Mixed Bag

Rating: 7/10 (2 January 2018)

First off anyone who says this is the worst Star Wars movie ever either hasn't seen them all or is on something. Likewise for anyone who says it's the best Star Wars movie ever.
The Best Star Wars movie to date is Rogue One hands down. The story line was engaging. The acting was spot on and there were very few cringe worthy moments for a Star Wars movie.
The worst Star Wars movie is tougher to call but Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones run a very close race.
I've seen reviews complaining because all their favorite characters are gone now. Um hello They've been gone since the 80s they come back for a couple of films and now you mourn? They passed the torch it had to happen. Perhaps I'm insensitive to that having already gone through that years ago with Star Trek.
Then there are the reviews about the cute critters being included as a merchandise bid. Let me just say each of the original three movies had some sort of cute alien for the kids to fall in love with. the Jawas, Yoda.... hello... Ewoks anyone? Not new at all they just didn't have as much of it in the prequels.
With that out of the way I enjoyed this movie. I enjoyed it more than Force Awakens and in some ways more than Rogue One. The acting was better than FA and the characters had more dimension. I started to actually like Po and Fin just a little.They involved more characters in the story and Rose in particular was refreshingly non stereo typical.
Still it's a mixed bag, While entertaining, and better acted than it's predecessor it has some scenes that were pretty hard to swallow. There's a scene with Leia that... well you'll know what's wrong with it when you see it. Kylo Ren seems alternately courageous and cowardly? There are some other moments as well but nothing I couldn't forgive and I am as big a fan of the franchise as anyone. Star Wars Episode IV was the first movie I ever saw in the theater and I practically breathed Star Wars as a child.
Contrary to popular opinion I liked the direction they took with Luke. He was completely one dimensional in the first movie and while they made him a little more complex in Empire and Jedi he was still not very deep. This was a completely new side of Luke we didn't know existed and I thought by the end of the film Luke was shown the respect his character deserved.
This appears to be a very divisive film. I think part of that is some people don't like change but the old Star Wars picked up and dropped in this decade... I don't think anyone but old star Wars fans would go see it and it would be doomed to fade into oblivion.
Prepare for something different before seeing this. In some ways good and in some ways bad but very little of the same.