Ok, so I finally went and saw Star Wars; Let's Play it Safe.
I will start off with the tldr; the entire movie is pretty much spoiled in the opening crawl.
So much potential and so disappointing. I could see Abrams wanting to take risks, but I could also see Darth Mickey saying, "There is no originality here, boy!"
So, let's start with my thoughts in the opening crawl and why I had such a problem with it.
Why the hell spoil Palpatine like that? It literally came out of left field. This was a missed opportunity throughout the entire trilogy; I watched TFA and TLJ right before going to watch RoS, and I saw no hints in any of the previous movies that he was the puppet-master. I just remember thinking "WTF?" as I read the crawl, and then I thought, "Oh, well that pretty much spoils the entire movie...Kylo Rey (spelling is intentional) is going to end up fighting him at the end after Kylo Ren has his turn from the dark side moment." It doesn't bother me that Palpatine lived, nor does it bother me that they don't explain how. What bothers me is that it seems that he was almost an after-thought.
I liked the sequence with Kylo Ren meeting Palpatine; I thought it was well done. However, I think it would have been more impactful later in the movie.
Chewbacca. This was them playing it safe. I had a brief moment where I hoped that he was actually dead; not because I dislike Chewie, but because I think it would have been both appropriate and emotionally impactful to have a major death like that. It took me all of about 2 minutes to realize that this would not be the case, that Abrams was too busy playing it safe and following the formula dictated by Darth Mickey.
Did anyone else see a second transport in the desert when Chewbacca was captured? Did I miss that?
I really liked Rey going to the ruins of the Death Star and entering the Emperor's throne room...nice call back to nostalgia there. That entire scene was, I think, one of the better moments in the movie.
What is it with the Force killing force users? Leia's death had absolutely no emotional impact. Like, at all!
I can't say I was surprised at the revelation of who Rey was.
The Knights of Ren. I was really hoping they would do more with them. But no, they were just a brooding menace (that really didn't feel very menacing) that did almost nothing until the end of the movie. And even then, it wasn't much.
The final battle. Good and bad here. Palpatine draining the life force from Kylo Rey was interesting, and it was a neat hint as to how he survived. The bad, though...
Why did Rey have to die after reflecting the force lightning back on Palpatine? Dammit...no wonder wielding the Force is so rare in the Star Wars universe; it kills whoever wields it! Ben Skywalker's death was no surprise; it is a consistent theme in the Star Wars universe that someone who turns to the Dark Side can return to the light with a great sacrifice. But I question the story creators at having him sacrifice himself the way that he did.
All said and told, it wasn't a terrible movie despite my negative comments. There were some genuinely fun moments; Poe being one of them. Sadly, though, the movie was just missing something.
A lot of people didn't like The Last Jedi, but it at least tried to push the boundaries and take risks. It had soul despite its flaws. This one fell flat...it just didn't have the soul of the previous two movies. I didn't feel it was an appropriate ending to the Skywalker series. It played it too safe.
