J.J. Misses the Mark on the Saga Ending Story

Rating: 6/10 (21 December 2019)

Growing up in the early 2000's and so forth as a Star Wars fan, and seeing the OT as a young boy, then going and seeing the prequels in theaters is what made me love Star Wars growing up. Now I'm 23 and was just getting out of high school when the new Trilogy Began.
I went into this movie with an open mind regardless of what I had though initially due to the reviews and the past sequel trilogy films. Which I did not enjoy either. I believe this film has a lot of problematic issues that occur within it. A lot of questions were brought forth by previous films that we, the fans, did get answers for.
However, I must say, despite all of those answers we've been wanting, it seems that I don't think they worked properly or at the very least were rushed.
As a stand alone movie, this is by far a great and extremely fast paced action adventure film that brings you to explore new worlds, and go where no man has ever gone before. Problem is, that J.J.'s cinematography has always made the sequels not feel like Star Wars films, but instead his Star Trek film series. There's so much shakiness with the camera it makes my head bobble! I can't stand it. This film also abuses the numerous transitions the Original Trilogy had used quite a bit, but not nearly to the extent of this film. Shot to cut ratio in this film is insane for the first hour of the film. It stops the viewer from keeping track of everything.
Now that the critique of the film making is concluded, allow me to start off with the story. I believe it is extremely unoriginal, to bring back the original villain is just more and more fan service that JJ put forth after a lot of folks did not enjoy the Last Jedi. Snoke? A Clone of Palpatine? Really?!!? Pulling it straight out of Legends continuity huh? Jeeze, Rey being a Palpatine but insisting that she's in fact a Skywalker and her being the Last Jedi only adds more questions to a story that was supposed to answer all of our questions. Honestly, you may as well just consider Return of the Jedi the final Star Wars film in the Skywalker Story and just forget about the Sequels. Honestly, I also hated the numerous jabs at Rian Johnson's Last Jedi film, in the dialogue. It was very distasteful.
However there were in fact parts I certainly enjoyed, Luke's force ghost raising the X-Wing out of the water on Ach-to was quite an enjoyable sight. To see the amazing atmospheric space battle and the heroes of the Sequel Trilogy succeed was nice as well. Finn was definitely a character that grew on me throughout the trilogy. His changes and character progression is phenomenal.
Regardless, if you're a Star Wars fan, I think you should still at least see the movie and discover whether or not you like the end of our 42 year long story.