Surprisingly and fortunately, I was wrong in my expectations

Rating: 8/10 (27 December 2017)

I've read the commentaries and had gone full of conviction that Disney had ruined it, so I was ready to see the disaster and went yesterday to the movies; surprisingly and fortunately, I was wrong in my expectations as this movie gave me profound feelings and connection to the other ones, and now I think that most people who abhorred it just haven't catched the big picture. What is most grand about Star Wars is its philosophy: this movie has brought up again the Force cosmology, with concepts from Buddhist, Hinduist, Judeochristian and Taoist traditions. I wasn't expecting a part where Luke would teach lessons, and I got surprised in such synthetic way that the Force was managed to be presented and explained as a cosmic regulator that balances the natural laws and the antagonisms and consequences of the beings' free wills, and thus the movie adds more to it and helps to give understanding that it brings harmony by intervening according to each one choices to the dark or light side. Harmony where it is apparently chaos, balance in opposites, recurrence of life, death, freedom, limitations - learning and enlightenment events until sentient beings arise by means of providential opportunities and serve to give other opportunities to new fellow beings. Luke said it all, the Force isn't just about lightsabers, fights and floating things (and maybe those are the things that some fans gave more importance to and felt for their lack in the movie), it exists by itself and manifests through those who can bring harmony at the moment; and Luke wasn't a coward or deserter, just as he told his mistake was done in a moment of pure instinct, of fear of losing what he created and loved, so he made a choice in an instant, and although he regretted it right after and couldn't have imagined what would happen, he was trained and taught according to the Jedi lessons to know that one shall not give way to bad emotions and by them commit decisions to destroy others, since this perpetuates the dark side. So why wasn't he able to control himself? He got grieved about the way he had learned and his power weren't enough to avoid it, so in pure torment he exiled himself to order things up with himself, like an internal fight with reformulation of old concepts, he saw he had to find other ways than those he was trying, and die like this in oblivion if unsuccessful, but he haven't lost connection to the Force since he advanced a deeper understanding of it and Yoda was accompanying him. That can be a moral lesson to our lives and shows deeply the human potential, that no matter how trained we think we are there are moments when although we sight what brings bad consequences we still haven't reasoned enough to change ourselves, master the instincts and then we fall, but yet there is a teleological order that makes bad turn out to become good, since it is what can make even "failure the greatest teacher". It has happened during other moments in the saga with other Jedi, showing that masters can fail that at any stage in their Jedi discipline, but it seems like some fans negate this emotional aspect and want to see them as if they were flawless machines that had already controlled all of their human nature by negation and not by conducting them to an optimal point, or who think it is easy to keep with the Force once one reached it, instead of being a lifetime process of challenges (look at Yoda, he is good humored even as a Force ghost, that shows how he achieved the integrality of his nature, emotions and individuality, without self-annihilation, just self-improvement along his 800 years). Luke died with all his potential, spending all of his energies in a Force projection that kept not only his legend but the way of the Force going on, in a more powerful way than would be a lightsaber clash (like when Ben Kenobi simply went calm with Vader, knowing it would be better that way and that his spirit would continue one with the Force, acting as part of it, knowing how it works, guiding people and appearing in decisive moments). About the location map, it can be explained as something Luke created before going hermit.
The other controversy is Rey, who appears to frolic effortlessly with Force abilities, and that seems like the same backlash Anakin had in the prequel trilogy, when he was born with a spontaneous load of midichlorians. Also, people didn't like the explanation about her parents, which seemed to have given it a sudden end. Regarding these questions, people have forgotten one theory, in which just like Anakin and the Chosen One prophecy, she may have been Force-conceived, without parents (Force parthenogenesis?), like the part where she encounters herself in the mirror can suggest, when she asks who her parents were. The midichlorians were an interesting addition to the Star Wars universe and are at first incomprehensible because they don't seem to link with the soul and the natural omnipresent Force: that is because we tend to ignore the spiritual realm of Star Wars, "death, yet the Force"; who knows about it? People are born with a capacity of Force sensitivity that is normally directly proportional to the quantity of midichlorians and can be estimated by it, but the confusion comes when considering them to be the cause of it while we cannot affirm that. Instead, it enrichens beautifully the Star Wars cosmos by pointing to the existence of patterns which are derived along the many forms amidst the Force and that make their interconnection, turning out to be a correspondence between matter and spirit granting the soul to manifest its inner capacity of sensing and channeling this natural energy while one is within the body, in a way that it can be developed with more or less intensity, according to the needs, natural selection or whatever. Now we can deduct philosophically by that some directions that this new movie can head to, like the previous effort of one's progress with the Force through the pre-existence of the soul, as can be suggested by Yoda opinion of Rey, and that can lead to other developments - reincarnation for instance - concepts from Hinduism, Buddhism and some Judaism interpretations. It would be like a preparation of the body for the soul (explaining then the Chosen One prophecies and a Force mechanism of harmonization) in the material world and a physiological ressonance manifestating through the midichlorians would allow the body to support one's power and to produce organic correlates when one uses the Force, thus its potential and resistance could be scientifically measured (as was done by Qui-Gon), and like a wave-receiving instrument such as radio or TV people with midichlorians can synch more easily or hardly, and can be trained or not, but while they may be limitating factors midichlorians are not the only condition nor warranty for the person to be powerful, Force sensitivity would then be a personal acquired skill (during life or before it). It is just like macro and microcosm, and it holds analogy in our world in explanation for phenomena like mediumship (like some researchers and studies hint at, Peres and Newberg (2013) "Neuroimaging and mediumship: a promising research line" and Peres et al. (2012) "Neuroimaging during Trance State: A Contribution to the Study of Dissociation").
All in all, the Force can be shown with interesting possibilities after this new movie and it is noteworthy to see other points through the movie that indicate its characteristics, such as the "Yin and Yang"-like symbology with Rey and Kylo as two extremes in the light and dark side, or also seen in the format of the pendants of Rose and her sister. There is also the part when Yoda appeared as a Force ghost interrupting Luke in the moment when he had decided to burn the ancient tree with the Jedi books, but then Yoda felt harmony and seemed to know what would happen, it was the right time and a lightning struck the tree, if that didn't happen and Yoda didn't appear Luke would have burned it anyways by himself, because the Force actualizes itself and goes around like water through situations, by orientating other means and people to direct goodness in everything, not in a deterministic and mechanical destiny, like the Sith always suggest to justify their ends for attaining power ("fulfill your destiny", said Palpatine, Vader, Snoke...), but in a way that keeps everything in an eternal process of balancing according to each will and freedom. It wasn't a movie to focus about personal lives only or the Skywalkers only etc., it showed how the universe works, powerful good and bad people rise and die, each had a contribution to the Force, but there is a greater whole of the Force. Indeed people who had more impact in the series of events were more highlighted, such as Luke and now Rey, as they are decisive, but there is no problem if Snoke and Phasma aren't, there were many characters like them in the Star Wars universe and they've faded. The individual lives of all the characters cannot be contained in just one movie that tries to explain more about the saga, and their stories developments is up to TV series, fan books etc. Now in my opinion of some fan expectations, even Jar Jar Sith theory was more profound regarding this philosophy than the fan theories trying to predict this movie (if you haven't seen that one, search for it: Jar Jar as a Yoda dark-side parallel, like in Hinduism). Concerning the picture and ambience, there were many good points, like Yoda puppet, the human-style objects, stereotypes and puns (weren't as exaggerated as some comments say) in the alien universe - for instance the casino scene - just like the old movies. So, as a fan of the Star Wars' Force philosophy and for the movie presenting it and managing to deliver a story that keeps together with it, beyond my expectations, I give it an 8, and I hope they can finish it well as it deserves, because now it has the potential no matter how misunderstood it was.