Overall empowering film for women and people of color, not enough lore expansion IMO

Rating: 7/10 (19 December 2017)

I'm seeing a lot of just completely negative responses to this film on here, so I thought it was important for the other side to speak their peace so that many do not read reviews thinking it's all over and everything has gone to hell for the Star Wars universe.
Firstly, this film is very funny, and i'm *not* really sure what the heck other people are surprised about. I mean this is coming from the same universe that has given us Jar Jar Binks (whomst I do not like), Ewoks and all manner of silly droid comic relief characters. This film is a vast improvement in its use of comedy overall compared to the previous films, except for Han Solo because he will almost be the most hilarious.
The plot, admittedly is strange and plot-holey however.... guys. This is coming... *again* from the universe who gave us the Death Star and its magic 'splode button (although that was thankfully ret-conned in Rogue One.) There are plenty of "Thats not how SCIENCE works!" (see what I did there) moments and *every* other Star Wars movie is like that. Think back to when Obi-Wan and Anakin have a 15 minute lightsaber duel on Mustafar above Lava that would literally burn their skin off if they were that close to it, just so that it looks *cool*. Also they ride like... pieces of floating metal over the lava like hover boards... how. does that make sense? But, idk, it looks awesome so I just said, you know. It's fine. So why can't we do the same thing for this movie. Why are we being THIS hard on this one particular iteration of the universe.... hmmm? I wonder... could it be perhaps because it has unusually strong female and non-white characters and a deeply anti-status quo theme? Idk, I don't wanna believe Star Wars fans are that stupid, but I feel like the complaints about this movie that I see are dancing around that being their underlying complaint...
For instance, name a character in the Star Wars universe who is magically good at everything without having trained for more than about 15 minutes, and then goes to a suicide mission after having a *vision*.
Were you thinking the answer to that was Rey? Because Luke fits that exact same description. Luke trains for 15 minutes on Dagoba with Yoda, then freaks out and has to bounce, but is somehow a god with a saber..... But it's okay. Cause he is a dude.
I mean, overall this film has wicked cool special effects, epic dog fights (not real dogs... i'm talking about the ships), kickass new characters who do all kinds of crazy things that I feel only serve to expand Star Wars canon. Canto Bight was a plot device to expose the seedy underbelly of the bipartisan crooked elite, something we see ALL THE TIME IN THE NOVELS but never in the movies! Furthermore, this film decided to play with the whole concept of light versus dark, the epic black and white cut and dry, us and them mentality that has driven the plot of the last 7 movies before it, I mean come on!!! Didn't you guys want something fresh and new?
Take for instance the new understanding of the Force, one of a way of life, of spirituality and depth of emotion, instead of "let's test em for midichlorians", something that even the expanded universe never really made good use of anyway. Stupid concept that makes only the genetically worthy able to be cast as "Jedi" or "Sith" by special blood. This movie expanded upon our ideas of the force even more than any previous Star Wars film... it introduced Force Sensitivity as a concept, and the Force being a spiritual understanding and depth. It made FORCE SENSITIVE LEIA Canon! I mean come on, that's freaking awesome.
This movie is full of badass beautiful women taking on the elite ruling class of war mongering imperialists and shedding a whole new light on the idea of a Resistance in general. Instead of a bunch of white, pasty guys with beards flying the X-Wings into battle you have Indian women, Asian women, and all manner of different looking beautiful people taking the Resistance into their own hands for once.
Anyway, this is running long, but I think this movie did a great job building badass Star Wars terrains, Crait, Canto Bight and Ach-to and introducing interesting, relatable people, Rose, Codebreaker and Holdo.
The only major problems that I have with it are the fact that the First Order could have easily just boosted their jets a bit to reach up to the Resistance Cruiser, but like I said....... Death Star 'splode button. And the fact that it should've been Leia who sliced Snoke's ship in half out of epic sacrifice. I have other minor issues, but not enough to warrant giving this a freaking 1 Star.