Not just from a fanboy perspective

Rating: 1/10 (7 April 2020)

I feel TLJ negative reviews often get marginalised because they are from a "fanboy perspective" that cannot deal with "subverting expectations". But in my opinion that does not make a lot of sense; TLJ is, after all, part 8 of an ennealogy (yeah, I had to look that up). 7 films before it established what can and cannot take place in the universe introduced.
Even the prequels, for all their faults, generally confirm to the universe established in the OT. I think the midichlorians are the biggest issue, but even there you could make the argument that Obi Wan chose to explain it differently to Luke (after all, he does enjoy a certain point of view, that Obi Wan).
However, if it was possible to Holdo manoeuvre the Supremacy and some Star Destroyers, would the battles of Yavin and Endor look like they did? Or the battle over Coruscant at the start of Episode III?
If being able to Mary Poppins it out in space is possible, untrained, what is the limit on Jedi power? Is it at least limited to the here? (no, as we learn later with Luke.) Would we not have seen that kind of power in the earlier films, especially in Episodes I-III where there are lots of Jedi Masters around?
The thing with Star Wars is, that it's universe is actually pretty small. All planets have the same kind of technology, like droids, repulsor lifts, starships and so on. The people are also similar. Aliens might have a different appearance, but overall they adhere to the same rules. Only jedi/sith are different, as presented in Episode I-VI; but the force seems a relatively small extra power: mind tricks, force push/pull, force lightning, visions.
Now compare this with Star Trek (blasphemy perhaps, I know). They travel to all kinds of weird nebulae and planets, encounter 2-dimensional life forms, and so on. The abilities of the Enterprise and its crew (the universe that we know as viewers) remain largely the same - only someone like Data can sometimes have convenient powers - but they encounter, let's say, strange new worlds.
What we see in TLJ then is no strange new world, it's the same world that was shown in the 7 episodes before it. But suddenly all kinds of strange things are possible. Yes, that is subverting expectations I guess, but in a bad way. It feels like a movie that was made in a different universe, because so many things we learned from the universe in which it is supposed to take place are just ignored.
So that is my "fanboy" perspective.
Now, as a standalone film, where TLJ gets its praise from being "philosophical" and having deep meanings. Well, let's just say I do not find the way the "anticapitalist" or "free animals" messages are portayed in Canto Bight to be
anything like that. The space chase does not make sense even in the universe establised in this film. A scene like the throne room fight is poorly choreographed. A message like "save the ones you love" makes no sense when Fin was prevented from just doing exactly that. So no, I do not understand the praise this film gets even when I try to abandon my Star Wars perspective and try to assess it as an independant SF movie.
Finally, I would hope that people would not hate on the actors, especially Kelly Marie Tran. I am sure she is a wonderful person and she is just trying (and succeeding) to do her job as an actress. I do not care what her background is, or that she is a woman. Please. She did not write her character, it is not her fault.
Yes, I really hate the Rose Tico character with a passion, in Star Wars or if she would be in any other film, but that has nothing to do with Tran. Leave her alone.
TL:DR: TLJ is awful, whether or not it is seen from a Star Wars perspective.