A controversial movie, to say the least

Rating: 7/10 (9 June 2020)

Despite all of the negativity, all of the criticism, all of the hate towards this film, I came out of the cinema with the feeling that I had genuinely enjoyed the film. I guess the biggest thing that appealed to me was its originality and unpredictability, namely Luke and Snoke's fate. Admittedly though, outside the cinema experience, it gets a lot wrong.
The story was NEW, unlike Force Awakens. It had a few bits and bobs that made it resemble Empire SB, but that was it. Though this film didn't really advance the plot dramatically, I felt like it still did more that TFA, which basically finished where it started. Yes the plot was quite slow, but the movie itself went quite fast for me. Yes, what they did with Snoke and Luke was not what I was expecting, but I still like their effort to make a bold decision. By the end, I was excited for Episode IX, though don't get me wrong, there were several fairly plot holes I didn't like such as Yoda's force ghost.
The characters were generally very well portrayed and seemed to be what held the movie together, with again a decent script. Now as someone who never got into the post-Endor EU, I'v always preferred Clone Wars and Old Republic, I wasn't heartbroken to see Luke in a different perspective. However, they clearly went too far with vilifying him. So many of his actions just didn't feel right for Luke, such as his 'incident' with padawan Ben Solo.
The special effects, cinematography and music were again fantastic. The world building I found to be a bit better than TFA, Ahch To, Canto Bight and Crait were well fleshed out and felt more unique and interesting than Jakku and Takodana. The throne room scene and fight were almost definitely my favourite scenes from the Sequels. The battles could have been a bit larger in scale, though they were still fairly enjoyable.
Overall, a fairly decent entry to the Star Wars franchise, the best in my opinion of the Sequels and set up Ren leading the First Order as a pretty good opponent for the final movie. The Finn and Rose plot line was unnecessary, but I didn't hate it. What made it worse, in terms of fitting in to the rest of the sequels, was that JJ was brought back for episode IX. Inevitably, he undid much of what was set up in VIII.