One theme that seems common on here is that nobody is really saying why they liked it or didn’t like it. As in, I’ve said I really liked it but I didn’t give any particular depth as to why. Likewise, most people seem to not like it ‘because it’s just so bad’.
I think this is somewhat evidence that how you go into this film will determine your view of it. I was excited to have a good time and I had one.
But, I will try and justify my thoughts as why the film was ‘good’ in a longer post later today. I’m also curious to hear more detailed explanations as why the film was ‘bad’ (without referring to the opinion of another).
Well for me I enjoyed it because other than the beginning which felt a bit rushed to set things up (I'm kind of hoping when it releases the deleted scenes might stretch this part out a bit) it felt like everything fit together nicely, the characters acted in ways that made sense to me and there weren't any bits that had me rolling my eyes over how they were trying to make some kind of social commentary (e.g. the fembot in Solo, or the Casino "rich people are evil" part of TLJ)... The "Marvel"-eque jokes were dialled back as well so I didn't find myself distracted by weirdly placed humour (e.g. the "Is that General Hux's mother?" or whatever it was in TLJ - it feels like Rian Johnson doesn't really "do" humour so they pulled in some Marvel writers to add a few jokes or something) and the humour really "felt" like Star Wars humour to me (maybe the "they fly now!" that people are latching onto in all the hate was a bit weak but it was part of a rapid action sequence so went by fairly quickly without time to hang/dwell on it) C3PO especially was perfect... The conclusion of the arc with Ben + Rey felt very satisfying and was brilliantly acted throughout the whole trilogy, particularly Adam Driver who really did such a great job... Since I had no idea the Emperor was going to show up I was immediately shocked by the mention of him in the crawl and then seeing him at the start, and I think the movie did a good job of linking things together...
There are a few bits that from a continuity/technical perspective I found myself thinking about afterwards and can pick apart a bit (and have seen people discuss most of online since):
* The "light speed skipping" - it was cool but it seems like the point of it would be to throw other ships off your trail because they can't be sure what distance you are going to travel with each "skip", and yet the TIEs seemed to be perfectly matching them anyway; I think maybe they could have made this better by having a much larger squadron of TIEs following and show more clearly that with each "skip" the amount of them that successfully followed was dropping (e.g. show some shots of TIEs emerging from a "skip" with no-one else in sight, and other shots that clearly show a before/after skip from a fixed angle where there are less TIEs remaining afterwards)
* How did Palps survive? Well indeed, moreover if we go that route how did so much of the shell of the Death Star survive and somehow fall into the Ocean on Endor? In ROTJ it blows up into virtually nothing. If Lucas could have had all the effects we have now maybe he'd have gone with the Death Star splitting apart and falling onto the planet, wiping out swathes of Ewoks under a huge Tsunami? (re-re-re-release anyone
) Ultimately I am happy to just accept it; it made for an interesting final act in the story that tied things together (and frankly any other main villain could never live up to Palpatine in this series)
* The ships all arriving at the end; my impression was that it wasn't
easy to get to the Sith Homeworld (even if you knew the way or could track someone) - I think I'd have preferred if the Final Order fleet had launched and headed towards the civilised part of the galaxy before meeting the Resistance fleet, or something like that; and do away with the "Radar" contrivance; just say this huge fleet is heading for a bunch of planets to start destroying everything (
not with a planet killing weapon, just by huge numbers of troops + ships) and have the massive Resistance fleet turn up like a blockade to hold them back from doing so
* The healing thing; I'm happy to accept it as George effectively set this up, in a way, in the prequels. My issue is just that with the big centipede/snake thing that Rey heals (and was effectively setting it up for us for later) I think perhaps she should have
failed to heal it; like she gives it a good go but can't do it - almost make it seem like it's an ability she has been trying to learn but hasn't quite got it yet (and then maybe when she manages to heal Kylo/Ben we could believe that she was being helped by Leia and finally cracked it)
* The Chewie fakeout; I agree with the idea that they ought to have let his "death" sit for a while longer before revealing he survived; and maybe show more clearly that multiple ships flew off with only one being destroyed and have the characters react more like "Oh no! They got Chewie and he might have been on that ship you just blew up!!!" Similarly they could have not mentioned the R2 backup of C3POs memory to give his sacrifice a bit more weight (i.e. he let them wipe his memory with no knowledge of a possible "undo") and allow R2 to come to the rescue more unexpectedly
For the most part though I don't think any of those things took away from the story and my enjoyment of it (certainly not at the time) - it's no different to parts of the OT or Prequels that I could pick apart and come up with ways they could have been done differently
