Reluctantly saw this the other night, as chaperone for next door's kid. He's small and cute and his mom's a nice lady who (very understandably!) didn't want him leaving the late show a naive boy and trekking through the city centre alone, only to return home a smack addicted career burglar with several illegitimate children, so you know.
I enjoyed it, tbh. The usual #woke #killallwhitepeople #jewsdid911 suspects in the media have concocted an absolute shit cauldron around this thing, so I was expecting my eyes to spend most of the show in the back of their sockets... but AZN Lena Dunham aside, I didn't notice much out of line with the spirit of the classic trilogy.
As a casual follower of the series at absolute best, I can understand why diehard fans of the OT would despise a few things here - particularly concerning Luke.
A fallen hero haunted by regret is one thing - turning into a moping pussy in need of a hard slap if not an outright beating is quite the other. Hamill absolutely sold every line and grimace, bless him, and his eventual return to the field was entirely convincing, but yeah... in series context, I can't buy the whole self-indulgent recluse act. I'm a self-indulgent recluse and believe me, OT Luke never had the toxic minerals to head down this shitty road.
This is TLJ's version of TFA's Starkiller base. We need to flip the board so it's beleaguered rebels VS evil empire again! Oh look - a super deathstar, that'll do. Now we need Luke to be a moping feral pussy ala Yoda, ah, he made a terrible mistake and abandoned his friends and family to whatever lay in store for them - that'll do. Cough. But I did love Hamill's performance. I thought Space Adam Lanza did really well too (now that is a damage case), and although she's a blunt instrument, Daisy Ridley was inoffensive opposite them. Which she was most of the film so okay.
Ignoring the original films, there's also the ongoing
chain of command fuckery with the Resistance. Poe/Finn/Rose's plan got a hell of a lot their comrades needlessly killed, which is bad, but almost forgivable with Admiral DangerHair at the top of the chain. Maybe I need to rewatch but I could swear she could've just kept them clued in? Or at least not so aggressively given the impression she didn't know WTF she was doing? Worse, there's no apparent personal blowback from the aforementioned catastrophe... ehhh, I'll let that go given how dire things were from then until to the end, I guess. I can only take this Warfare Lite stuff so seriously. Laura Dern was superb in her last moments, and that was some shmuppin as fuck space destruction. Authentic Gradius Endingsplosion.
Loved the brutal opening space battle.
When the Resistance bombers started going up in flames I thought "fucking hell that's a bit indulgent" and was glad to see it recognised as such by Leia. I hate it when legions of soldiers are getting mowed down and everyone's all hunky-dory, who cares, Main Characters are okay~.
I didn't mind
Snoke's starkly unceremonious end. He's an evil megalomaniac cunt, now he's dead, great. Shit happens! If anything I wish they'd not telegraphed it so obviously with the sabre moving just before.
Overall, pleasantly not horrified. Better than TFA if only for a much lesser sense of repeating past glories. If you are hardcore you may be justifiably annoyed at Luke's handling. Casuals may well forgive on account of Hamill's excellent old gunslinger performance.