The Last Jedi is the last Star Wars movie I'll watch

Rating: 2/10 (29 July 2018)

I'd heard plenty of grumbles from dedicated Star Wars aficionados about Episode VIII: The Last Jedi. I'm not an obsessive SW series fan, but I was one of those kids (age 8 at the time) who sat in a suburban movie theater in the summer of 1977, enthralled by the original "Star Wars." The magical universe full of exotic, as well as very human, characters, an epic battle of good against evil, thrilling space battle scenes, etc. "The Force Awakens" rekindled my interest, mainly because of the new, young characters: Rey, Kyle, Finn and Poe. However, the "The Last Jedi" was poorly written from start to finish. The characters and conflicts are predictable, repetitive, flat. It's the same storyline over and over again. Star cameos and corny jokes don't make up for good writing. There were also too many obvious deus ex machina plot twists, like a very wooden Princess Leia floating through space to be miraculously saved (and unscarred) after an explosion. If the First Order/Empire (is there any real distinction?) is going to kill Leia, then let them do it, and let it be realistic. Even Yoda's crotchety ghost appearing seemed like a boring cliche.
The SW fans who take their "canon" very seriously will disagree with me on this, but as a longtime movie fan, it was more than obvious in "The Force Awakens" that Ben/Kylo and Rey are totally hot for each other. Why is Star Wars so averse to sex and romance? I was waiting for a tasteful clinch between these two. The director teased us with the Force Skype chat, and the "I can feel your hand across light-years of empty space" jazz, but when he had the opportunity to create a really powerful moment-Kylo becoming Ben again, sabotaging the First Empire by assassinating Snoke and then, passionately embracing Rey so they can join forces as a mighty rebel Jedi duo-he wimped out. No kiss, no romance, no surprises.
"The Last Jedi" just seemed very long, predictable, boring, chaste, too heavily reliant on special effects/graphics, too heavily reliant on tropes lifted from the previous films. I'm out.