Disappointing

Rating: 4/10 (30 January 2018)

If you thought you were FINALLY going to see Luke Skywalker in his full glory as a fully trained, powerful Jedi in the style of the prequels, but with better storytelling, you're in for a severe disappointment.
Luke exists only to elevate Rey, who is already perfect at everything anyway, to his old status in the original films. I love female empowerment, but Rey is just too good... at EVERYTHING... to be taken as being in serious peril. She's a fine actress, but she's immediately the best at everything. She barely needs any force training. Luke beat Darth Vader but was still green and had a lot to learn. Not Rey. She is a better pilot than Han, a better Jedi than Luke and Kylo, etc. She immediately understands all droids and Wookies. If she could sing she'd be the perfect Mary Sue.
JJ Abrams is GREAT at starting stories, but he sucks at finishing them. He and his team knew LOST was ending, and they blew it completely. Same with Fringe. As he said in a TED Talk, he loves mystery boxes, and he loves presenting them, but usually what's revealed to be inside his mystery boxes is very disappointing compared to the buildup. That's NOT good, especially when dealing with a billion dollar franchise like Star Wars. He sets up all kinds of questions... and leaves the answers to someone else. Rian Johnson essentially jettisons most of those questions, blowing off the answers or ignoring them entirely.
And, as stated above, we've longed to see what happened to our heroes from the original films, and, one by one, we've been disappointed. Han Solo LOST The Falcon and is a grumpy old man (Like Ford himself), killed by his own son. Luke, instead of becoming the hero that saves the galaxy, screws it all up and goes into hiding, letting darkness overtake the galaxy again (Sooooo, what as the point of defeating The Empire?). Leia is still around and slowly abdicating her leadership to Poe Dameron, who I like, but that's a bit much. Now that Fisher is dead (RIP), there's nothing left for her to contribute, either. Remember those heroes clapping around the fire on Endor with bright futures ahead of them? Well, forget that. They all ultimately failed and sucked at what they did. All so Supergirl Rey can save the day (one assumes).
Highly disappointing.