Visually Thrilling. That's about it.

Rating: 5/10 (18 December 2017)

When this movie started, the audience was whooping and clapping. When it ended there were about 5 faint clappers. I think that sums up the audience's feelings for this movie.
The Pros:
Visually this is a masterpiece. The last fight sequence on the planet was beautifully choreographed to make use of the environment. The first space battle was great, even though the plot holes were irritating. Also, the Kylo and Rey fight against the royal guard was really cool. It was also nice to have a Star Wars that was not almost entirely parallel to it's predecessor. Not to mention, even though terribly executed in my opinion, it was nice to see that the screenwriters took chances on darker themes like Po throwing a coup d'tat that eventually fails, The Code-breaker turning on Fin and Rose, Po watching a bunch of his friends get blown up by Kylo Ren, and Rey learning her parents sold her off. Story wise this was refreshing. There were funny jokes too, as I'll point out later; too many.
.
The Cons:
Oh the cons. What probably makes this movie just so aggravating, is that everything I want out of a Star Wars movie is there in the story, but so terribly executed. Subtlety was tossed out the window, and now were watching Lea pull herself out of space and make a full recovery using the force like its nothing. WTF. I'm sorry, but that scene brought forth so much nerd rage, I couldn't control myself. Seriously though, expect a lot of lazy writing from now on that just has the force magically resolving things with absolutely no subtlety. Getting away from Lea destroying the force as a surreal entity; the Rose and Finn arc, besides the very beginning, was terrible and threw the pace of the entire movie off. If the entire trip to the "Las Vegas Planet" was taken out, this movie would definitely improve in terms of pacing. As I mentioned before the dark themes of the film were screwed up big time: Po watches all his friends get blown up, and he's barely phased at all. Milk those dark themes, let them play out, not everything has to be kid friendly. I have a lot o f more specific problems with the movie, like plot holes, but I'll leave that out because that might be too subjective.
Conclusion:
This was an amazing visual experience, but a terrible story ultimately makes this film no better than a "turn your brain off and enjoy" film. From a more observant view, one can also notice the re-branding Disney is attempting, since all the OG fans are grown up, they are trying to adapt the film to the kids of today who, apparently to Disney, like explosions over a good story. You can notice this in different ways. Of coarse most blantly, a meta-piece of the movie is about dumping the old ways and continuing with new: A theme that is developed well, but shows Disney has no intent of being careful with Star Wars otherwise perfect core. Also, you'll probably notice more subtle re-branding: Mocking "May the Force be With You" and propping up the phrase "God-speed rebels."