"Permission to get in an X-wing and blow something up" -Sums up the movie

Rating: 3/10 (1 January 2018)

Star Wars: The Last Jedi deviates from the homage that was The Force Awakens in narrative and quality. Disney jumped the shark in this disappointing, forced, cartoonish joke. The Force Awakens mashed everything we loved about the originals (albeit, maybe too much) into a modern mix of pop entertainment. The Last Jedi subverts fan expectation in favor of a more logically inept, dramatically empty, and cringeworthy bore.
The Last Jedi surprisingly didn't completely rehash The Empire Strikes Back; it took some risks and delivered a few surprises, but the overall execution was poor. Mark Hamill put in his best performance probably ever. The rest of the cast was fine except for a few distractingly annoying faces (Rose). Rian Johnson brought some humor, self-awareness, and philosophical dialogue surrounding the legend of the Jedi resulting in something new in a Star Wars movie. The storyline of Luke's resentment towards the Jedi and his mysterious past with Kylo Ren was compelling and the only promise the movie had going forward. However, everything quickly fell apart after the first act.
*Spoilers Begin Here*
The Last Jedi didn't take itself seriously enough by having just as much comedy and self-referential humor as an SNL sketch. Many of the jokes fell flat and completely killed whatever tension or emotion was already present (Poe's opening prank call, Luke's cheeseball one liners). The action was totally uncompelling and boring (didn't even have a lightsaber fight in a Star Wars movie). Anyone with an arc was unkillable, and the worse thing about it is that they constantly put the characters in absurdly dangerous situations and they pulled through completely unscathed - not due to the power of the mystical force but due to terrible writing. The Leia skywalking space scene is one of the most laughably bad scenes I've seen in a long time. For a second I thought I was watching Mary Poppins. The scene where Rose saves Finn by crashing into his spaceship should've killed them both but due to terrible writing and a lack of testicular fortitude, they both pull through unscathed just so Rose could start a Disneyfied love triangle. The whole Casino sequence with Rose and Finn was way too boring and bloated. The BB-8 controlling the AT-ST to save the day scene had my eyes rolling. What was up with the First Order and their aim trajectory? They couldn't just send in a faster ship to blow the Resistance out of space. And the fan-servicing Yoda scene lost me because Yoda looked so weird. Why couldn't they just use the same puppet?
Rian Johnson took a serious risk during the obligatory confrontational scene - involving Rey, Kylo Ren, and Snoke - when Kylo Ren turns on his Emperor-esque master by using the Force to turn on a lightsaber cutting Snoke's body in half. I'd be lying if I said I saw that coming especially since Disney has one more movie planned in episode IX (and lots more planned after that). After that scene I couldn't help but feel disappointed because Snoke was hyped up in The Force Awakens to be some mysterious force-wielding badass with an interesting backstory. Refusing to develop Snoke and by him dying looking like a total moron was more anticlimactic than ballsy.
Rian Johnson basically said "F U" to JJ Abrams in how he completely strayed away from what was set up in The Force Awakens and by leaving not much left to work with in Episode IX. For instance, he kills off Snoke, leaving the conflicted Kylo Ren as the only villain, kills Luke, likely to come back as a spirit, leaves Leia alive, subjecting everyone to awkward CGI Leia, forces a weird and likely to be cringeworthy love triangle, outrages fans over the stupidity of this movie, and worst of all, probably alienated many Star Wars fans leaving them with nothing but a vengeful demand for the end of Star Wars.