A new Star Wars happened, and opinions are released upon us like nibbling hounds demanding biscuits

[bastardofmelbourne]

-The power structure is just weird at this point, how the Republic apparently has no navy whatsover now, yet the First Order apparently has enough manpower to size control of the galaxy in a matter of weeks (I know the EU kinda explains this, but if your film needs to rely on external materials...) Also, if they do have such a large fleet, why can't they send another group of ships to intercept the Resistance from another angle?

The only explanation I've seen was that the Republic had actually abolished its military, which I find completely absurd given that they're maybe a few decades out from a galaxy-wide civil war and remnants of the Empire are still out there.

-The Canto Blight arc feels superfluous, or at the least, goes on far too long (seriously, what was the point of the horse stuff? And what was DJ's plan, if he could leave the cell at any time? Just wait for a client to be thrown in with him before he uses the key card?)

Agree with that 100%.

-Holdo has no reason to keep Poe in the dark. I get that it's part of Poe's arc (less trigger happy), but it's a case of character stupidity being used to drive the plot.

100%.

-The humour. Honestly, I was fine with it (I even liked the porgs), but I could get why someone would find it grating.

When a friend of mine made the same criticism - about how Star Wars films had never really been "funny" before - I was like "well, what about Jar Jar Binks? What about the droid soldiers? Or C-3PO and R2-D2? Or Yoda's senile-old-puppet act? Or the Ewoks?"

Star Wars has always had comic relief characters tagging along the protagonists to perform physical comedy and deliver one-liners. TLJ just cut out the middleman and had the protagonists deliver the one-liners personally.

-Subversion aside, the film feels weird structurally in the context of a trilogy. If anything, its ending kind of reminds me of Revenge of the Sith, of ending a trilogy, with the promise that in the next trilogy, things will get better. This could be lumped in with the subversion of Star Wars idea, but in terms of overall story structure...this film is kinda weird.

It does feel weird. Then again, Empire always felt weird once I thought about it, too.

There's other little things that bug me (e.g. Luke tells Rey that he has three lessons for her, but only gives her two - apparently the third was cut from the final version), but those are the main ones.

I can't decide if that was a deliberate anticlimax, or if they were trying to do a thing where the third lesson was actually for Luke and it was when Yoda showed up to lecture him about failure.

I was expecting Luke to be telepathically reaching out to Rey at the last minute to give her the third lesson. Or maybe the third lesson was, like, interstellar astral projection 101. Who knows? Maybe his force ghost might show up in the next film. That'd be neat, actually. A little more Mark Hamill to tide over the absence of Carrie Fisher.

 

[Saelune]

-The humour. Honestly, I was fine with it (I even liked the porgs), but I could get why someone would find it grating.

When a friend of mine made the same criticism - about how Star Wars films had never really been "funny" before - I was like "well, what about Jar Jar Binks? What about the droid soldiers? Or C-3PO and R2-D2? Or Yoda's senile-old-puppet act? Or the Ewoks?"

Star Wars has always had comic relief characters tagging along the protagonists to perform physical comedy and deliver one-liners. TLJ just cut out the middleman and had the protagonists deliver the one-liners personally.

Cant speak for anyone else, but my problem wasnt that it tried to be funny, hell I prefer bits of comedy in anything I watch. The problem was that it failed on actually being funny most of the time. Alot of the humor it had, did not feel like Star Wars humor. Like, what was up with that "its an evil ship or something, jk its a clothing iron" joke? That felt odd and out of place.

 

[Rangaman]

Okay, I'm gonna go a bit more in depth.

I've actually found myself comparing this film a lot more to Return of the Jedi than any other Star Wars film, because when taken as a whole I find it has the same high points: there are some awesome visuals, it goes interesting places (sometimes) and the emotional depth of the film is fantastic. By the same token it's brought down by the forced (geddit?) levity and filler content, both of which are painfully and obviously added in to pad the runtime and fulfill the studio's requirements.

Spoiler: More Specific Thoughts

Rose/Finn's Sidequest and Arcs: I'm gonna start off by saying that I don't hate Rose Tico. Watching her grow out of her sister's shadow into a confident soldier and pilot is a decent, if fairly run-of-the-mill character arc and there's nothing about her that made me want to punch someone.

On the other hand Canto Blight and that action sequence felt like George Lucas took over filming for a few weeks. It would've been much cooler to have Rose and Finn sneaking around Snoke's ship for the majority of the film, and could've lead to some awesome, tense scenes, better character development and a shorter runtime (or at least a less overstuffed film). What we got isn't enough to make me hate the film, but it's like when the Ewoks turned the Battle of Endor into a Charlie Chaplain film. Or when Han, Leia, Chewie and 3PO hid in a space worm until the "A" plot of Empire caught up. It's one of those moments that just made me question "why is this even in the movie?" and more worryingly "why am I watching this?"

But what's more annoying is Finn's arc. Finn goes from being afraid of the First Order to confident war hero. So much so that he's willing to sacrifice himself to save the Rebellion. But, instead of giving us a fitting ending to that arc, Rose comes in and saves the day, because Disney doesn't know if Rose is marketable to children/nerds yet, whereas Finn is a popular character of a love story only slightly more forced than the one in Jurassic World.

And what's annoying about this subplot in general is that the "A" plot about Luke, Rey and Kylo and the "C" plot (seeing as how the movie spends less time on this plot than any other) about Poe and Holdo's rivalry in the absence of Leia and their conflicting ideologies are far more interesting than terrible-looking space horses. Yet the movie keeps cutting back to Canto Blight. It doesn't ruin the film but it isn't great either.

Forced Levity: The humor (at times) felt a bit forced. Sometimes it's funny, other times it's just..."eh". Nothing ever reached Jar Jar levels of obnoxious (the Porgs, mercifully enough, have no impact on the story). I feel like the other films handled humor a bit better.

Though having said that, I'm aware the Star Wars is, primarily, made for "teh kidz" and shouldn't be self-serious. And I'll take "slightly forced but still mostly fun" over "joyless, pretentious prequel slogfest" thank you very much.

Leia Poppins: This scene was just super weird and awkward considering the fact Carrie Fisher was one of the many casualties of 2016. Watching Leia's corpse fly across the screen only to reanimate and fly back to the ship was deeply uncomfortable to watch, and it makes me wish Johnson had cut her from the film. Or have her killed off in a somewhat respectful manner.

The Good News: That's really all I didn't like about the film. Everything else was brilliantly well done. The writing, the visuals, the music...everything fulfilled my every expectation. Luke gets redeemed and is given a peaceful, respectful send-off (but come on, you know JJ is gonna stick Ghost Luke in the next movie), Puppet Yoda returned to be awesome for five minutes, I have yet to see someone say the Lightspeed Suicide Ramming wasn't awesome...when this movie is on a high, it's amazing.

On the whole, I liked more than The Force Awakens. TFA just did what Star Wars does well, and was a basically good movie for it. The Last Jedi is more experimental, and I like that. It doesn't always work, but when it does it's some of the best Star Wars has to offer. I hope JJ can stick the landing with Episode IX.

 

[twistedmic]

-The Canto Blight arc feels superfluous, or at the least, goes on far too long (seriously, what was the point of the horse stuff? And what was DJ's plan, if he could leave the cell at any time? Just wait for a client to be thrown in with him before he uses the key card?)

I got the impression he was (trying) to sleep off a hangover/drinking binge when Rose and Finn woke him up.

 

[bartholen_v1legacy]

The thing is, it brings up all those visual and narrative cues so that it can play with your expectations of how they turn out.

So you see the Emperor's cool-looking, red-clad bodyguards actually getting to fight instead of just standing there and looking imposing. The Emperor gets killed by his apprentice, but not because his apprentice seeks last-minute redemption, and the Emperor's death changes nothing rather than resulting in instant victory. The AT-ATs show up and the rebels have to get on old speeders to go fight them, but the sally fails, the AT-ATs are completely unharmed, and most of the speeder pilots die for no reason. Puppet Yoda shows up and surprises Luke with a lecture on the positive aspects of failure, a bit of a contrast to his earlier "do or do not, there is no try." Rey visits a place strong in the Dark Side, but rather than getting some grand and terrible revelation like Luke did in Empire, she simply sees her reflection. She tries to redeem Kylo Ren, but he decides to stick with being evil. The rag-tag team of misfits infiltrate the enemy base, but fail, get caught, and make the situation much worse. The Millennium Falcon comes in and shoots up some TIE fighters, but that achieves basically nothing overall - the Resistance guys are still basically doomed when the laser-ram fires - and the eventual rescue later on would've been impossible if the survivors inside hadn't decided to try and escape on their own. And Luke dies, but not passively like Yoda did - he dies after taking action, re-living Obi-Wan's last stand in an unexpected way. (Seriously, in the lead-up to that my friend was like "ugh, they're doing Obi-Wan," and then when they didn't, he went "oh.")

The Leia recording and C-3PO, I got nothing. I don't know why C-3PO is in this movie. But Luke does call out R2-D2 for shameless exploiting his nostalgia. Overall, the film was working very hard to screw around with all your expectations as to how the film was going to turn out, and it largely succeeded.

It succeeded a little too much in my mind, because while having the characters waste a whole bunch of the audience's time on a casino planet for no reward may be very effective at deconstructing the success rate of the average just-crazy-enough-to-work plan, it does still waste a lot of the audience's time.

The problem is that by the time I saw the film I already knew all the big spoilers (Luke and Snoke die, Rey's parents aren't special), as well as had heard it to be "different" in some way. And honestly I didn't care, since I don't go to Star Wars movies to see plot twists on par with the Red Wedding or The Sixth Sense. So I don't think it was unreasonable to expect to see something actually different, and I basically had no expectations whatsoever for how the story was going to go. So suffice to say I was quite disappointed to get yet another movie with Jedi training in the middle of buttfuck-nowhere, another battle with AT-ATs on a bright white planet, another scene in a throne room with red guards where the main villain shows the protagonist her friends are on the ropes etc. The outcomes or reasons behind them may have been different, but we don't get to see how those even pay off until a year from now. Which I frankly don't have high hopes for, considering how many plot points and characters from TFA this movie completely disregarded.

We also seem to have different standards for playing with audience expectations and narrative deconstruction. Because I don't think "do the exact same thing as before, but change the ending" counts as "deconstruction". Neither is an offhanded line about rich people playing both ends bringing shades of moral grey into the franchise. And having a 30-minutes long, utterly pointless sidequest that doesn't affect the narrative in any way is definitely not subversion, it's just bad writing. Getting to see the red guards fight, or any other plot points you mentioned for that matter, could only be "subverting expectations" to someone if they expected TLJ to be a carbon copy of "Empire" to the same degree The Force Awakens was of A New Hope. So IMO calling TLJ "deconstructive" or "subversive" in any way is a pretty tall order.

 

[Jamcie Kerbizz]

-The humour. Honestly, I was fine with it (I even liked the porgs), but I could get why someone would find it grating.

When a friend of mine made the same criticism - about how Star Wars films had never really been "funny" before - I was like "well, what about Jar Jar Binks? What about the droid soldiers? Or C-3PO and R2-D2? Or Yoda's senile-old-puppet act? Or the Ewoks?"

Star Wars has always had comic relief characters tagging along the protagonists to perform physical comedy and deliver one-liners. TLJ just cut out the middleman and had the protagonists deliver the one-liners personally.

Cant speak for anyone else, but my problem wasnt that it tried to be funny, hell I prefer bits of comedy in anything I watch. The problem was that it failed on actually being funny most of the time. Alot of the humor it had, did not feel like Star Wars humor. Like, what was up with that "its an evil ship or something, jk its a clothing iron" joke? That felt odd and out of place.

In regards to humour my biggest gripe is complete disregard to pacing and 'tones'/emotions. It's like in one scene they try so sooooo hard to depict melodramatic, sacrifice scene to the point they imo go overboard with pathos. Next scene. Space equivalent of fart jokes. Like wtf?
Director and script writer must have snorted cocaine out of eachother buttholes while procuring this, ie. they created twisted bond in which to them these irrational mood swings felt juuuuust riiiiight. Not so much to normal people.

Next thing is what you mention. Most of this humour feels like created by people who feel disdain for 'geeks and nerds' and all they find dear to them, so 'jokes' are overflowing with thinly veiled resentment to the fact it's ok now to like such things openly. End result: this humour was directed at and actually funny to people that loath Star Wars or just don't care and enjoy lowbrow sense of humour but completely lost on actual Star Wars fans who loved this sci-fi universum.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

I wasn't big on some of the humor either (but the fish maids were brilliant, fite me), but just because humor didn't land for you doesn't make it an attack on Star Wars fans, sheesh.

 

[Jamcie Kerbizz]

I wasn't big on some of the humor either (but the fish maids were brilliant, fite me), but just because humor didn't land for you doesn't make it an attack on Star Wars fans, sheesh.

Don't be so defensive about the criticism. It's not the 'attack' it's type of humour used. I said it resonated well with a large audience but it was at the expense of SW not humour within SW. Type of humour that is just 'not funny' if you actually care for SW.
Fish nuns were ripped right out of Monty Python. Absurd, funny but not really original and imo out of place in SW (though yeah, funny).

You don't need to grab that criticism and kindap into insanity of being attacked, taking offense, edge lords, triggering and snowflakes territory. Making fun out of geeks and nerds isn't an attack. Not liking them isn't a crime.

 

[Neverhoodian]

I wasn't big on some of the humor either (but the fish maids were brilliant, fite me), but just because humor didn't land for you doesn't make it an attack on Star Wars fans, sheesh.

Don't be so defensive about the criticism. It's not the 'attack' it's type of humour used. I said it resonated well with a large audience but it was at the expense of SW not humour within SW. Type of humour that is just 'not funny' if you actually care for SW.
Fish nuns were ripped right out of Monty Python. Absurd, funny but not really original and imo out of place in SW (though yeah, funny).

How is it any more "out of place in Star Wars" than what we've seen before?

Spoiler: Pictured: part of Star Wars

​

Then there's the "Legends" continuity, which I'll remind you was considered canonical prior to the Disney buyout:

Spoiler: Formerly part of Star Wars

And that's not even getting into the plethora of spoofs and parodies out there, some of which involved Mr. Lucas himself (apparently he's a fan of that kind of stuff).

The point I'm trying to make is that Star Wars has poked fun at itself on many occasions prior to TLJ. People who say otherwise are suffering from a bad case of nostalgia goggles.

 

[Chimpzy_v1legacy]

but the fish maids were brilliant, fite me

Why would I? They kind of remind me of Cthulhu Mythos Deep Ones, but they're also nuns, which immediately called to mind images of Jedi Pope Francis fighting a Shoggoth with his lightsaber papal ferula. ... don't ask.

 

[maninahat]

I liked it. It's a movie with lots of niggling, weird things that weren't executed as well as they could have been (Superleia, Rose's final act twist, the stupid Marvel quipping). I think a lot of the criticisms are really stupid however (like moaning about force powers, or Luke being a failure).

 

[Jamcie Kerbizz]

I wasn't big on some of the humor either (but the fish maids were brilliant, fite me), but just because humor didn't land for you doesn't make it an attack on Star Wars fans, sheesh.

Don't be so defensive about the criticism. It's not the 'attack' it's type of humour used. I said it resonated well with a large audience but it was at the expense of SW not humour within SW. Type of humour that is just 'not funny' if you actually care for SW.
Fish nuns were ripped right out of Monty Python. Absurd, funny but not really original and imo out of place in SW (though yeah, funny).

How is it any more "out of place in Star Wars" than what we've seen before?

Spoiler: Pictured: part of Star Wars

​

Spoiler

Then there's the "Legends" continuity, which I'll remind you was considered canonical prior to the Disney buyout:

Spoiler: Formerly part of Star Wars

And that's not even getting into the plethora of spoofs and parodies out there, some of which involved Mr. Lucas himself (apparently he's a fan of that kind of stuff).

The point I'm trying to make is that Star Wars has poked fun at itself on many occasions prior to TLJ. People who say otherwise are suffering from a bad case of nostalgia goggles.

You have there 'an error', Yoda pretending to be a madmen to test Luke, R2 collapsing and Ewoks. It's all part of humour in SW I talked about. Even JJ knew how to do that in TFA. Then you have the parody of SW. There's nothing out of place with that. SW is so quirky itself it's pretty easy to make parody of it and since it became part of pop-culture a lot of artist did that and good.

However, unless Disney comes out and says: surprise we were making a parody trilogy of SW in the loving memory of Space Balls, then we'll make actual trilogy that will continue previous 2 trilogies of SW, you have no point. I actually would love them to do just that...

It's the entire premise I mention. Creating SW, as if that were SW parody but telling every fan 'this is your SW now, deal with it, it's always been just a dumb eat-popcorn-suspend-belief movie anyway'. It oozes with contepmt to SW or complete lack of understanding why people loved original content.

 

[Jamcie Kerbizz]

I liked it. It's a movie with lots of niggling, weird things that weren't executed as well as they could have been (Superleia, Rose's final act twist, the stupid Marvel quipping). I think a lot of the criticisms are really stupid however (like moaning about force powers, or Luke being a failure).

Nobody makes this kind of criticism.

Luke has been 'a failure' to begin with and he had a life journey out of being a whiny redneck. Complaint is, that he was poorly re-written back to 'being a failure' point, just to make way for new characters. Motivation being outlandish and inconsistent with character development, character regress non-explained. All virtue of character willing to sacrifice himself for friends and lose a limb in the process, sacrifice himself again just to have a shot at redeeming his murderous, sadistic father etc. all of that written off for no aparent reason.

It reeks of either poorly written fanfiction where author tries to deal with his personal demons or just really shitty, lazy writting, where producers told to make way for 'new merchandise' and it has been done with a hatchet in the most crude 'who gives the f-k' way.
To be frank, if that hermit ex-Jedi, that cut himself off from the force, living in middle of nunsville, was not Luke, this actually wouldn't be a bad character, because there would be free reign on shaping his past and character development.

The other large complaint is not about 'force powers' themselves but their inflation and casual use and inconsistency. That use to be a mixed bag in EU but somehow is now part of the core, just to serve as a get-out-of-jail card when they write so many plot holes everything starts falling apart. People use to love displays of 'the force' in the movies in key moments but it degenerated to It's the force ok? Force can do anything, ok? Now stf-up and eat your pop-corn you nerd. sort of thing.

That's what doesn't feel right to SW fans which you casually mirepresent and try to depreciate its validity as 'being stupid criticisms', yet don't provide any arguments to support that claim.

 

[maninahat]

I liked it. It's a movie with lots of niggling, weird things that weren't executed as well as they could have been (Superleia, Rose's final act twist, the stupid Marvel quipping). I think a lot of the criticisms are really stupid however (like moaning about force powers, or Luke being a failure).

Nobody makes this kind of criticism. [proceeds to make that kind of criticism] Luke has been 'a failure' to begin with and he had a life journey out of being a whiny redneck. Complaint is, that he was poorly re-written back to 'being a failure' point, just to make way for new characters. Motivation being outlandish and inconsistent with character development, character regress non-explained. All virtue of character willing to sacrifice himself for friends and lose a limb in the process, sacrifice himself again just to have a shot at redeeming his murderous, sadistic father etc. all of that written off for no aparent reason.

The Last Jedi makes most of Rey's arc on the island about trying to figure out how Luke has become this no-hoper sourpuss - they explain it in a lot of detail; about how his temple got wrecked, his students killed, and how he became instrumental in turning his nephew into the new Darth Vader during a brief moment of desperation. He realised he was a crap teacher who wasn't immune to dark thoughts, and who messed up his one big opportunity to bring back the Jedi. That's why he's undergone such a transition over the last couple of decades. And also it sets up his sacrifice at the end, redeeming himself.

The other large complaint is not about 'force powers' themselves but their inflation and casual use and inconsistency. That use to be a mixed bag in EU but somehow is now part of the core, just to serve as a get-out-of-jail card when they write so many plot holes everything starts falling apart. People use to love displays of 'the force' in the movies in key moments but it degenerated to It's the force ok? Force can do anything, ok? Now stf-up and eat your pop-corn you nerd. sort of thing.

That's what doesn't feel right to SW fans which you casually mirepresent and try to depreciate its validity as 'being stupid criticisms', yet don't provide any arguments to support that claim.

New Jedi powers has always been an ad hoc thing in Star Wars, for the purpose of a magical get-out-of-jail free card. the whole "Force can make shit fly" was bullshit invented by Empire Strikes Back, as was the "stop lasers with hand" move, the "see ghost versions of dead jedi" trick, the "super jump", the "force visions", and the "make long distance calls". Jedi ups it with goddamn electricity hands. The force is a vague collection of magic tricks that the writers give Jedi, deus ex machina style, whenever they feel like it. Those SW fans are somehow pretending they didn't watch it happen in all those other perfect movies, only to get mad when it crops up this time around.

 

[Jamcie Kerbizz]

I liked it. It's a movie with lots of niggling, weird things that weren't executed as well as they could have been (Superleia, Rose's final act twist, the stupid Marvel quipping). I think a lot of the criticisms are really stupid however (like moaning about force powers, or Luke being a failure).

Nobody makes this kind of criticism. [proceeds to make that kind of criticism] Luke has been 'a failure' to begin with and he had a life journey out of being a whiny redneck. Complaint is, that he was poorly re-written back to 'being a failure' point, just to make way for new characters. Motivation being outlandish and inconsistent with character development, character regress non-explained. All virtue of character willing to sacrifice himself for friends and lose a limb in the process, sacrifice himself again just to have a shot at redeeming his murderous, sadistic father etc. all of that written off for no aparent reason.

The Last Jedi makes most of Rey's arc on the island about trying to figure out how Luke has become this no-hoper sourpuss - they explain it in a lot of detail; about how his temple got wrecked, his students killed, and how he became instrumental in turning his nephew into the new Darth Vader during a brief moment of desperation. He realised he was a crap teacher who wasn't immune to dark thoughts, and who messed up his one big opportunity to bring back the Jedi. That's why he's undergone such a transition over the last couple of decades. And also it sets up his sacrifice at the end, redeeming himself.

The other large complaint is not about 'force powers' themselves but their inflation and casual use and inconsistency. That use to be a mixed bag in EU but somehow is now part of the core, just to serve as a get-out-of-jail card when they write so many plot holes everything starts falling apart. People use to love displays of 'the force' in the movies in key moments but it degenerated to It's the force ok? Force can do anything, ok? Now stf-up and eat your pop-corn you nerd. sort of thing.

That's what doesn't feel right to SW fans which you casually mirepresent and try to depreciate its validity as 'being stupid criticisms', yet don't provide any arguments to support that claim.

New Jedi powers has always been an ad hoc thing in Star Wars, for the purpose of a magical get-out-of-jail free card. the whole "Force can make shit fly" was bullshit invented by Empire Strikes Back, as was the "stop lasers with hand" move, the "see ghost versions of dead jedi" trick, the "super jump", the "force visions", and the "make long distance calls". Jedi ups it with goddamn electricity hands. The force is a vague collection of magic tricks that the writers give Jedi, deus ex machina style, whenever they feel like it. Those SW fans are somehow pretending they didn't watch it happen in all those other perfect movies, only to get mad when it crops up this time around.

You confuse insertation with explanation. They made up 'I forsaw dark future and decided for a moment to kill my twin sister's son over it' and reapeated it few times like washing powder commercial trying to make it stick. It doesn't though, because it is contradicting to his past character development and his decision and deeds in far more grim circumstances.
This is why, if that were a new character this whole arc could have been salvaged and play out well. Dropping Luke into it is just pretentiously dumb (Oh look mom! I re-wrote Luke!) or unimaginatively devisive, done for practical reasons (understandable but still petty).

Yes, as I mentioned 'inflation' was a thing before and yes, it was used in key moments before and it were celebrated. The difference here is it becomes effortlessly casual ie. can't be arsed to pick up my broom and self spiteful ie. force is not for lifting rocks - protagonist lifts rocks to save the day, we need to kill Ackbar but Leia should live - princess gets dragged back into the ship in grotesque statue pose by the force... JJ showed off and added to that 'inflation' ie. laser bolt frozen mid-flight, protagonist playing with her victim while performing mind-trick but this time it was just tasteless cringe. Even Snoke's skype calls, mind rape and toying with protagonist or Luke blowing up a hut and ripping off Matrix some people liked I found rather out of place. Entriety felt forced or mockingly used with obligatory See I am now using this dumb force to patch up this plot hole, see how idiotic it is?, which maybe made director all feel good and smart about himself but just wasn't what fans wanted to see SW depicted as.

 

[Callate]

And there it is. So it wouldn't be a problem "in the current Zeitgeist" if the character was Ray and male? And suddenly we're back to it being a problem because of gender, and not because of how the character was written.

I think what others have been trying to say is this: It would still be a problem; it just would be a problem without cover to prevent it from being addressed and possibly corrected. Right now there's more than one article circulating the Internet forwarding the premise that anyone with a problem with Rey as presented (and in some cases, the greater movie) must be a misogynist, with zero regard for what they might actually say or the arguments they might make.

"Girl power, yay!" is a perfectly fine sentiment to have, but it shouldn't be mistaken for a serious analysis or an argument, much less the argument that should be allowed to shout all others down.

 

[Spade Lead]

There's a lot of anger and negativity surrounding this movie so I'm gonna go ahead and assume I'm gonna like it a lot.

I watched all 8 Star Wars movies in one sitting, straight through, after this movie, and yes, Episode 8 made 7 much more enjoyable, and yes, Rey's Mary-Sue tendencies are overwritten by the fact that she blatantly and literally is shown in the film to be drawn to the dark side with no hesitation or qualms. I just hope she doesn't end up being some grey jedi stain on the franchise, because "I can use dark side powers without succumbing to the dark side" is bullshit writing.

 

[Spade Lead]

Spoiler

What an odd movie.

Spoiler

I feel bad for Abrams. I'm far from the biggest fan of TFA, but it's gotta burn to be called back in after another director has deliberately subverted and dismantled 95% percent of the set-up you established in the film prior. But then again, fuck Abrams for trying to pass the buck with all his "The next two movies will explain it..." horseshit. None of the "mystery boxes" he set up had compelling explanations, so can people cop to some of TFA's weak writing now?


Also, Emperor throne room battle, I'mma let you finish, but Holdo's warp kamikaze was the greatest Star Wars kill of ALL TIME. Seriously. Coolest kill of the property.

The problem is that Holdo's move breaks Star Wars combat forever. One ship took out an entire fleet. They now have to explain why no one has ever done this before and will never do it again

 

[Spade Lead]

no plots or character development is really moved forward in any meaningful fashion in this movie

It is totally fine to not like the movie, but you don't need to exaggerate/lie about what it does. If there's one thing TLJ does, it is provide character development. All of the four new main cast (Rey, Finn, Poe, Kylo) get a clear arc in this movie and resolve it neatly with some character growth:

Rey: Learns that her heritage is unimportant and stops trying to find surrogate parents to cling to.
Finn: Gets to see the logical end point of his "I don't want to get involved"-stance and realizes he does not want to become like DJ, thus galvanizing him to take a stand against the First Order.
Poe: Has to face the realization that winning the battle is not winning the war and has to come to terms with following orders and trusting others to do what's right, instead of rushing off to do his own thing.
Kylo: Stops trying to mimic Vader, realizes that Snoke is manipulating him and resolves to reshape the galaxy to his own ideals.

Whether these arcs and plots are any good can be discussed, but they are undoubtedly there.

Kylo became the hero of the new trilogy because he proved he is the only one with character development and a mind of his own, Poe learned that the Empire was right all along, shut up and do as you are told, even if what you are told wastes a tactical advantage that ends up being a major plot point that you were right and the entire resistance would be dead without your "Pointless Sacrifice" of a few bombers that would have been in a hangar that was destroyed less than 15 minutes later anyway, and Finn goes from being... A guy who willingly and eagerly slaughters his former allies and possibly even friends to a guy who... Attacks the people he used to work with and for because they are evil, even though they are all brainwashed and unable to see that what they are doing is wrong, thus making him a brutal murderer of innocents who have no control over their own actions.

Yeah, this movie is way better than Episode 7, but in the same way that my shit that smells kind of like a Triple Whopper is way better than a diarrhea shit that smells awful.