This Movie Sucks Bantha Ass!

Rating: 1/10 (18 December 2017)

So eager were we to see the return of Luke Skywalker in Star Wars: The Last Jedi that we went to a 12:30am screening at a local cinema. From the outset, we couldn't believe what we were seeing. The story was terrible, the acting was terrible (save Mark Hamill) and the direction was terrible - even some of the special effects were suspect! And things went downhill from there. Following on from the brilliant Episode VII and the excellent Rogue One, Episode VIII is a poor, shameful and disappointing successor. Our main issues are:
1) This movie was promoted as the return of Master Luke Skywalker, and the promise of taking young Rey under his wing and training her in the ways of The Force - but no. What we were given instead was a lame inter-stellar space-ship chase that I can only liken to the now infamous 'O.J. Simpson White Bronco' Police pursuit (please look it up if you are unfamiliar with this), with only a handful of scenes with undoubtedly the most central character in this movie - he's the main figure on the poster, for goodness sake;
2) I cringed so hard at the scene where Princess Leia uses The Force to return to her ship after being blown out into space that I'm sure I poo'd a diamond the next morning;
3) This movie clearly and obviously followed the 'JJ Abrams Star Wars Formula Handbook for Beginners' with cute critters providing comic relief and strange and alien places with strange characters doing the same things we do here on Earth. However, so poorly was this formula followed in constructing this movie that you could obviously see all of the 'rough edges' and 'outlines' and 'joins' of the formulaic pieces, making the movie jarring, obvious, shameful and embarrassing to watch;
4) This movie lacked any of the desperate hope that underlies all of the other movies in this franchise. That ever-present darkness that is clearly saying to the audience, "We're outnumbered, we're outgunned, we're outmanned, the odds are heavily stacked against us - but we're going to fight, anyway!" Also glaringly absent was the presence of The Force and the ongoing battle between The Darkness and The Light. The reason Star Wars has endured for 40 years is due to that core message, as decent ordinary people -both young and old - can relate to this battle in myriad ways in their daily lives. These core elements are fundamental to a Star Wars movie, of which Episode VIII certainly is not; it was just another sci-fi movie, and not part of cinematic royalty;
5) Sure, we all know that these new movies are a passing of the torch from the old guard to the new, but that time has absolutely not arrived. The return of Luke Skywalker and the establishment of a resurgence of the Jedi in Rey should have been the cornerstone of this movie and Episode IX. Kill off Luke?! Kill off Snoke?! They are the two main protagonists of The Force, but this movie wants to replace them with two children who haven't earned the right to occupy that position. They are not Masters of either side, and we cannot take them seriously as representatives of the Sith and the Jedi, respectively, because they're neither. Where are their cool Master light sabre moves and other exotic uses of The Force? Who will they learn them from? The books stolen from the archive and glimpsed in a bag at the end of this movie? We're not buying that.
6) This movie is entertaining, and has many expected large-scale battle scenes and lots of humor - and attempts at humor! But the central and end battles scenes were ridiculously drawn out and scenes and conversations took ages to develop, but, yet, their ships still hadn't been blown to pieces! Where was the usual expert handling of such battle scenes with fast-paced action and constant threat, danger and destruction, as is realistic?
It is the general consensus between myself and my friends that we shan't be attending the midnight showing of Episode IX. Nor will we be seeing it the next day or the next week. Such is our dejection and disappointment, we are all happy to wait until Episode IX reaches television... and only if we're not busy.