I am not a bot. This movie spits on Lucas' Saga

Rating: 1/10 (21 December 2017)

Below is my justification for giving this a 1 star review:
I seriously thought that things couldn't get any worse after TFA. I was wrong. Thinking back to 2012 and how excited I was that the ST was going to be made and comparing it to how I feel right now is like the absolute worst feeling. I knew it as soon as Lucas started to be distanced from it, but like a dumb@$$ I held out hope. Luke was completely out of character and destroyed by Rian.
If JJ would actually use Luke in IX as The Master of Two Worlds and Crossing the Return Threshold then I might see some validity to Luke completing the Hero's Journey in this way. But we all know that there is no way that KK will let that happen or that JJ is that talented and thoughtful.
I seriously can't believe that the question leading to the ST was "Who is Luke Skywalker" and professional people and self professed Star Wars fans came up with this mess. It's like a really bad written hit piece to destroy a character.
Here's another problem for me. They took the greatest hero in cinematic history and turned him into a complete failure that gets schooled in the Force by some random junkbaby. Rose says before we even meet Luke that heroes don't run. Yet that is exactly what they had Luke do for years. If they wanted to go this route, they should have let Luke come back in TLJ with Rey, finish training her and help establish the order in IX, and then die like this at the end. They deconstructed Luke so much that Yoda lectures Luke about looking to the horizon like Luke hasn't grown since TESB. The whole point of RotJ was hat Luke had grown, matured, and gained wisdom and insight beyond that of Yoda and Obi-Wan. He also lectured Luke to pass on what he learned but died before he could. Mark was talking to CT about Luke in IX and they were on the same page, which is probably what got CT fired. Now they bring back JJ to finish the hit job on Luke. CT was probably going in the Luke comes back in the flesh level power/Master of Two Worlds motif. There is no way in hell that KK and JJ will let that happen. Mark told us that JJ ignored him and that he hated RJ's direction for the character and that they should have used GL's ideas and that all they cared about was making money. Those are his true feelings and I completely agree with him.
Rey is also ruined for me as a character as of TLJ. Tell us she is junkbaby from the beginning. No need for secrecy. It would have added to her character in TFA to know she was not related but waiting for her parents. I mean is stable boy's parentage going to be kept a secret and made a big deal of? My guess is that they wanted to intentionally give the impression that she was related in order to facilitate audience acceptance of her by all of the intentional parallels between her, Anakin, and Luke. Her perfect mary sue-esque routine was slightly annoying in TFA, but I thought that she would be brought down in TLJ like Luke was in TESB or Anakin was in AotC, but instead they make her even more perfect with no failures and able to do everything. She is without a doubt what people feared she was - a MARY SUE. Hell, even Yoda lectures Luke that Rey has more wisdom than the Jedi books he's been collecting. What a f#####g $#!+show. It was bad enough that she schooled Han on repairing the Falcon, learned force powers with zero training, and beat Kylo in a lightsaber duel, but to have pretty much no training (literally less than a day) and be put up on a pedestal as having more wisdom than Luke or ancient Jedi texts is INSANE and an insult to Star Wars and the modern myth Lucas created. Combine this with her thinking Kylo was a monster in TFA to school girl mind crush in TLJ and I have actually gone from liking Rey despite her perfection to actually hating this character. It's obvious that she can't fail in IX so there is no drama and she will have ZERO failures in the ST while they completely destroyed the OT3. Clearly this was a direction from Disney and KK to kill GL's work. White slavers indeed.
I didn't mind the new characters or the idea of Canto Bight. Some of the sequences there dragged out longer than needed. Mark was outstanding for his work with what he was given, particularly since we know he didn't agree with it. The OP Force use seemed more like a video game or cartoon than Saga rules. Hux and the FO as comic relief made this seem like Space Balls II more than Star Wars VIII. Poe's prank call drew groans. Not good for an opening sequence. The chase idea was poorly executed. We've never seen fuel being an issue before on one ship, let alone a whole fleet. Also, they could have jumped to different locations and split up. This chase idea works great in a WWII sub chase movie, but this is Star Wars and the FO could have just jumped a destroyer or two in front of the limping rebel ships and pinned them in. The crawl seemed to make it clear the FO instantaneously took control of the galaxy, yet it is said in the movie that it will take weeks to take control of the central/important systems. Milking the monster was not needed and got universal groans in the theater, as did Leia flying. People laughed at Leia. The SFX looked off at times. Ships, particularly X-Wings, don't move like that in the Star Wars universe. Yoda looked ridiculous and people actually laughed at it. The lightsaber effects were off as well. Fan films have better SFX than these and LFL did well in Rogue One so there is no excuse. The Holdo maneuver was executed really well though. I thought it was a nice place for the sound to drop. The whole Poe-tiny seemed out of place. Luke's flashback costume looked like a RotJ version in TFA/TLJ color scheme. It looked awesome and I hope they make that Sideshow figure. Speaking of the flashback, you have to be kidding me. From Luke lying about it to Ben's version to how it actually played out to Ben still looking like he's 30 years old, all of it was horrible. Snoke was a complete waste. So many threads dropped. They also could have used Lando in either Maz's role or as the target at the casino. I get what they were doing with the stable kids telling Luke's last stand, but continuing past that and using the stable boy as the end fell flat. If they would have cut from the kids retelling the story to the rebels meeting up with ships answering the call and assembling a new fleet, it would have shown Luke as a legend and that the spark worked. It would have really given hope. It would have also ended on a more Star Wars style ending. A huge complaint is that the movie breaks the established visual language established for the Saga films. Not a problem in anthology films, but it is jarring in the context of the Saga. It was the first Star Wars film that I have seen with people booing as it irised out.
I hope they publish Lucas' treatments in some form (which I'm sure they will to squeeze more money from the franchise) so that we will have access to the real ST and conclusion of the Skywalker Saga. The Star Wars Saga was released in May, had the 20th Century Fox Fanfare, and said Story by George Lucas. I'm not interested in this big budget fan fiction. I consider the DT (Disney Trilogy) and the Disney EU as nothing more than in-universe holodramas and holonovels (see Shadows of Mindor), similar to FDR: American Badass and Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Slayer in the real world.
I know that it doesn't matter, but I will never watch another Star Wars movie or series or buy any other non-Luke merchandise. My collecting that started when I was a kid around 1980 is now over. Congratulations BI/KK/JJ/LK/RJ, you killed my lifelong fandom/desire for new Star Wars content. We will never buy another Disney product, support Disney movies (except for maybe Captain America), or go to any parks again. I will never watch another movie produced, written, or directed by any of the above individuals.
I wish them the same level of success they afforded the OT3. For what they did to Lucas' vision, I simply hope that what goes around comes around.
#NotMyLukeSkywalker