Propaganda

Rating: 1/10 (11 January 2018)

I have let this fit settle in, by about two weeks so this is no knee-jerk reaction, in fact my enmity towards the picture has increased with rumination. However, it is not without some merits hence the 4 stars.
On the plus side, I laughed at some of the humour especially at the beginning of the film, it is visually stunning and it sounds excellent thanks to John Williams, but this is where my generosity ends.
I, along with many other viewers it seems cannot fathom how or why Disney would want to alienate the target audience so effectively. This Rain Johnson was a massive miss-step, I enjoyed the formulaic first two films from the rejuvenated franchise, no, I was gripped! Even aside from the horrible, unwelcome and unnecessary 'diversification for diversification's sake' flat characters in Episode VIII the actual story-telling is chaotic, non-sensical and boring.
The progression of any of the main protagonists' story-arcs is crudely atrocious, the emotional involvement engendered in Episode VII has been completely disregarded, seemingly on purpose. There is no continuity. The science and physics of our known universe have not been adhered to which, as a white male geek, is criminal: the Allied space ship creeping along, running out of fuel, someone should have told the script writer that in the vacuum of space inertia would mean the craft would not need to constantly burn fuel to propel itself forward, not that this plot-point was crude and clumsy in the first place. Finn, hurtling towards his own suicide, with the craft melting around him, would have died already.
I know, I know, it is a fantasy, science-fi but the physics of it have to work to satisfy us, the target audience... oh... wait, that brings me on to the next point. This film, Episode VIII is not for us and seemingly nor will Episode IX, our time has past, it's down with the old, in with the new and as such I personally will lay to rest the Star Wars franchise. I will not pay to watch another Disney instalment until they realise their mistake and appoint Christopher Nolan or Guillermo Del Toro.