The split in the series

Rating: 8/10 (10 April 2020)

This movie pretty much split the fans, some saying that it ruined Star Wars, others saying that it saved it. For me, it was simply the next installment in the same awesome series, and I enjoyed it. But this movie suffered from a lot of stuff in the middle where it was just the rebels running away from the First Order, a lot of relationship development between Rey and Kylo, and a ton of exposition from Luke. Strangely enough, I don't remember people complaining about pretty much this same thing happening in Empire. You can't praise one while criticizing the other for the same thing. But unlike Empire, it had more action sequences and plot points in the middle of all this so there wouldn't be such long stretches of data dumping.
And I was curious about the mystery surrounding Luke and how he ended up the way he did. And unlike many people who hated it, I didn't mind what they did to Luke's character. Yeah, I know what people wanted and hoped to see, I wanted to see it too, but this actually made sense from a storytelling aspect. Luke may be the most powerful Jedi, but he's still human, and seeing the way he contributed in unintentionally pushing Kylo to the Dark Side was interesting. Even his so-called out of character moment where he pulled his light saber on Ben after looking into his future, I don't think he was ever going to kill him. When I saw this scene, what I saw was Luke being startled by what he saw and reacting on instinct, much the way Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan did when their ship was shot. It was more of a reflex than an actual intention. Besides, he totally made up for any disappointment he showed throughout the film at the end when he Force projected himself halfway across the galaxy to distract Kylo. That was freakin' awesome.
As for the complaints about Rey learning so much about the Force so fast, people seem to forget that Luke only trained with Yoda for like two or three days, so I was able to accept Rey's rapid progress as well. Again, you can't praise one while criticizing the other for the same thing.
I was also far more invested in the relationship between Rey and Kylo, far more than I was with Han and Leia in Empire, probably due to me being older now than I was when I first saw Empire, but also because the complexity of it made it more interesting. And yes, I am a Reylo shipper, but no, I'm not one of those toxic shippers that obsess and freak out and make a big deal over it; it was just something I wanted to happen after seeing this movie, despite being a Finn and Rey shipper after seeing The Force Awakens.
The only real problem I had with this movie was the whole casino side quest. It wasn't bad, it just went on for a little too long. I did admire the boldness of it though. In every movie, characters go on some quest to solve their dilemma, and they always succeed. But in this one, they don't. They fail on their mission, and then need to escape after having failed. Not only was this unexpected, but it was pretty ballsy. Like I said though, it went on for too long.
And then here's another problem I had with the movie, the character Rose. I really didn't care for her. And no, it's not because she was Asian, or a woman, or any of those other nonsense reasons people are saying of why fans didn't like her. She could have been a white male, an alien, or a droid, and it wouldn't have made a difference. It was the character I didn't like, not the actress, who I think did a good job for the role she was given. And her self-righteous and judgmental attitude really annoyed me too. I would have loved her to have been present for the scene where DJ showed Finn that the very people she condemned for helping the First Order were also helping the rebels. And lets not forget how she doomed the rebels by preventing Finn's noble sacrifice, which would have ended in his death at the First Order's hand anyway had Luke not suddenly shown up. And yeah, maybe she knew him performing a kamikaze wouldn't stop the cannon and he would have died for nothing, but I don't buy that. And where the hell did that kiss with Finn come from? Because aside from her brief fan-girling when they first met, there had been absolutely zero chemistry and zero romantic interaction between them throughout the movie. Personally, I even prefer Jar Jar over her. At least he got a few chuckles out of me and helped move the plot along, and he contributed by getting the Gungans involved in the war, and then later by Palpatine manipulating him into convincing the senate to give him emergency powers. Rose didn't really contribute anything, and was only there for a side quest that went nowhere and ended in failure.
Then there was also Holdo, who I didn't care for that much either with her holier than thou attitude. Yes, she was in a position of power where she had no reason to tell a lower ranking soldier like Poe anything, but her failure as a leader was not recognizing that people in a desperate situation needed a reason to hope. Instead, she continued to smugly talk down to Poe like he was a child and give him nothing, allowing him and the others to become desperate enough to pull a mutiny. That's something Leia would have recognized and prevented. It's been said that an explanation from Leia later on that they suspected that there was a spy would have fixed the whole secrecy thing, and I agree, but instead they just said that the less people who knew about the plan the better so no one would do anything reckless. But as much Holdo annoyed me, she did give us that light speed sacrifice. That scene was awesome, I don't care how many people complain that it 'broke Star Wars', saying how they should have been able to do that to the Death Star. Seriously, we're comparing crashing anywhere into a giant ship to pinpointing a two-meter wide spot and then crashing through miles of metal walls in the hopes of pushing through far enough to reach the Death Star's main reactor. It's not happening.
So yeah, a lot of things that bothered people about this movie didn't bother me, especially not the fuel problem since fuel has actually been around in Star Wars for years. I didn't even mind them killing off Snoke, or revealing that Rey's parents were nobodies. To me, people were more upset that their expectations were so subverted that they took it out on the movie itself, and so found little things to criticize and nitpick at, even complaining how much of the movie was just a chase scene, but again, I don't remember anyone complaining about that in Empire.