Complete, utter disappointment. Try and disagree with my remarks.

Rating: 1/10 (17 December 2017)

It's such a disappointment for me to write a bad review to a movie I was desperate to love. I'm a huge Star Wars fan, so much so, in fact, that I even found episodes II & III (especially III) perfectly enjoyable.
The Force Awakens was full of promise. I was unimpressed with the action scenes in Rogue One, but at least the final show down of sir Darth Vader gave us goosebumps, and that movie, in retrospect, had some grit and tension.

No goosebumps in the Last Jedi, no tension, either. No epic flow. They make sure of it with the very first scene and prank call from Poe to the First Order... There are many, many things I HATED about this movie, but to make things shorter I will list only 3 of my grudges. I picked them cause I felt other reviews didn't really expanded on them.
1) They ruined the First Order's credibility as a genuine, menacing evil entity. How can a movie be any good if the evil protagonists are a laughing stock?
In the early trilogy, the Empire was such a mean, impressive, cold hearted machine. Even the poorly trained Storm Troopers (did they all skip shooting training?) couldn't take anything away from the fear the Empire instilled. They had Vader and the Emperor, of course, but it wasn't just about that...
Here, First Order is a joke. I mean who is scared of them after this? They can't take down a single X-Wing fighter with their most advanced war cruiser because he's "too close to its guns"? Who can believe that? No, Rian Johnson wanted to make sure Poe's the hero once again. I did buy in when Poe took down 5-6 Tie fighters over the village in the last episode (he's an ace fighter after all), and it was a sight of beauty! But here, making a joke of a super destroyer like that takes all the fun away. I mean would you believe it if a Japanese WWII fighter pilot single handedly destroyed all the guns of a huge US battleship cruising in battle formation with destroyers, aircraft carriers, etc.. I mean COME ON, don't feed us child's play, we want some epic!
Other examples:
-they take forever to destroy a severely diminished resistance fleet,
-they don't see it at first when such fleet sends its escape pods towards a nearby planet
-When they capture Rose & Finn, they go full "James Bond bad guy" and take forever to dispose of them. In fact, guess what. They take juuuust enough time for them to be saved in the end.
-Rey is able to escape safely after pretty much being in the heart of the main battleship, right next to Snoke. Her escape is so easy in fact, that it's not even worth any screen time to explain it (note to self: when you're captured by the First Order, you'll be fine).
-Their general (Hux) behaves like an angry teenager who makes hasty decisions.. Correction: I meant their Great Leader (Ren).. wait, they both sound and behave the same.. Ok, so both of their top guys are angry teenagers. Don't look for evil masterminds or deadly composure in their leadership.
-The evilest of the evilest, the great and mysterious Snoke, is met with a swift and

Need I even continue the list?????

2) The very, very poor light saber fights.
I mean there are none. There's a fight when they use light sabers against other (coolish, granted) melee weapons, wielded by Snoke's elite body guards. But it's not Star Wars worthy. Save a few sparks (Rey's hand switch, Ren's light saber headshot), it's simply a melee brawl like you've seen countless times in other medieval era amovies. They need to hire back the fight choreographers of episode III ASAP. Kylo Ren's light saber is the coolest looking thing ever, like a medieval sword... except it seems to have THE WEIGHT of a medieval sword. He looks so slow when he wields it!! It could be good, it could give him this unique style if was assured and composed as a fighter, but he seems unsure, plus he has low agility, low creativity in this fighting. He seems quickly on the edge, with no control (that was true also in Force Awakens). I mean you remember Sidious vs Yoda? Or Anakin vs Kenobi? Or, in a different style, the composure of a Darth Vador ? We want more of this!!!!! This is the standard on which you build on!!
3) Rey's "training" with Luke.
I'm all for pushing what we know of the Force to the edge. That was great. But damn it, what was this "training"? Recap: Lesson 1, some life philosophy.. "The force is everywhere my dear". Lesson 2: "a jedi can be bad also, you know". Lesson 3... I don't even think there was a 3rd. Thank goodness. Ok, now, with that, go be a great Jedi Rey!!!! pffff
I'm all for avoiding Rocky style training edit with music and multiple drills, but what they chose to go with instead was weak and underwhelming.

With these 3 issues I'm just brushing over the problems (humor, casino scene, Rose's character, timing, etc). To conclude, this Star Wars movie felt like a bad Star Trek TV episode. Or, I'm afraid, rather like a wordwide blockbuster from the Disney Studio.. they could do so much better. And I'm sure they would still make just as much money (Christopher Nolan, please????).