"This is not gonna go the way you think."

Rating: 7/10 (1 June 2018)

It's easy enough to feel conflicted about this film. Upon initial release I was somewhat disappointed with the treatment of Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) and the unexplained mental 'force' between Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) and Rey (Daisy Ridley). Well, not that it was entirely unexplained, because Snope claimed he was responsible. I feel a little better following a second viewing of the film, as captioning helped overcome some difficulty with the dialog in the theater. But near the end of the picture there's a scene in which Ren is trying to turn Rey to the dark side, and he says "Let the past die. Kill it if you have to." It's as if that was Disney's and director Rian Johnson's message to Star Wars fans who have been with the franchise from the beginning. The treatment of Luke Skywalker still bothers me somewhat, as he seemed awfully out of character compared to the young hero of "A New Hope". I get it that he had feelings of failure over the Kylo Ren situation, but he should have seen it from Rey's point of view right from the outset. I'm seriously hoping that the final picture in the series restores some of the original legacy, and that the film makers take stock of spirit Yoda's well offered admonition - "The greatest teacher, failure is."