Don't understand why the movie needed to be so polarising.

Rating: 4/10 (28 December 2017)

I enjoyed certain bits of the The Last Jedi, I even saw it twice. I mostly enjoyed the visuals, the fan service nods and some of the potential of what the movie could have been. The slo mo start to the fight scene in the throne room was great, I liked R2-D2 playing the Leia message to Luke reminding him of the start of his journey (and to conclude the binary sunset). I also really enjoyed seeing one of the walkers taking position before they all started to shoot Luke. Like an animal in taking its position in the sand/salt.
However there was so much wrong here too, so much that isn't Star Wars and that basically destroyed the cannon for absolutely no reason. It's almost as if Rian Johnson went out of his way to mess with fans. Like he wanted to do absolutely everything that wasn't usual or that would surprise or more likely disappoint fans. I could make a huge list of minute by minute detail that was wrong here. And the weird thing is as many people have pointed out most of the things in The Force Awakens was right.
My beef in The Last Jedi is with the following mostly:
No time has past since the previous Star Wars story
This never happened before in the Skywalker trilogies saga, how did this get green lit?. Absolutely no time has past at all to the point we even revisit / reshoot scenes from the previous movie (the lightsaber hand over). In that light this suddenly isn't Star Wars anymore, it feels more like watching Back to the future 2. It seems crazy really to me now thinking about it. What could possibly be the point of including the Star Wars intro scroll every time if all episodes were done like this? It totally messes with The Force Awakens regardless and makes the celebration of destroying Starkiller seem mental.
Lightsaber handover.
The ending of The Force Awakens showed Rey with almost tears in her eyes. Desperation of handing over the lightsaber to Luke, finally. Here, Luke looks at it and tosses it over his shoulder. It's like Rian Johnson tossing the legacy of Star Wars over his shoulder. Nah, not important.
Holding for Hux joke.
Totally unnecessary and not fitting to start the movie like this. It is also too much like Poe taking the mick out of Kylo at the beginning of TFA (who goes first). Is Poe going to take the mick out of another bad guy at the beginning of episode IX?
Luke milking massive walrus creature
Totally bizarre and there is almost some weird sexual thing with this as well as Rey looks away when the creature looks over, as if to say I shouldn't be looking at this. Bizarre
Lack of training of Luke with Rey.
Frustrating. This could have explained some of Rey's abilities but it just doesn't go anywhere positively. Should have had some type of training montage. I personally would have set this story a few years after TFA to give weight to Rey's training and also weight to Finn's coma time of course.
All the wildlife on the island.
This felt like a George Lucas special edition dinosaur painting in later thing.
I liked the idea of a solitude - silent island which we saw at the end of The Force Awakens. Now we suddenly learn we have massive sea monsters, porg birds, massive walrus like characters you can get milk from and caretakers which do not look like they belong in the Star Wars galaxy. Too much and totally unnecessary.
Finn waking from his coma immediately to now be a bumbling laughing stock with poor motivation/character arc.
This reduces his drama/motivation he ended up in coma with as he was willing to stand up to Kylo Ren and protect Rey. When did they fix his jacket? He now wants to flee the rebels to look for Rey or just flee? I don't get it. Bizarre introduction of a fan girl/love interest. Finn's actions took place the previous day. She is a fan of Finn's previous day history? So strange. Rose also quickly turns on Finn without even willing to reason with him or understand him. Not really a fan really eh? Bizarre motivations and characters here.
Force Skype calls.
I didn't like this at all. I also did not like that Rey is more offended by seeing Kylo Ren's bare chest than that he killed Han Solo.
Rey has no significant parents
What a carry on and waste of time. I still don't understand why Rey would have al these visions when touching the lightsaber in TFA and why she would here Obi Wan call her name. Many I guess will suggest she is a child of the force again like Anakin. I don't find this very satisfying or interesting at all.
No knights of Ren
Waste of time again. Could have been used to explain Luke's hesitation with coming back as a Jedi himself or whatever.
Death of Snoke.
Crazy to take out the bad guy so soon like this but whatever. I didn't like he was causing the force Skype calls (later Rey and Kylo had one with Snoke dead but whatever). I also didn't like he was dressed like Hugh Heffner after being far more threatening and curious looking in The Force Awakens in the huge holograms.
Flying Mary Poppins Leia
Makes no sense. If Mace Windu, a Jedi councillor, cannot even survive falling out of a window on Coruscant but Leia can do this I think we have entered a totally different galaxy.
Laura Dern character
Bordering on typical social justice warrior nonsense here. Unpleasant. I want escapism, I don't want to be reminded of left - right - Trump hating / men hating politics when watching Star Wars.
Casino carry on
More important to free horses than slave kids? Eh? The Benicio del Toro character could have been a sort of interesting Lando type of guy (why not use the Lando character/actor here?). I don't get why they have to meet a codebreaker and then end up in jail and there is another codebreaker there regardless. It all seems so dumb this way of writing stories.
Finn - Rey relationship
Totally destroyed. I would have liked them to stay close. Their bond from The Force Awakens is now destroyed or forgotten and Poe is probably get it on with Rey. Whatever.
Rose character
Rose gets so many one liners that highlight this social justice warrior carry on "No it's worth it" / "We win by saving the ones we love not the ones we hate" (made no sense when she said that when
Luke Death
Disappointing he didn't destroy Rey's army or have a real lightsaber battle. This could have been far more satisfying. Seeing the binary sunset was cool but he could have seen that on the Krait planet regardless. The force projection was totally not necessary.
Ending on anyone can use the force.
Very meh. Again it seems to tie in with this social justice warrior / millennial wanting things but without training or working for them time we are living in. Gone is the hero journey. Horrible. At the end of Empire Strikes Back Luke losing his hand. This physical damage of the hero was a perfect hero journey step to indicate the hero was not ready to go into battle yet etc. There is nothing like this here. Anyone can use the force and we must not hurt or damage Rey because she is a woman right? It gives far less depth to her character. She is simply a Jedi from day one who can do whatever needs to be done whenever that is required. And if she can't do it someone else will be there to save the day anyway. We totally lose connection with the characters this way as we feel their existence doesn't really matter. Yoda tells us we learn from failure but this does not apply to the main characters at all.
There seem to be many inconsistencies and basically insults within the Star Wars lore which I don't think are going to be forgiven by the hard core fan base. Indeed this movie I reckon will age worse than how The Phantom Menace has even.
Star Wars I believe is so successful because so many dedicated fans watch the movies over and over and over again on multiple formats and buy all the merch. I own the VHS videos, the DVDs, the Blu Rays, the posters, artwork, books and some toys etc.
I don't understand why you would want to alienate your fanbase with such a polarising movie even if that is only 40 or 50% of the fanbase. It is enough to do damage to the lore to the point it may not be so easy to win fans back.
I am already much less interesting to see what happens to Rey and Kylo in episode IX.
How Lucasfilm could think it is a good idea to straight away give Rian Johnson a completely new own Star Wars trilogy is frankly unbelievable. If this goes ahead it will mean he will have directed (and wrote I am guessing) as many Star Wars movies as George Lucas!
A real shame the went this direction with The Last Jedi. The Force Awakens set the trilogy up to be played out in a very different way I reckon and do far more justice to the Star Wars lore by just telling some new interesting stories within the original cannon. It seemed to deviate too far from that cannon too frequently.
Normally I'd rate this movie a 7 out of 10 but because it is Star Wars it really is worse than that. No higher than a 4 out of 10. Worse than the prequels for sure.