plotline of A New Hope and Return of the Jedi. We went from Deathstar 1, which took nearly a generation of galactic might to complete, to Deathstar 2, to Star Killer Base, to now an entire fleet of Star Destroyers each as powerful as the death star? The escalation just cheapens the story. Why cant a fleet of star destroyers be intimidating on its own? Especially when the entire rebellion post ROTJ is seemingly down to 1 Space RV and 2 dozen fighters.
Overall- Not good. Much better than the Last Jedi (one of the worst movies Ive seen in theaters), but just doesnt feel the same. I dont want to be seen as a fan boy that will hate this movie regardless either, I loved Rogue One, enjoyed Solo and have really liked the Mandalorian. All of these stories seem capable of capturing that cool star wars feel, why cant the Premier trilogy backed by the might and resources of the largest media company ever do the same?