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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Guest&nbsp; 85555" data-source="post: 8942064">This is very subjective so opinions will vary. For me, a lot of the choices just didn't work, particularly for a Star Wars film and particularly as a follow-up to The Force Awakens. Just as one example, the whole prank phone call at the start and turning Hux into a running gag, just didn't work (he was shaping up to be a ferocious villain in the first one and I think he could have been used better, plus that joke just broke the fourth wall for me). The scene in Force Awakens where Hux is giving the whole speech (and you are clearly seeing the parallels to WWII) worked well for me. It was a stand out moment, and I remember thinking this is a great villain to pair with Kylo because Ren was so much more conflicted (whereas Hux seemed even more in the grips of the dark side than him). It also was a nice bit of world building because it showed how the dark side could be this thing that still had relevance to non-Jedi and could even have social and political implications. So taking that terrifying moment and transforming its key figure into Buster Keaton, while I guess a successful attempt to subvert what came before, felt like it took away from the trilogy rather than added to it for me.But a lot of the film did work. It was beautifully made. Even though I hated the joke at the beginning of the film, the way those ships were presented visually, the way everything was presented reminded me almost of Kubrick (and Star Wars owes a lot to his visual design so that connection made sense in my mind). I also liked the Rose Tico character a lot. There was something absent in the chemistry of the three leads in 7 (which wouldn't normally matter but because the first trilogy was built around an ensemble, it really stood out). So finding that chemistry with Finn and Rose worked for me. And stuff like the red and white coloration on the planet in the final battle was great. But then there was stuff like Snoke Hefner, meta and message heavy dialogue like "Let the past die. Kill it if you have to. It's the only way to become who you were meant to be" (this would have worked if it were more subtle and less surface level in my opinion), etc. Was it a bad movie? I can't say it was. Was it a bad Star Wars movie? I think so. Was it a bad second part to a three part trilogy, absolutely.The overall pace and action of the film worked really well. I think of the two Directors, Johnson is clearly way better than Abrahms, but he would have been a lot better used either completely directing his own star wars trilogy (so it could be coherent) or giving him a new science fiction franchise to direct.I think another issue is Abrahms to Johnson to Abrahms is a really weird choice. I couldn't stand the new Star Trek movies because of how Abrahms directed them (I guess star trek is action adventure now?). But I could at least see how his approach would work for Star Wars. Johnson blew me away with Looper. He clearly can do intelligent, interesting social science fiction exceptionally well. I guess I found that style fits really oddly with a Star Wars movie. He should be doing things like directing screen adaptations of Brave New World or The End of Eternity not space opera. The latter actually would have worked really well I think in the hands of Johnson, especially since Asimov's topic would have lent itself much better to the themes Johnson was exploring),</blockquote>

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