What could have been...

Rating: 2/10 (15 December 2017)

As many others have pointed out before me, the movie has great visuals, sound design, soundtrack and acting. But when contrasted with the OT and PT, that is, Lucas' Star Wars, it feels like a fan-made movie paid by Disney with guest stars making an appearance from the original movies. It is only a Star Wars movie because it has Star Wars title in it. If this were a some new space opera movie without the title, it would be forgotten as quickly as it opened.
However, TLJ will never be forgotten, since they turned Luke Skywalker's character into a weak and a hopeless master Jedi, you know, that young man who never gave up on his father, and always believed that there was goodness in him until the very last minute. But here we are, witness a Luke Skywalker who is so broken that he goes as far as to entertain the idea of killing a young family member in his sleep, who seems to have been still undecided between the Dark and the Light side of the Force. So, this was what the early reviewers meant by "TLJ is a bold" movie. I am sorry, but this is not boldness, this is dismantling what the OT had established as canon. I am glad Mark Hamill thinks as I do regarding his character, as his views can be seen from his interview with the Guardian on December 14, 2017.
Do I need to talk about how horrible and frequent the jokes were throughout the movie? There were indeed some good ones, such as Chewie's reaction while eating and the scenes with BB-8 in it. I wish this was it. The look Ren gave after ordering to fire to Hux because the latter repeated the same order, Luke's throwing of his lightsaber - one scene that may lead you to think you were watching bloopers -, Poe's word play with Hux's name at the very beginning of the movie... If these jokes were put into the movie with the intention of removing gravitas from seemingly important scenes, that they absolutely worked.
I do not even need to mention Snoke. Apparently, he was just a prop like a Christmas tree, but removed from the scene before even shooting the Christmas scene.
Even a single death of an important Resistance character could have made me excited for the next movie, such as Finn's when he attacked the battering ram, but I guess saving him for another another "exciting" fetch quest for the next movie outweighed a hero's death. All we got Ackbar's death, maybe the most important admiral in the whole New Republic/Resistance, but all he got was an off-screen death and the mere mention of his name, as if he were an extra character. I am strongly of the opinion that instead of Jurassic Park lady, it should have been Ackbar who sacrificed himself for the sake of Resistance and for the sanity of the audience who were witnessing one of the most awkward and boring chases in the history of cinema. Now that scene could have used some Benny Hill music to make it more interesting.
All in all, TLJ is the most anticlimactic movie of all time. There is absolutely nothing happens except burying well established characters of previous movies to open the way for new user friendly future Disney characters. The "trilogy", it seems, could just have been wrapped up by adding 15 extra minutes with a final showdown Rey and Ren, because apparently Rey needs no training or no understanding of the force whatsoever to overcome her adversaries.
I heard the name Sequal Trilogy is used for this new trilogy, but I believe Disney Trilogy would suit perfectly as that Star Wars atmosphere we used to know is no longer there. Make no mistake, I love my lightsaber fights - which this movie lacks, by the way - the beautiful sound of Tie Fighters and the vast universe of Lucas, but I am well aware that the generation grew up with OT or even PT, are not the target audience anymore for Disney. I am totally happy and excited for the young generation who are lucky enough to see a Star Wars scrolling text at theaters, but this could very well have been achieved by Disney without executing an Order 66 on older characters. But I fear many SW movies without soul such as this one will be kept produced as long as Disney makes a profit, which I am sure they will owing to the nice packaging.
I give 5* because of my respect to the cast's performance. Disney, the writer and the director get absolutely nothing.