How can you be the Rebellion when you are the ruling Government?

Rating: 1/10 (26 December 2017)

There are two was to look at this film. One, as a standalone film that has nothing to do with anything and two, as a film that assumes to shoulder the responsibility of thirty plus years of history, fandom and anticipation.
As a film it's convoluted with no real coherent plot or point. You have zero time to actually feel or care about the characters as they just move along from scene to scene, moment to moment without any real cohesion. One minute Poe is getting escorted off the bridge by the purple haired Admiral's guards, the next he is standing in front of her having a nice chat moments before committing mutiny.
Rose and Finn are entirely throwaway characters that add nothing to the over all story. How a former janitor is able to defeat the highly trained, and skilled Storm Trooper Captain Phasma is beyond belief. However as most have come accept as believable is that anyone can come to the fight without any prior training and win, just because they believe.
Rose on the other hand, valiantly "saves" Finn from himself as he is about to sacrifice hisself in order to save the remaining rebellion from destruction, because she suddenly finds herself in love with him for no real reason whatsoever.
Snoke, while having had a great deal of potential to be interesting was little more than another CGI villain, who met a quick end by the hand of Emo Darth Vader.
It took me a while to reconcile what I was seeing, but the best way I can describe most of the movie is that it was more like going to an Anime or Star Wars convention where everyone is dressing up as their favorite characters and playing caricatures of someone else.
As a Star Wars Film, it was a complete and utter travesty. Some have compared the unfavorable reviews to the unfavorable reviews that Empire had received in 1980. At the least, you could say that the negative reviews then were more shocked at the darker nature of the film, although the film stayed within it's nature. Others have argued that it's mostly angry white men hating on the film, but seeing as how it the crowd that I was with consisted with two men (including myself), and three women, there was no one who had anything positive to say about what was seen, and the general consensus was that it was Star Wars in name only and lacked any of the depth or understanding of the actual universe or characters.
Kylo Ren continues to be an Emo Sith Lord, who ironically is the only one who suggests to Rey that perhaps they could team up and do something different other than be a Jedi or Sith. Of course Rey, who we also find to be no one or nothing of any relevance, aligns herself with the Jedi (or Luke Skywalker) for some reason or another. To be sure, there is no real reason why she would have any attachment to anyone as there is simply no development as to why she should care in any capacity.
Luke is now a curmudgeon who just endlessly wallows in self-pity and instead of being the wise old, warrior sage that we had all waited 30 years for, instead turns out to be a weak, cowardly, broken man who maunders around his island, milking four breasted sea monsters for blue milk.
Leia can apparently survive the vacuum of space and NOT kill everyone on the ship as she opens the door from the outside to let herself back in after getting blown out by an explosion, and Yoda can affect the corporeal world by summoning lightning and burning down trees.
I'm thoroughly convinced now that Disney is bent on vandalizing the institution of Star Wars to make a point. I find it hard to believe that a multi-billion dollar company could screw up a movie that badly, however here we are. The truth is that it wasn't a good film. Sure there was a very cool scene where The Admiral plows her ship through the First Order Fleet at light speed, but otherwise this movie was little more than CGI cut scenes, explosions, and space ships. To it's detriment, it tried to sprinkle on some philosophy and metaphysics, however such things are way beyond it's pay grade, though it might sound deep and meaningful if all you ever read are young adult novels, or watch nothing but anime...
And I mean the newer anime, not the older anime that was in no way meant for children....
As an institution Star Wars is dead. It might be good for the fans looking for little more than a sticker slapped on a plastic box, but for those that want something to sink their teeth into, there are about 30 years worth of books that actually tell a proper sci-fi story. It was about 45 minutes too long and watching Chewbacca suddenly decide not to eat a Porgie (after capturing, killing, skinning and cooking one over the fire) because all the other Porgies were giving him sad eyes was just unnecessary and like the rest of the film left me saying "wait, wha?".