I wept unmanly tears

Rating: 2/10 (15 December 2017)

I went to the midnight release of this film and 30 seconds in it was already ruined with horrendous dialogue and an over the top action sequence. I felt so angry as the people around me laughed and clapped, it made me want to leave, but I was just frozen in shock.
I have so much to say, but here are my top ten points.
1. Jokes, I'm fine with jokes, but they deserve to be well written, correctly timed and placed, and genuinely funny, I laughed at one joke in this film, the rest felt simplistic and ill placed. Even in the most tense scenes, with powerful themes and meaningful moments the writers apparently could not resist working in a lame, unfunny "joke". And they just don't stop.
2. Lacking set up, the entire film seems rushed, I couldn't put a finger on this at the time, but I realise now it's because the film is not built up slowly to a climax, they launch right into the action and catch you by surprise. It means that you don't get invested in the characters and story and they don't seem to have believable motives.
3. Too many angles, The Last Jedi seemed to want to fit as much in, as fast as possible. This leads to you becoming distracted and annoyed at many points. There is an entire sequence with Finn and Rose that is completely pointless and drags on for an unacceptably long time.
4. Cut away, There are so many frustrating cuts in this film that it does my head in, it's written as if we have the attention spans of gnats, and that we couldn't possibly remember what's going on without being reminded of it constantly, even if you have to cut away from a climactic scene to do so.
5. Overt themes, the film's main theme is renewal, which is fine, but instead of subtly working in this theme with visuals and combining it seamlessly with the story, we are smacked over the head with it and it is explicitly mentioned several times.
6. Characters, I failed to become invested in the plight of the characters, again their setup is lacking, we are introduced to Rose for a brief second, she "works behind pipes", and her sister died recently, that's it. For someone who is featured quite heavily in this film she comes across as shallow.
7. Overpowered, The characters in this film are shown to have incredible powers, this makes them unrelateable and boring, the characters don't work to overcome challenges or develop in interesting ways, they start strong and never learn anything.
8. Relating, In a story it's very important to have a character that we can relate to, that way we can become invested in the story, in The Last Jedi I couldn't relate to anyone, you would think it would be Rey, but she is so incredibly powerful and special that I can't.
9. Unoriginal, many sequences and even some shots I noticed were directly ripped form the Original Trilogy, this is beyond enraging, these are new films and seeing a reshoot of those timeless scenes is disrespectful to say the least. it made me want to get up and leave.
10. No true loss, I should have felt some sadness and the pain of the characters but I didn't, it left me relaxed, not excited at all. Rey has so far not experienced a loss, she hasn't lost a fight, she hasn't lost someone she cares about, her character seems boring, plain and overpowered.