A Bland, Rushed Attempt to Save a Botched Trilogy.

Rating: 3/10 (21 December 2019)

The pacing of the first half felt like Abrams was trying to fit an entire movie into the first hour, likely to salvage what was left from Rian Johnson's bungle of a second movie, which felt like a quarter of a movie stretched out over two hours. Unfortunately, the result was half the movie had zero pacing - it felt like scenes were being crammed in just for the sake of saying they happened, and scenes stopped instead of ended, which is to say it never felt like the end of a scene was a conclusion to any meaningful dialogue or emotion. It felt like I was watching the first half on fast forward, as there were never any pauses or drama, and there was zero nuance to scenes and interactions. There was almost no character development whatsoever - by the end I found myself not caring for a single character, old or new, and it didnt feel like anyone had meaningful relationships, rather, it felt like we were being TOLD characters liked or disliked each other, and not shown. There were also dozens of characters introduced who could have had potentially cool or unique influences on the plot, but then were thrown away almost immediately, either being killed in a fight, or just never appearing again. The second half of the movie was alright, and the effects were very cool, but it still felt incredibly disappointing as the finale to a trilogy, especially a Star Wars trilogy.