Butchered by Disney and Johnson

Rating: 4/10 (23 December 2017)

It has taken me a week of mulling things over for me to finally come to conclusion that TLJ is about as good as Revenge of the Sith. What was Rian Johnson thinking? The plot is all over the place with no cohesion to it. While TFA was criticized for being derivative of A New Hope, it felt like a Star Wars movie and JJ Abrams paid homage to the OT. I didn't like Rogue One at first but it grew on me as a stand alone feature in the Star Wars universe and it is way better than TLJ.
** SPOILERS **
One of the worst parts of TLJ IMO is the whole Maz Kanata/Code Breaker/Casino sequence. It is completely pointless and reminds me of a mash up between the Hunger Games and The Matrix: Reloaded Key Maker motorcycle chase. Its whole purpose being to make the movie longer while adding nothing to the plot at all. What's worse is it reminds me of the over use of CGI in the prequels which made them so bad.
Why were a bunch of new Force powers introduced with little to no back story? Leia may be the daughter of Anakin/Darth Vader but she has never used the Force in ANY appearance up until this one when she Mary Poppins her way back onto the ship. Long distance Force teleconference between Kylo and Rey and then Luke Force projecting himself across the Galaxy? This isn't a Marvel superhero movie yet it was treated as such.
There was inconsistent character development and traits. Poe just wound up turning into some macho blow everything up guy instead of being Leia's trusted Captain and Leia never would have kept Poe in the dark as to her plans. Johnson just seemed like he wanted to create drama for drama's sake like some insipid Soap Opera by creating tension between characters where there was none and it was not needed.
The Porgs or whatever the hell they're called only appeared so Disney could sell toys to children this Christmas.
The Lizard nuns on Luke's planet are yet another example of characters existing for no other reason that an attempt to provide cheap humor and seemed out of place, especially since Luke's whole purpose was to isolate himself from others.
Also, you can't have a good Star Wars movie without the involvement of Droids in a big way. Here, BB 8 and R2-D2 were more like footnotes that just had to be put somewhere rather than integral characters. And BB-9E didn't even have to appear at all since it essentially did nothing except look suspiciously at a moving box.
I have watched the OT, TFA and Rogue One numerous times and will continue to. However, TLJ I can only see myself watching it a 2nd time when it comes out on DVD/Netflix and then never watching it again since it just doesn't feel like it belongs in the Star Wars universe (just like the prequels).
The best thing about TFA was that it wiped the stench of the prequels off the Star Wars universe. TLJ brings that stench back.