Censoring the 'Goofs' section on IMDB is not enough to save this trash

Rating: 2/10 (19 May 2018)

This is what you get when you are so determined to surprise everyone that you want to do against both the fan theory and its opposite. Rian Johnson, the mind behind the awesome Looper, went desperate and stabbed his movie in the balls with a lightsaber.
Starting immediately after the ending scene of the previous film, for one joke (not even a good joke for that matter), resulted in tons of retrospective problems.
-Finn's injury from the previous movie (remember, his spine got sliced in half) is totally forgotten less than 40 minutes later
-The Dreadnought can wipe the Resistance base out in two shots, but where was it during the fuzz with the death planet?
-The most meaningless opening text in Star Wars history
Granted, the movie has a few merits. The hyperspace crash is the most epic scene in the franchise ever. Muting it added even more. Johnson, however terrible as a writer, uses the silence very well to increase the drama in scenes that needed it. Another great point was the battle of Kylo Ren and Rey against the Praetorian guards. Though the Force was quite underused, it still had an excellent choreography and an incredible amount of energy. For all three minutes. Out of 150.
The real issue comes from the script. It's hard to believe that this is the creation of the man who gave us Looper five years earlier. Any screenwriting class should start with burning the script of The Last Jedi ritually. Where to start?
As I said earlier, the number one problem is the fact that it tries to surprise us too hard. 'I am your father' was a twist that cannot be repeated. Even in Star Wars, the first KOTOR game was the only story that could detonate such a mental bomb, and there is a reason for that. The surprises of this film are like the 'I am your father' line told to Luke by Jabba or Chewie. It had too much intention in it, with all fan theories read and trying to make the opposite of everything.

How will Luke train Rey? Will he go full Yoda, or take a different direction?

He will not train her at all. Let's throw the path of the hero for Rey out the window. She can have the skills of the hero without earning them. Who needs the path of a hero anyway?

How gloriously will Luke return?

He won't. He'll betray his former self who risked a war to redeem his mass-murderer of a father. This Luke will be revealed as a teacher who tried to kill his nephew instead of guiding him, and will refuse to fix this error by training Rey, he will leave the galaxy to burn. Also, he will go Fahrenheit 451 on ancient Jedi texts

Who is Snoke?

Nobody cares. At least we, the makers, don't. Let's cut his character arc short (literally). Also, let's write him so terribly that once he's taken out, the viewer will say THANK YOU instead of WHAT. Honestly, he narrates the conflict of Kylo Ren? Writing a Discount Emperor Palpatine is one thing, but this is a new level of horrible.

Who is Rey?

Nobody. She was sold by her parents for drinking cash. Okay, I'll be fair, this one works, even if there is no reason why nobody told her this on Jakku, and it's hard to believe a 9 year old girl would have forgotten this. Still, it's one of the better twists, as Star Wars already had too much birthright-based protagonists.

How will Leia die? Because she must, now that Carrie Fisher is gone, right? RIGHT?

Wrong. You all expected her to die, so she won't. She will go full Mary Poppins just so that you'll get surprised. Because you already forgotten her relation to the Force, as it wasn't even mentioned for thirty years, but it was mentioned once in RotJ, so it's a thing now. And she will NEVER kick the bucket in the movie. She is badass, of course, but as Disney promised she won't be digitally recreated for the sequel, EP9 will most likely start with Leia Organa being dead. Talk about disgraceful death for a legendary character.

What will happen now?

Nothing. We'll just slow down the Falcon storyline of The Empire Strikes Back, and drag it for the entire movie, also remove the soul from it. Who needs a story when we have the best setting in the world? Yes, it's as though the story of Lord of the Rings was 'three goblins sit in a cave and roast meat'. You could have still screwed Tolkien's world if that was the case. The setting is lesser than the story, and even the setting is too minimalist for EP8. A war for the control of a galaxy is fought by approx. 3000 people, both sides summed up. Too small even for any war that happened here on Earth. And it's just one planet. How would a winner of this conflict keep their reign with ten ships? What is this, compared to the fleets that each trilogy's final chapters had? Yes, ROTS had greater battles, it appeared like it really a war on the level of a galaxy. EP7 also had this issue, but it's worse here, as here we are supposed to see the entire armies. It's also overly centered around humans. We need more alien races. Diversity doesn't mean the same on Earth as in Star Wars, and this is another grave mistake.
The tone of the movie is another painful mistake. It was marketed as the new trilogy's turn to the dark side. It had an awesome trailer, red letters and all. And what did we get? A parody. Poe Dameron starts the movie by trolling his way through a TIE fighter squadron and humiliating the military commander of the First Order. How am I supposed to take the antagonists seriously, if not even the hero does? He makes a disastrous strategic decision, sends half of the Resistance fleet to die, and it's directly followed by the slapstick scene of Finn waking up. Way to emphasize the tragedy that just happened. This movie is way too humorous. It tries to tell a war story, from the pen of people who don't seem to ever have seen a war. Let's face it: war comedy is not a movie genre with too many example, and there is a reason for that. Especially BB-8 is a total overkill, but everyone is trying to be too funny. The tension is lost, because it's impossible to get invested in a war if every soldier is a comedian.
The characters are also total idiots. Admiral Gender has zero leadership skills. This is what we get after the death of Ackbar, the number one meme character of the franchise? Rose speaks about winning a war by saving the ones she loves, a minute after she potentially sentenced the entire Resistance to die for one man, which would have been facepalm material even if they showed a better chemistry than zero. Rey as a character ends up less and less interesting as she turns more and more into a MaRey Sue, who could come from any Discount Hunger Games story, or even a fairytale.
The only decently written characters in this movie are Captain Canady, for the five minutes he is on screen, and Kylo Ren. Kylo is still an interesting person, but the insane surprise flow lands him in the role of the mightiest villain. It dosn't work. Not only because he is tricked by a projection that wields a lightsaber Kylo actually ripped apart three scenes prior, but mostly because he works only as a villain apprentice. His character arc needs a superior. A conflicted Emperor is not a source of tension, and this is what we got by the end.
Through Kylo Ren, the movie keeps slapping you with the renewal of the franchise. Don't grasp on the classic rules, all are cancelled. Indeed, it expands the limits of the Force for the first time since the Force Lightning was introdiced in the end of RoTJ, and out of three additions only one is a bad choice (Carrie Poppins), the Force projection and the communication trick are genuinely cool. The movie however can't do the renewal well. It ripped apart the Skywalker-lightsaber, because 'symbolism', but the most iconic ships are still the Falcon, the X-Wing and the TIE-Fighter. That's quite far from renewal.
Since Rian Johnson got a new trilogy to make, here are a few advices for him
1) Go see an actual war, because it seems you need to
2) A surprising story is not automatically a GOOD story
3) Ignoring the prequels is not a wise choice. Don't take the dialogues from them of course, but take the SCALE
And finally 4) Send your money on a script doctor, not to censorship of reviews. This is a very important lesson, learn it well. We want our Star Wars back, because this is not it.