It didn't have to be this way!

Rating: 1/10 (17 December 2017)

I went into the cinema totally unspoiled. I hadn't even watched the trailer. Now, I could easily turn this into a rant, based on the rating, you have probably figured out what my opinion is. But let me start with saying, there was so much potential, and I will cover what I mean by that further on. BEWARE OF SPOILERS.
I have to start with some main problems I have, and ease my heart a little bit. First of all, the movie is stressed. You can feel it in the delivery of the lines. The audience is not allowed the time to process what is being said, and the actors are not allowed the time to portray the emotion required to give a convincing and engaging impression. The movie is jumpy, meaning that you jump between different sets of characters (often as many as 3 different locations at a time) involving characters you literally met just 15 minutes ago. It feels rushed, and so it doesn't feel as if any creator's love was put into it.
Secondly, the whole movie - quite literally - is full of comic relief. From the initial scene even, the bad guys are ridiculed and the "hero" makes a clown of himself - totally destroying whatever feeling of imminent doom and overwhelming odds that was there just moment before. While some humorous jokes are needed, what is given here is mostly cheap. It continues throughout the entire movie and I frankly don't think there's any single character that isn't made a joke of at some point. Several occasions, it felt more as if I was watching Spaceballs rather than Star Wars. I'm not afraid of the First Order. for instance, as they feel like a bunch of incompetent clowns - now compare that to the evil, overwhelming superiority of the old school Galactic Empire!
There are more things to go with here, like killing the character who was the biggest source of speculation from the first movie, in practically his second scene. He was the one with potential, and they just rid themselves of him as if he was garbage.
Now to the things that had potential;
A lot of the Jedi training scenes are extremely well made. Like Rey exploring the Force, with the cut scenes that portray life, decay, emotions and so on.. That is a great scene, and probably surpasses anything the previous movies have done in exploring the Force from a jedi student perspective. They could have moved on with this, and made her growing into a role that just seems too large to shoulder feel immersive and realistic. Instead, I felt, they blew it with comic relief and rushed scenes. But the potential was there.
The connection between Rey and Kylo are a great opportunity, to create a setting where these two characters can be the bodily portrayal of light and dark, in a sad and in a way heartbreaking struggle between those two elements of the force, and I think the movie actually captures that very well. Its only a shame its a bit of a parenthesis in the rest of it all.
What they did to Luke's character was mostly a disaster, in my opinion. But there too there was potential. For the grim, bitter teacher who failed his students there could indeed have been a feeling of hopelessness about his character. And I feel that would actually have gone really well if his appearance towards the end of the movie would have been real, and his battle with Kylo, real. Because he could have embodied the hope of the Rebellion, something that is vaguely seen as they all look to him walk out the bunker. His sacrifice could have been worth something, and been a scene to truly be remembered as a great end to a great character. Instead, that too felt rather plastic in how dismissive he appeared about it all, and the fact that he wasn't actually there - instead being projected through the force in a way that just makes me ask; Why? He died anyway, why not make it real?
I would not entrust this director with another SW movie.