And we thought Phantom Menace was a letdown

Rating: 2/10 (15 December 2017)

When the credits began to roll in the theater, the audience gave a standing ovation to the film, while all I could think of was "Why?" This movie wasn't like Force Awakens where it left me wanting more and making me wonder what comes next; all this film did was make me wonder why? To its credit, I did like some things about the movie; it had a strong opening scene with an entertaining space battle, and sassy Luke Skywalker I enjoyed, but that's about it. The biggest issue with the film is the plot. I know this is all probably leading leading somewhere in future films, but nothing really happened here. Luke became one with the force, Snoke was killed by Kylo Ren, and the resistance took a serious hit to its numbers and equipment. Like I said, I'm aware its likely all leading to something, but at least when Empire ended, all we could talk about was "Is Vader really Luke's father?" "How are they going to get Han back?" and after Attack of the Clones (as bad as it was) we could say "Well at least the giant Jedi battle was cool" "So this is how the Clone Wars began" and "that's how Palpatine grew to power." In the car ride home my friend and I were trying yo find things we liked about the movie, one of my telltale signs that a movie wasn't good. When I first saw Star Wars as a kid, I knew what I liked about it, I didn't have to think of reasons to try to like it. When I first saw Force Awakens a couple years ago, I knew I liked it, even if it was a large callback to A New Hope. Many things in the film have no place, especially the side plot with Finn and Rose (and I liked both of their characters) that could have been written out entirely, as it has no impact on the films in anyway. It was kind of like in Revenge of the Sith, where they knew Obi-Wan needed something to do until he fought Anakin in the climax, but they didn't know what he could do. Another big plot issue I had was killing Snoke off. After the Force Awakens, he was easily one of the top two enigmatic characters along with Rey, and with all the theories of who he could be, where he learned to harness the force, and how he lead the First Order to power were all debunked in less than 5 minutes of screen time. When he was killed, the entire audience clapped, while Just threw my hands up and wondered "Really?" He could have survived and the plot after his death could have remained unchanged. This film's biggest downfall was TRYING to have the character driven plot and emotional payoffs, and it fails miserably at that. This was the first movie I've ever seen in a theater where I almost asked for my money back, and what hurt the most was that it was a Star Wars film, my favorite series of movies ever. I love the Harry Potter films, I love the MCU films, but they don't even come close to how much I love Star Wars. I was hooked ever since my dad showed them to me in the mid/late 90's when I was 3 years old and was immediately hooked. This is not just a bad film, it was an absolute insult to Star Wars fans everywhere. That isn't a knock on director Rian Johnson, who has had some films I enjoyed in that past such as Looper, but this is inexcusable by Lucasfilm. We trusted them and they failed us.
P.S. Porgs are NOT annoying as Gungans or Ewoks.