Star Wars: The Last Hope

Rating: 1/10 (25 September 2019)

I made an account to write this. I'm a 30 something year old and grew up watching the originals. I didn't fully appreciate the story until I was older, and the prequels came out. I thoroughly indulged in the lore and loved Revenge of the Sith. (Seeing the emotions that Anakin goes through!) TFA was decent for me, I was genuinely interested in Snoke, and Luke's new Jedi training for a new set of Jedis also sparked my interest. I hoped I wasn't grasping at air, but I slowly started speculating about what TLJ would be about. I was certain that Snoke's origins or even perhaps a flashback showing how he seduced Kylo. I figured TLJ would show the resistance in a dire state, and Luke having to confront Snoke while Rey would confront Kylo; A dualism if you may, similar to when Order 66 is executed, and you see Padme's emotional release along with Anakin's. I was hopeful to see how Maz Kenata (definitely spelled wrong) obtained Luke's light saber, since it was directly mentioned. If any of this sounds like anything you might've hoped for, I'm sorry to tell you that you couldn't have been farther from the actual plot. Every logical prediction I made was so far off base, that despite watching every movie prior (including TFA) several times, I NEVER want to watch TLJ again.
Within five minutes, I felt almost embarrassed as Finn stumbled around with water spraying everywhere. Then, the Poe/Hux phone call scene.When Leia was blown to space, I thought it was actually a very beautiful scene, and with her recently passing at the time, I thought "ah, this is how they finish her story, and the scene is very beautiful", then, her hand moves, and well, yeah....
The movie has some serious plot problems, has an obvious political undertone which contradicts itself, and through over saturation, makes you wonder what the movie was even about and what the plot was. Remarked as different from its predecessors in all ways, including quality, plot drive, logic, intrigue, emotion, character development, and overall, hope. I truly believe this was the worst movie in the franchise, except some of the effects were amazing. I would never recommend this movie to anyone, and I truly don't understand how "critics" can give it a near perfect rating. It's mind boggling.