Michael Saltz

Maybe I am being a bit too jaded, or perhaps I expected better from Disney’s unlimited resources and JJ’s talent and fandom, but.... I rolled my eyes so many times while watching this movie that I became disorientingly dizzy. This movie has: Disjointed story telling. It’s as if Disney deliberately hired writers that had never seen any of the previous movies and that tried to destroy any continuity with anything that has occurred before. Cartoonishly unrealistic battle scenes and comic book superpowers. Soulless and meaningless character interaction. Characters simply were there to deliver corny pronouncements instead of engage in insightful or humanizing dialogue. A lot of the main character interactions are simply weird without explanation. And shouldn’t Rose be dead? If she didn’t die in the last one, then she will likely commit suicide after the way everyone in this one weirdly brushes her off - especially Finn. Jedis keep trying to leave their lightsabers everywhere while apparently becoming Marvel superheroes. The Millenium Falcon is now basically the space General Lee. Rae and Kylo can now physically transport to the other’s location through their Force DMs and they have the power to save each other... until they don’t. Stormtroopers speak as if they have pre-recorded messages like their theme park counterparts, and their armor seems to have gotten less protective over the years instead of more advanced. And, Battle Star Destroyers and Dreadnoughts. apparently now have a large and erect male sex organ that always hangs out from the bottom of the ship, and if you touch it, the whole thing explodes. Otherwise, visually stunning and the music of John Williams remains unsurpassed. Sadly, if this is what Disney is going to make out of this storyline, then I now understand why this movie is the last one.