Andy

*SPOILER-FREE REVIEW* Personally, I am a big Star Wars fan. I quite liked this movie but I am giving this movie a 4/5 and here are my reasons. To begin, I absolutely did not like “The Last Jedi” and how Rian Johnson single-handedly ruined the Star Wars franchise in one movie... from plot holes, terrible dialogue, lack of character development, to disrespecting the foundations laid out by past movies, and even lashing back at the fandom when his movie did not get good reception. That being said, this new movie had some really great scenes and I could see JJ trying to fix the damage done by Rian Johnson. There is a lot more creativity being shown in this movie: the audience got to witness large-scale galactic battles on new worlds, meet new creatures in the galaxy far far away. There is much more attention to continuity whilst introducing new elements of the force, history or characters and really adding more emotions into the mix. It was amazing to see JJ taking the criticisms of the fandom and putting it into building his movie. Here are some examples: 1. We love seeing more leading female roles, but we don’t want a “Superman Rey” who has no struggles, no character and no development - eg. we wanted to see more of Rey’s journey and how she develops as a character - for the good or the bad (we definitely got it in this movie -trust me this is no spoiler) 2. We want surprises but don’t suddenly “game of thrones” the baddie like snoke in the last movie 3. Have meaningful scenes! It was good to see JJ offering explanations to random, out-of-place scenes from the last movie (fill in plot holes) The part that I didn’t like about the movie was that everything seemed quite rushed. It almost felt like JJ was trying to steer the ship around forcefully back into the right direction. So I don’t really blame him for that, I just wished we had more time to watch the story come to the final ending. Finally, I’d like to comment on some new ways the force was being used - with no spoilers of course!! Unlike the “flying Leia” scene from TLJ which came out of nowhere, the ways the force have been used in this movie are quite interesting. I know this will raise some controversy in the fandom, but I personally quite liked it. I don’t believe it contradicts anything that was introduced in previous films, but it is still new and quite amazing. I still believe this movie is worth watching. It has its own plot holes and maybe some awkward dialogue, but I see it as a redemption, and I’m happy that the saga ended like this. -Just a Casual Star Wars Enthusiast