Todd E. Sherman

Rian deposed by a true authority! NOT a critical film review here, but my five stars explained: * The unmistakable message JJ sent to Rian Johnson and Kathleen Kennedy that numerous story elements in The Last Jedi were a slap in the face to fans. Yes, you can do anything with characters in fiction and say it's just the story you wanted to tell. But you don't do it just to "subvert expectations" and avoid fan service. I am no longer skeptical about the validity of rumors that the original screening of Rise of Skywalker to a test audience yielded SUCH a low score that Bob Iger got involved in making changes. I have a feeling that a lot of The Last Jedi was not entirely Johnson' s doing, but also Kennedy's. She would never have allowed these recons in the Rise of Skywalker, as they undermined her creative decisions and political agenda. Thank you JJ and Bob Iger. * Display of interesting new Force powers. Cool stuff JJ! Rian Johnson WAS successful in this aspect too, with the Kylo / Rey Force connections. See? I'm not afraid to be intellectually honest about good things in Rian's movie (Tangent - I also loved the Snoke execution in Last Jedi, though it left JJ in a horrible writing position as the primary antagonist was killed off in the 2nd act of a trilogy series). * Making Rey the hero. Johnson and Kennedy's defense of The Last Jedi never addressed the poor writing and character treatment (even though valid constructive criticism was levied upon the film). Their public defense was that we are trolls who are intolerant of powerful women; intolerant of non-Caucasian races; intolerant of new ideas for the franchise. The fact of the matter is we love women, diversity, and new ideas; our problem was that 75% of The Last Jedi was poor plot and characterization. And the "critics" who lavished it with praise did so for political points, not creative reasons. Rise of Skywalker certainly has its share of plot issues, but the same critics will call JJ out on it and not Johnson, simply because JJ didn't succumb to making a plethora of political statements within his narrative. I think Daisy Ridley was awesome. Thank you Daisy and good luck in your career. Trolls ha! Constructive criticism it was. * Thank you JJ for the fan service. In a popular interview with Rian Johnson and Mark Hamill, Mark said you have to think about the fans when you make this movie; Rian said no, you have to think about the story. Well...not if it's a poorly crafted story Rian. The story is there to serve the fans. In his defense of the Last Jedi, Rian Johnson tried to make fan service a bad thing; however when you're making a movie that's part of a huge saga, it's critical to make one of the saga's central characters true to his known psychological self. Luke Skywalker's screen time was wasted on a bad creative choice. Kudos Mark Hamill for telling Johnson he was making an awful mistake on everything to do with Luke Skywalker's character. Shame on you Rian Johnson for giving a middle finger to the fans. Nobody ever forget that the fan rating of The Last Jedi is almost below 40%. And the critics' review of Rise of Skywalker will prove one thing out: they did not give the Last Jedi a 91% on good movie making skills; they gave it a 91% on sociopolitical elements that were shoehorned into Last Jedi (to the detriment of the narrative I might add). I am sure that whatever criticisms the media levy upon Rise of Skywalker are also prevalent in The Last Jedi. But we're not going to see the application of critical equality, because social justice elements don't overwhelm Rise of Skywalker. * Reylo. The best part of their story was that they could never bring themselves to kill each other. Love conquers all.

I love the fact that Vader chose to live on Mustafar. I never read the comics or books, so when I saw Krenic visit in Rogue One, I was blown away. Then to see more of Vader's castle in Kenobi was incredible: the way his window looking down over the lava fields is shaped like the view he would have from his mask; the way the view from Vader's throne room overlooks the exact place where he sustained his infirmaries at the hands of Obi-Wan; and most of all, the sign post at the spot of Vader's defeat where (if you zoom in) you can see a sign post that reads "Danger! High Ground".

Fun and witty. Jennifer Lopez and Owen Wilson earned laughs and sentiment throughout. These two seasoned pros delivered as one might expect. Sarah Silverman sucked the life out of every scene she is in, and this is the movie's main weakness. Unfortunately, her scene time is often enough, however brief, to send the audience into cringe-mode EVERY time. It's not her dialogue only; her comedic timing and delivery is amateur. Even when she is on-screen but not speaking, she is making some cringe-worthty expression in an attempt to add humor....but misses the mark 100% ofbthe time. Oh Jeanne Garofalo, where art though. It's too bad for Sarah; she used to have the comedic chops, but now she's simply dead weight.