I hit the wrong buttons!!
I accidentally deleted a post of yours Hop. Meant to "Quote" not "Modify" (which led to deleting it inadvertently). Anyway, I wanted to respond to your points one by one. Here they are.
1. Finn arc was shit. The Casino world, the Rose character was just too soft and dreamy for my liking. Rip all of their scenes out and you have a normal length movie that is much tighter. They would have been better off sending him off on some other errand, and letting his whereabouts tie into the next flick somehow.
Agree. Many critics have made that observation as well. Sub-plots and side-quests CAN work in a story, but they need to have some payoff. There was zero development, zero success, and zero impact on the main story with Finn and Rose. In turned into a Social Justice commentary, and reversed the politics of the military-industrial complex of prequels (the idea that the Clone Wars was between corporate war machines rather than governments). Honestly, I'd liked Rose up until that point. In fact, when Finn was making the suicide run against the Siege Cannon, it would have been epic if Rose bumped him away to take his place, and as she clutched her medallion saying "this is for you Paige!" (her sister the bomber). Obviously Vice Admiral Holdo's suicide run would've inspired Rose to do something similar, so it's not that much of stretch.
2. I was okay with Snoke dying, mostly because the build up of Kylo/Rey was just awesome. Really love Rey and I no longer hate Kylo after thinking him dreadful in the #1, i guess part of that was having snoke point out how much of a bitch he was with his stupid mask etc and then him responding by being tougher/taking his own step. I wish they would have a do-over on the first film and make a better version of it sans Starkiller Base and based entirely on trying to get the map to skywalker.
I'm convinced that The Last Jedi should have been adapted for Episode VII, and The Force Awakens adapted for Episode VIII. The stories work way better that way, because The Last Jedi utterly demolished everything that ever took place in Saga prior. The ending of The Last Jedi would've also worked leading into The Force Awakens... the Resistance is reduced to the Millennium Falcon more or less, and spends 2 years running around the galaxy (re)building from scratch so they can destroy Starkiller Base.
3. Luke was awesome. Just great. He plays it a little heavy at times but then thats the Luke I know from the original trilogy. The R2 reunite and "Help me obi-wan kenobi" bit was just fantastic nod to the classic trilogy. Really great all around and loved the dual sunset dematerialization!
Agreed. It's fairly clear he's going to be Force Ghosting in Episode IX. He will probably haunt and taunt Kylo into madness.
4. Starships were really boring. Hated the bombers. HATED the bombers and that entire scene. HATED the big guns on snoke's ship lobbing energy as if there is some sort of gravity in space to give them that sort of rise-and-fall arc. But whatever.
The physics of this trilogy are really weird. We all know this is science fiction and we can suspend disbelief, but at least with Episodes I-VI, gravity made sense. Something that has been bugging me since The Force Awakens is this particular aerial movement called the
Herbst maneuver, which requires drag, stalling, manipulating flaps, and vectoring thrust to produce a "J-turn" --- things starships quite frankly aren't capable of. Another way to describe the Herbst maneuver in terms of automobiles is "drifting."
5. I liked the admiral lady and how she handled the man-splaining. I thought the non-military dress for an admiral was weird though. but then leia is a general so whateva.
As a US Navy veteran... I'm really torn with how they handled that scene. (1) Yes, as a leader you need to assert your place in the chain of command, but (2) you also need to explain your course of action as the commanding officer in order to maintain good order and discipline, so (3) you can prevent dissent and preserve your integrity/authority. It just goes to show that the Resistance sucks at life. They didn't act like professionals. They acted like ideologues with guns. No wonder everyone is suicidal.
6. Just want to see more of Kylo and Rey now. The force is so much more interesting with these two, flawed, more interesting people. I really love Rey, don' t know why exactly but her character works fantastically with me. Sweet, hard working, determined, principled, unafraid, yet fragile, damaged, etc... just love her.
Definitely.
I dont know if im just overtired and have a lot of shit going on in my life but i almost teared up like 3 times watching this and was like WTF are you doing dude? hah!
Grow some balls wussy.
;-)
Anyway, first time I've come out of a movie thinkg "I just had FUN. That was FUN." The settings were really nicely done and some of that little kid in me came to life and lived inside the movie for a couple hours =)
Agreed. I genuinely enjoyed the movie DESPITE my critical eye. I think Rian Johnson will be out for Episode IX however. The Finn-Rose subplot was a huge creative risk, and it did not payoff. That sort of thing is on the director.
