What Did They Do To Poor Luke

Rating: 4/10 (25 December 2017)

I went into this movie with high expectations after TFA, and was quite a bit disappointed. First I will start with what I enjoyed -
1. Film had a good start, the look of the CGI and and starcraft looks great.
2. Story begins with a decent setup and interesting characters to get us into the action and story
3. There is some good performances from the cast overall, I thought the acting was enjoyable.
Now for the things that I think kind of messes up the film -
1. The length - this movie should only have been 90 mins, there is so many boring and unnecessary scenes that just drag on and on. How many minutes of bad guys screaming "Fire the Canons" and "Destroy that ship" do we need over and over ad nauseum? After halfway I kept hoping the film would end but it just keeps going and going - the last battle scene on the planet felt like purely to sell new toys of the lame ski-speeder and walkers. Same with the horse scene in the casino, it felt pointless and made a ham-fisted point about rich people and war.
2. The desecration of Luke - this film hates Luke Skywalker and does its best to make him out to be a complete jerk and pokes fun at star wars fans and people who look at him like a hero. Its painful to watch your childhood hero parade around like a parody of himself full of the '2017' self aware ironic humor which goes out of its way to break the 4th wall. By the time he does anything good in the film you already hate his character as much as the director and it comes across like a 'who gives a damn' moment. Shameful.
3. The plot - once you realize the entire movie is based around a bizarre space chase scene moving at a snails pace, it all starts to fall apart. They try to explain away this boring slog by saying the resistance ships are too fast for all the New Order ships even though the new order probably has many more fleets to call in to block them or cut them off. There is so many parts that make no sense. How did they manage to ride around these horse things through walls and with perfect control around a casino? When Snoke is killed why does no one care? His guards dont call in to report his death? WTF??? When they find him dead they are just like "whatevs" and move on like snoke is a nobody? Yoda shows up to burn Jedi books with lightning? Luke fights using an astral projection but it kills him.. or something or he just takes off because hes a jerk or something I guess. Leia can fly through space? The list just goes on and on.
Overall its an OK movie at best that is obviously aimed at the kiddos with some cool visual effects. As a long time Star Wars fan it comes across as a confused mess that makes out Luke to be the bad guy.