JJ ABRAMS, ARE YOU LISTENING?

Rating: 1/10 (16 December 2017)

******SPOILERS AHEAD-WARNED YOU ARE******
Sick. I just felt sick seeing The Last Jedi.
Still feel sick. Felt so sick, got up in the middle of the night and couldn't sleep. (ended up reading IMDB reviews for 3 hours)
No movie has ever done that to me before.
Why? JJ set up all of these wonderful forewards in TFA, to be left with all of our hopes dashed with no fulfillment, wasted villains, no conflict, nothing.
As Lando said, "I trusted you to fix it, Rian!"
I was led down the garden path by SWCO, praises for Rian, the media hype. It was all hype.
As DJ said, "It's all a machine."
Instead of the arms dealers getting rich, it's Disney.
Instead of Rose and Finn being double-crossed, it is the diehard Star Wars fans.
We were sold out.
The light side:
1. effects were what I expected
2. acting was decent (but not Oscar-winning performances we were promised)
3. score was decent (but definitely rehashes every theme in SW with nothing new)
4. Liked Rose a lot (she was a good foil for Finn making his character reconsider his actions)
5. liked that Finn went from running away to running toward the conflict at the end
6. loved Poe's development
7. "Flyboy" was not out of place as Leia called Han that in ANH
8. loved the ending (but some things could have been better)
9. loved the Force-bond between Kylo and Rey (and, no, I'm not a Reylo shipper)
10. loved the chemistry between Rey and Poe at the end
11. loved the last scene of Luke
The dark side:
1. The humor was over the top and entirely unnecessary in the Luke/Rey arc (even though I laughed at the "breathe," it ruined the mystique of the Jedi and the Force)
2. The dialogue was so clunky, worse than Leia's dialogue in TFA (and I didn't think any dialogue could be worse than that)
3. No actor direction. Very evident it was "visionary" direction, but not character.
4. The main plot: Luke throwing lightsaber over his shoulder?! His attitude "Get off my lawn"? That works for Hamill being fascetious. It doesn't work for this movie. Rey getting less than 18 hours of instruction? It shows her sleeping twice, but she shows up on Crait at the end. (Continuity issues-you need a calendar for the plot when you write!) The books just being for show and burn? The whole infinity mirror thing?
5. Finn/Rose subplot-it could have been removed entirely or shortened to making contact with the real MASTER CODEBREAKER and getting off planet fast. MASTER CODEBREAKER should have been Lando. DJ just shouldn't have been. Finn and Rose should have spent more time on the flag ship being chased by stormtroopers, not captured so easily. Cut the whole thing about the horse things and the stable kids (obviously a set up for Rian's upcoming trilogy-which I will not watch).
6. Poe/Leia subplot-loved Poe's humor, but the mother joke has to go. Mutiny should have been expanded and worked. Leia should have either died in space or piloted the cruiser on the suicide mission. AT-ATs and skimmers-yeah, should have been the speeders from Hoth. Should have been a fully engaged battle.
7. I knew we were getting Porgs on the island, but those nun-like creatures and the sea cows being harvested for blue milk? Really? Isn't one cute animal enough for the merchandising profits? OK, the crystal critters could stay, too. But the rest just had to go.
8. Space Leia. Enough said.
9. Admiral Holdo-artistically, she was strong and a great foil for Poe. It was evident that she and Leia could not been on screen together for a long time-too much wow there. However, even though Laura Dern was perfect in her part, why in the world did they go for another white female? (And I'm a white female, so don't say I'm being racist here.) How many of our strong female characters are white? Could she have not been black or Hispanic? Just scratching my head here.
10. BB-8 saves the day every single time? Really? tying up the guards playing Sabacc? shooting out gold coins? commandeering an AT-ST? How did he get in there? We were pandered to with all of those scenes.
11. The anti-white man slant here. It is one thing to include a variety of races and more females, but it should not have been at the expense of writing every white man as incompetent, loony, or weak. It just shouldn't have.
12. Snoke's death. What a waste of an amazing villain. Give him a backstory. Give us hints in VIII and full-on reveal in IX.
13. Hologram Luke (I knew immediately when he had the brown beard with Leia it was a projection). Why couldn't he have raised his X-Wing and joined the fight? Why couldn't he have faced down Kylo Ren for real? Even if Ren overcame him because he was old, it would have been a better way. Also, they could have left him injured (instead of Rose), so we all wonder if he will survive long in the next film. This was just the wrong way to do it. (I did like his peaceful death scene, though. Way to go on the full lotus, Hamill.)
14. The Slowest Space Chase in History. It was a waste of film. Plot holes galore. How about the First Order cripples the cruiser, they escape to Crait (which is an abandoned Imperial base), etc.? Spend time on Crait showing how they think they'll win. Give them enough technology to get an early tiny victory. Cheated on this. So cheated.
15. When the Flag Ship is hit, I really hated that black-and-white sequence. It was shoving it our faces that Rian Johnson was this visionary photographer. It jerked me out of the movie yet one more time. Stop trying to be so artsy and tell the story!
That's what made the original trilogy great-George specifically did not make Star Wars like the sci-fi of the 70s that spent long minutes photographing beautiful sets and locations and effects. He made a mistake with the prequels when he thought that we wanted those beautiful sets and locations and effects at the cost of the story. Rian, you made that fatal error, too. I was trying to identify where this film fits in my list of likes. 5, 6, 7, 4, 3, R1, 2, 1, 8
What's really sad is I thought this was going to the best Star Wars movie ever made with the mysticism back and the dark tones and tons of character development with a compelling plot. I'm crying right now as I realized how we've been cheated and lied to.
JJ, it's not too late. You can still change this around.
How to fix this:
1. Rey has to make mistakes, and those mistakes must hold dire consequences for her. Like Luke ignoring Yoda's warning and losing an arm and finding out the truth about his father when he wasn't ready for it. Like Luke ready to stand for the right at the end of ROJ, even if it meant painful death.
2. Rey has to be a person of importance. Kylo Ren's explanation does not coincide with the Force vision. Since 5 minutes earlier Snoke says he was manipulating both their minds, make it so that Snoke put this false information in both of those. Rey was waiting for her family to return in TFA. They left. We saw it. I don't care if she's Luke's kid he didn't know he had or Han's kid at this point, but Anakin's lightsaber calling to her proves she is Anakin's granddaughter.
3. You have to give motivation for Kylo Ren turning entirely evil and focused on destroying Luke Skywalker at the end. His motivation was finding Luke before, but not killing him. Killing started after he killed Snoke. Plagueis survives by the apprentice killing his host body and the spirit of Plagueis possessing the apprentice. That is the key. Don't mess this up.
4. Recast Leia for at least a few minutes in the beginning of the film. She has to tell Rey who she is or at least give her clues that lead Rey by the end of the film to find out who she is.
5. There is no way Luke decided to just kill Kylo Ren as a sleeping teenager. There had to be more of a motivation: Kylo threatening the love of Luke's life, or injuring her, or something. That would give proper motivation for Luke to exile himself.
6. No more Hasbro money pits. Just stick to the story. Leave out the furry creatures. Make Chewbacca ferocious again. A vegan he ain't.
For IX, I will be looking for spoilers, instead of avoiding them. If it doesn't have what I'm looking for (see the 5 points above), I'm not giving Disney another dime. End of story. You have one more shot in my book to get this right.