An underwhelming experience

Rating: 5/10 (25 December 2017)

I watched this movie last Friday, with high hopes of getting all the answers to the questions I had after watching The Force Awakens. It had been 2 years since that movie was released, after all. I felt we, as viewers, deserved to get at least some questions properly answered.
I walked out of the cinema, feeling very confused and underwhelmed.
This movie, on it's own or as a part of a trilogy, isn't good. It's watchable, sure, but it's not good. The plot is...boring. The space shuttle runs out of fuel and the rest of the movie is about the rebels trying to get to another currently inhabited planet, that conveniently lies close to their vessel? A character never seen before, which the movie set up to be a traitor whilst Leia was out, sacrifices herself just to save the rebels? Since we don't know anything about this character it didn't make any impact. While we're talking about Leia - since when can she Force fly out of space back into the ship? How the hell did she just enter the ship through the front door without everyone nearby being thrown into space? This will never, ever be explained, as it wasn't addressed in the movie after it happened, and Carrie Fisher sadly passed away after filming of this movie had wrapped up. So they showed this character having incredible powers and everyone were like "oh, cool." Why make that happen if you're not gonna bother explaining that? We've never seen Leia do anything like that before.
Then we have the main villain, Snoke. I feel so sorry for all the fans who had these amazing fan theories posted on the internet. They had these good questions we all needed an answer to. Who is he? Where is he from? Is he really more powerful than any other character? All this work these fans put into analyzing every single scene with Snoke in The Force Awakens - for nothing! You would think this movie would at least give a hunch of who this character is. But NOOO, instead they kill him off in the most absurd way possible! I would have accepted if this happened in episode IX, as we would've then gotten some decent development for the character, but now he was killed off before he even got to be a villain!
Don't even get me started on Luke. His character was totally wasted in this movie. Not to mention he acted out of character for 95% of the time! He doesn't use the force a single time during the entire movie (unless you count the ending), despite being the last jedi AND training Rey. He doesn't even touch his father's lightsaber, which Rey brought with her. Instead he throws it off a cliff, resolving the 2 year old cliffhanger we got in The Force Awakens in the worst way possible. He passes away at the end of the movie without having gotten any redemption at all for almost killing Kylo Ren. I would've understood that he died if he had done that whilst doing something heroic. Now he went into battle as a hologram, and vanished into thin air on the same island he'd lived on for so many years. So he died alone. People needed his help for the war against the First order and he barely does anything before dying? It was a big mistake killing his character off in this movie. It should have happened in the next movie, if ever. Now we won't have any of the human characters from the original trilogy in Episode IX. It was part of the attraction of this new trilogy, a bit of the old, a bit of the new. And to be honest, these new characters aren't interesting enough to carry the movies on their own. Not in my opinion, at least.
What was the dark hole on the island Luke lived on? Why was it an important detail? Nothing happened while Rey was down there. It could've been cut as it was totally uninteresting and provided no answers. The reveal of Rey's parents was a total cop-out. Nobodies? It was hyped up that there was something special about her parents, and in this movie that rumor is debunked as if it was nothing. So underwhelming.
The sideplot with Rose and Finn was so boring to watch and brought nothing to the story. It was as if it was impossible for them to find something better for Finn to do, so they made him do just SOMETHING. So silly. When Rose sacrifices herself to save Finn, they make it look like she dies. But then Finn says she needs medical help? Did she die or not? It was never addressed. How did Rose fall in love with Finn so quickly? They barely talked about personal matters, if at all. They hardly knew each other.
Even if it was fun to see, Yoda's cameo made no sense. How did he burn that house down if he's dead?
I can give this movie some good points too. +1 for great CGI, effects, space battles, acting and soundtrack. That's about it. The movie is way too long and does a poor job at using it's time correctly. I am so sad and disappointed. Force awakens was better and made more sense.