The Last Jedi, or, The Last Star Wars I go see (mild spoilers)

Rating: 2/10 (14 March 2018)

Been a star wars fan for as long as I can remember. If that's a sentence that could explain you, then Disney did you dirty.
In what should have been an easy dunk for Rian after JJ gave him a nice alley-oop, turned out to be a 2hr+ low speed car chase with subplots that don't bloom due to poor root structure.
One of my favorite things about Star Wars has always been the fun mystery of their Universe. Who was doing what, what was going to happen next. This movie killed that.
There's nothing of interest left when the credits start to roll. Every plot point from Force Awakens has dead ended. Every story arc in the Last Jedi fails to reach any climax worth note.
Who is Finn - nope
Who is Rey - nope
Who is Snoke - nope
What does Luke know - nope
What's Poe going to do - nothing
What's Leia going to do - nothing
Where's Kylo story headed - meh no where really
What was with Phasma - nothing
Will they explore Han's death - who?
*Spoilers*
The only thing left is for Leia to die and Kylo to either change over or die.
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There were so many missed opportunities in this movie for interesting plot, and instead they edited in sub plots to sub plots with equal screen time to the main story line, and only interesting story line for that matter, of Rey and Luke. What's worse is those plots serve no purpose. By the third act, all subplots have proven to have gone nowhere. They don't even help with character development. Imagine, with the length of this movie, having to sit through subplots that you don't care about because there was no character development. And its for a good 20 minutes at a time!
To add insult to injury, your intelligence is insulted at the end of these sequences when the movie just casually moves along hoping your brain won't start to smoke as it fails to get past the phrase "why didn't they just..."
The special effects are just ok compared to other recent Star Wars releases. The action is just ok. The jokes almost always fall flat unless you are 7yrs old or find yourself laughing at what a 7yr old would.
The icing on the whole thing is the self-aware, almost meta nature of the movie purposefully and gleefully distancing itself from the original fan base, and taking on critics of the Force Awakens. Not only does this movie throw out nearly every plot point from Force Awakens, it fundamentally changes the Star Wars universe. All just to subvert your expectations. That is, if your expectations were continuity and full character arcs. That'll show people for talking for two years about who Snoke is. "Stop talking about my movie kids!" -Rian, probably. Imagine going to your friends house and knocking on the door; but when your friend answers he doesn't let you in. Instead he reaches for the welcome rug to pull out from under you! You can feel the tension building; there's going to be a pay off with an analogy of your friend pulling the rug out from under you like Disney did with its fans right? No, instead he accidentally headbutts you in the junk, can't lift the rug cause you're too heavy, and your dog dies for no reason. What a bold story telling decision!
A lot of these criticisms could be shared with the prequels, and at the very least these new Star Wars movies do not have annoying characters. Just huge plot holes that distract you, poor story telling, and odd plot twists that serve no emotional purpose.
The best explanation I've ever received about story telling was a simple analogy:
A story is like a hike up a mountain. The reader/watcher is the hiker. They know they're going to need to invest time and energy for this hike, so it better be worth it. Imagine they have a backpack on and every piece of info you give them is a brick they need to put in their backpack (characters, back stories, motives, actions that build climax ,etc). You edit your story by making sure by the time the hiker gets to the top of the mountain they're not pissed off they carried all these bricks for no reason.
That concept of story telling for Rian must have been like the joke about the roof.
In a bold nihilistic approach, Rian has managed to make everything mean nothing.
I will not be seeing the next Star Wars movies in theater. That's a sentence I never thought I would write. But it doesn't matter anyway. People will still flock to it and the next 7 movies they pump out will make a billion dollars but be worth nothing like the cultural ephemera they are.