12-20-2017, 08:34 PM
Lots of variant opinions on this movie, here's what I think about it.
Spoilers below so be careful!
![[Image: which-spoiler-are-you.png]](https://d5htvn7530ipt.cloudfront.net/netflix/spoilers/8/images/og/which-spoiler-are-you.png)
First of all, I liked the film. It was certainly not the best Star Wars movie, but people that complained that The Force Awakened was playing it too safe will get more than they bargained for in this one. While there are parallels between this and Empire Strikes Back, they are not so obvious as to make this a re-hash of the movie. Pacing was decent, cinematography was great, especially the scene with the rebel cruiser light-speed-jumping through the First Order fleet - that moment was absolutely fantastic.
Also: Puppet Yoda. No CGI prequel Yoda, but the Yoda that was immediately recognizable as Empire-Strikes-Back-Yoda. Thank fuck for that.
While I thought the scene should have been cut, I liked the visuals on the final battle on Crait. The reddish tone of the salt layer under the white sand made it look like blood, and made the place were the blasters hit or the speeders drove by look like streaks of blood. I thought that was really cool.
So, what did I not like?
1. The Finn/Rose plotline doesn't do anything
Finn and Rose' plotline ultimately failed and, even worse, lead nowhere. They just stumbled around for a while and then the problem itself was resolved otherwise. It feels like the whole thing was inserted to give Finn something to do, and ultimately that failed. Yoda's message of "We learn most from our failures" doesn't apply here.
2. The Kylo Ren/Rey dynamic
While I like both as individual characters, their common plotline really didn't convince me. At no point did I find it credible for Kylo Ren to expect that Rey would switch sides to him. In Empire, Vader had at least the "I am your father" argument, and in Return of the Jedi, the emperor tried to make Luke angry enough to show him the power of the dark side. But Kylo Ren's argument was simply "your parents are trash and you are nobody". Which, considering she has friends, is pretty weak sauce.
3. The movie's length
The movie was too long. 152 minutes. The whole of the Hoth-rehash-scene at the end should have been cut. It did only serve one purpose, namely to set up the Luke/Kylo Ren encounter, and as such was just not worth it. Not that I was bored... it was just that it felt like a tacked-on episode.
4. Mary Poppins Leia
5. Some of the jokes were out of place
While I laughed hard at the way that Poe humiliated General Hux, it didn't really make a lot of sense. The caretakers on the ruins almost getting hit by the rock was also typical Disney stuff. Can be easily forgiven though.
6. Snoke's death
Mostly how it was presented. "Now he is turning his light saber towards you... Now he will activated it and kill his real enemy". Come on, that was... dumb. Unless of course he expected that, and it wasn't really him. But I have a feeling that Snoke's gone. That leaves Kylo Ren as the leader of the First Order, a teenager with anger management issues. General Hux will have to do a lot of moderating, which already becomes apparent when he stops them from wasting more shots at Luke.
These are my major gripes. There are a few minors, but overall, I can live with those.
Spoilers below so be careful!
First of all, I liked the film. It was certainly not the best Star Wars movie, but people that complained that The Force Awakened was playing it too safe will get more than they bargained for in this one. While there are parallels between this and Empire Strikes Back, they are not so obvious as to make this a re-hash of the movie. Pacing was decent, cinematography was great, especially the scene with the rebel cruiser light-speed-jumping through the First Order fleet - that moment was absolutely fantastic.
Also: Puppet Yoda. No CGI prequel Yoda, but the Yoda that was immediately recognizable as Empire-Strikes-Back-Yoda. Thank fuck for that.
While I thought the scene should have been cut, I liked the visuals on the final battle on Crait. The reddish tone of the salt layer under the white sand made it look like blood, and made the place were the blasters hit or the speeders drove by look like streaks of blood. I thought that was really cool.
So, what did I not like?
1. The Finn/Rose plotline doesn't do anything
Finn and Rose' plotline ultimately failed and, even worse, lead nowhere. They just stumbled around for a while and then the problem itself was resolved otherwise. It feels like the whole thing was inserted to give Finn something to do, and ultimately that failed. Yoda's message of "We learn most from our failures" doesn't apply here.
2. The Kylo Ren/Rey dynamic
While I like both as individual characters, their common plotline really didn't convince me. At no point did I find it credible for Kylo Ren to expect that Rey would switch sides to him. In Empire, Vader had at least the "I am your father" argument, and in Return of the Jedi, the emperor tried to make Luke angry enough to show him the power of the dark side. But Kylo Ren's argument was simply "your parents are trash and you are nobody". Which, considering she has friends, is pretty weak sauce.
3. The movie's length
The movie was too long. 152 minutes. The whole of the Hoth-rehash-scene at the end should have been cut. It did only serve one purpose, namely to set up the Luke/Kylo Ren encounter, and as such was just not worth it. Not that I was bored... it was just that it felt like a tacked-on episode.
4. Mary Poppins Leia
5. Some of the jokes were out of place
While I laughed hard at the way that Poe humiliated General Hux, it didn't really make a lot of sense. The caretakers on the ruins almost getting hit by the rock was also typical Disney stuff. Can be easily forgiven though.
6. Snoke's death
Mostly how it was presented. "Now he is turning his light saber towards you... Now he will activated it and kill his real enemy". Come on, that was... dumb. Unless of course he expected that, and it wasn't really him. But I have a feeling that Snoke's gone. That leaves Kylo Ren as the leader of the First Order, a teenager with anger management issues. General Hux will have to do a lot of moderating, which already becomes apparent when he stops them from wasting more shots at Luke.
These are my major gripes. There are a few minors, but overall, I can live with those.