NEVER, in ALL MY LIFE, have I been more GENUINELY ANGRY at a movie.

Rating: 1/10 (15 December 2017)

How this script made it past everyone at Disney I'll never know. What happened to the Star Wars that told a coherent story and focused on characters that we truly cared about?
Here, we have a ridiculous stew of new pawns thrown into the mix who end up amounting to nothing. The characters we do care about are under-utilized. Phasma has an underwhelming death after once again being absolutely worthless and without consequence. The other two deaths in the film are that of the two female characters who are introduced with minimal development. And... how did Luke die? He just decided to drift off into oblivion in the same fashion as Yoda? This made sense for Yoda in Return of the Jedi as he was way beyond his years. But Luke here basically just commits suicide.
Genuine drama and momentum is traded in for cheap twists and a non-stop urge to be humorous instead of taking itself seriously. Several of the jokes are cringe-worthy, as if a room full of aspiring comics sat around and said "Hey, wouldn't this be kinda funny if we had this character do this?!" and then they just included every possible outlet for humor with zero discretion. Trading in fluid and impactful story-telling for an overabundance of cheap laughs... something that no Star Wars movie til now has dared to do.
I was genuinely excited to explore the true nature of The Force in this installment, but I was sorely mistaken in that department as well. The dialog during the training scenes is simplistic, rehashed from The Empire Strikes Back, but in a dumbed-down way. No new or innovative ideas are brought up, and as Luke trains Rey, he does so with an air of mockery. To those who have found actual insight, emotion, and philosophical resonance in The Force, the way this movie handles the subject is beyond insulting.
Also- I understand Leia is strong with the Force- but are we really supposed to believe that Jedi can survive being THROWN INTO OUTER SPACE now?? Where do we draw the line? These are human characters we're dealing with, but Mr. Johnson apparently has no boundaries.
And his final shot? A boy who we have NEVER SEEN BEFORE. I understand the meaning behind it- to say that anyone can be force-sensitive- but really?! For me, Star Wars has always been about the characters. So when one considers the closing shot of the movie (which has, in other Star Wars films, always been highly poignant) to be a RANDOM BOY... instead of a character that we're actually invested in... you'll see why I am upset.
Adding even more questions to the list of unanswered mysteries introduced in The Force Awakens, this episode has me seriously concerned for the culminating chapter of this trilogy. Best of luck to Abrams in salvaging the story he set out to tell, as The Last Jedi has left it in a very puzzling and disappointing place.