Spoilers!! And the Biggest Cinematic Letdown of my 39 Years, unapologetically written from the perspective of my rambling inner brat

Rating: 4/10 (19 December 2017)

SPOILERS: Grief is one of those processes that do not sink in immediately, and one that best describes what I feel after sitting through and processing this movie. As the big plot twist Is finally revealed after a few teases-did he just-oh wait, there he is!! Phew....WHAT!-I found myself smiling, maybe wincing and grimacing at my fellow movie-goer, as if I'd just consumed an entire lemon. I was sort of in denial. "no. Nahhhhhhh. Nope, they can't be THAT stupid. They didn't take a 40 year legacy, one of the greatest cinematic icons of all time, and drop it into the trash like a moldy zucchini in the back of the fridge. So...he's immortal, right?" But, here we are. And, much in the way that the film fumbled through most of the potentially emotionally powerful scenes, leaving any impact squandered, (especially the moving-saber tip-off when Emo-Rem is about to bisect SNOPE, an undevelopped villain-who'll probably get fleshed out in some other prequel-remember, every plot hole is now an opportunity for future shameless cash-grabs) the impact was ruined because this is simply bad writing. It's a crap idea. Relying on Luke (and Leia's) well and wonderfully developped characters to drag us into the theater, while barely breathing life into the new generations, and then having them ripped away from us, leaving us with character dynamics with almost NO emotional depth-no, they're not doing this. A few days later, it sank in that they had in fact done exactly that. After a few glimmers of hope and promise that we were getting to embrace the world of Skywalker again, to see what this childhood deity had blossomed into, I was enraged that he was just another cheap plot device-and these seem to be the cheap nostalgic fumes that the sequels are now running on. Another scene where beloved character X swoops in (Wookie, droid, what have you), queue day-saving music and high pitched droid noise-wookie/tribble scream. Star Wars was always hokey, based on plot lines and far superior filmmakers' work, yes, but it pulled is into its new world and made us love it. Seeing the trailers for these films used to choke me up, as they represented another chance to revisit that galaxay far, far away and a piece of my childhood-character and actors who weren't master thespians of their time (okay, well, one or two exceptions, haha). There was the possibility to bring the heart and soul of those original films into a new, turbulent era. The fact that whatever morons made this film aspired to nothing more than resuscitating a global brand for another generation, is an artistic tragedy. A promising new cast, and perhaps the biggest hero in cinema history, and it's all been reduced to recycled devices, and a 2 1/2 hour product placement for its own legacy. CGI space battles will never match the impact of the models-watching the Making of Star Wars specials impacted my imagination as a child, to see all of the creative seem and stuffing of every giant puppet and exploding green screen star base, now replaced by lazy paint-by-numbers explosions.
Please fix this. Get a director who's heart and soul are into this.