Not as bad as I expected

Rating: 1/10 (15 December 2017)

I dislike the director. I've seen his other films. I don't like them. He doesn't respect his characters. He doesn't respect the story. Anything can happen. And unhappen. Did that really happen? Oh, no. How funny. It didn't. Oh, no. How sad. It did. Wait. Oh, no. ... By and to anyone. For example, in one film, Mark Ruffalo seems to be dying, but then jumps up and does somersaults. But then maybe he really is dying. Because nearly dead people can jump up and do somersaults just to fool other people into thinking that they're really fine. So, maybe he isn't dying. We never really know. Although we see other characters and then (I think) we're supposed to think that maybe we do know. But we really don't. I mean, it's a movie after all. He really didn't die. He really wasn't near death. So, he really could do somersaults. Although it might have been a stunt double. ...
We learn something about the relationship between Kylo and Luke. But then, maybe that isn't true. Wait, no, maybe it is. Or... maybe it isn't. ...
We learn something about Rey's parents. Or doooo we? ...
Wow, what a neat new character. Oh. Okay, well it was a neat new character. I guess that person didn't sign on for multiple films. Wow, what a character I don't care anything about. Not to worry. Probably won't live through the end. Oh. Okay. Well, maybe that person did sign on for multiple films. Not that all good characters died and all mediocre characters lived. Old and new, some died, some lived. No apparent reason. I suppose they just rolled dice to see which ones were which. Some characters don't even get killed, they just stop living. Seriously. They weren't in a scene where they could be killed, but they hadn't signed on for another film, so ...
At one point, one character, in a discussion about both dying and turning to the dark side, said (ambiguously?) that no one is ever really gone. Gone ... to the dark side? Gone ... dead? Gone ... from the films? Recall from TFA, they put Phasma in a trash compactor just shortly before the whole place was destroyed. So, did she die? If not, how did she survive? And what about anyone else who seemed probably or even definitely to have died?
The Force training manual must be really short. Recall how Luke went to Dagobah and left before his training was complete, but when he returned, Yoda said that his training was complete. Well, he might have been the person who received the most Force training ever. By far.
There must have been six times when I thought the movie was ending with a cliffhanger, only for something random to happen that would lead to, oh, okay, I guess this is where it ends. Nope. More. Oh, here's where ... Nope. Still more.
And when the end does come, we might think, okay, none of the characters we've seen will be in Episode IX. I mean, lots of living people left. But the end has nothing to do with them and seems to be leading to another completely different story about completely different people. Maybe its just a lead in for another spin off. But it's weird to end the story that way.
There was the usual SW type humor. Almost. Sort of. Apparently, Luke was written as if someone had seen Hamill in interviews and thought they'd just let Hamill play himself. If you haven't seen him in interviews, let's just say, he isn't a Jedi Master. Think Liam Neeson, Alec Guinness, and Yoda. He's the opposite of that.
Four stars because I expected it to be as bad as the film with Joseph Gordon Levitt and Bruce Willis, where, for example, they cut off body parts of a guy so his future self, who has come back from the future to the present, will lose body parts and come back so they can kill him, rather than just killing the present guy, which would just kill the future guy, which is someone else does later in the movie. That film made no sense. Sorry, if you think it did, it didn't. Happy to explain all the serious problems if you ask. Nothing in this film was offensive on that level.
It's really sad to see that so many people like this film. If this is what people like, we're just going to get more it. And that means no real quality. And now that Rupert Murdoch is a major shareholder of Disney, it's scary to think of what is coming. Maybe the evangelicals are right and these are the End Times.