Spoilers follow.
I came to Star Wars late, in my mid-teens instead of the more usual pre-pubescent sort of phase. What can I say? Movies were only to be rented from a video shops and only one, in Mini Market, had a decent selection that wasn’t 90% camera prints of the year’s Indian releases. You had to know what to ask for, as well. Loved the original trilogy and spent a slightly embarrassing amount on memorabilia when I visited the US for the first time, which coincided with the rerelease of Star Wars. The new trilogy was nonsensical, of course, and I didn’t watch after the first. The new trilogy seemed a bit more promising. I genuinely enjoyed The Force Awakes, and liked The Last Jedi even though the plotting was a bit off, specifically the endless side trip to the casino, and the fact that Poe was seeming protected by plot armour from being kept in the brig or court martialed and shot. The third, which I watched last night, was very poor. I agree with nearly everything in this article, but for me the major flaws were, in no order:
- It felt like a checklist. Plot points and character development was literally ticked off by being described rather than actually unfolding.
- Zombie Leia. Creepy.
- Near constant lightsaber battles. Compare to the weight they had in the first trilogy.
- Kylo Ren’s redemption and silly flopping death.
- Daisy Ridley and her character. I don’t think she’s an especially good actress, and the character made no sense.
- The rejection of ‘the force can be in anyone’.
- Stupid jedi ghosts popping up all over the place, except for Han who was inexplicably just a ghost.
- No Rose — shameful.
- All the black characters with meaningful personalities (Finn, Lando, the new ex-storm trooper) obviously know each other and are paired up in some way.
- Ren’s moving to Tatooine at the end, to a homestead that seems in remarkably good shape, someone must have cleaned up the bodies I guess.
- All the deaths are fine as long as Ren doesn’t kill Palpatine. What sort of moral is that? Remaining personally morally pure is preferable to the deaths of thousands? Reminds me of Chauri Chaura.
- The starting crawl was really dumb, I could imagine Trump writing it.
- And basically everything in the article, but I’m bored with writing out the flaws which are innumerable.
Anyway, fortunately I wasn’t particularly committed to it – nothing above made me mad, just rolled my eyes.
Edited to add: the really bizarre treatment of C3PO which was one that actually astounded me as it was so thoughtless and morally bankrupt, plus the little abused droid. I guess it didn’t matter because nothing matters, really?