Haven't caught up in the thread completely yet, so I apologize if I'm restating some points others have already made.
So many thoughts. In a nutshell, I think the movie was as good as it could have been with the poor setup of TFA and the abysmal efforts by RJ to monkey-wrench everything JJ did in TFA. I actually enjoyed it, because I was approaching it from a place of pure detachment after TLJ. And it allowed me to go forward not hating Star Wars, which after TLJ, I had accepted as the likely outcome of the ST.
Some specific thoughts during the movie:
Wow, so no dramatic reveal halfway through that the Emperor is back. They just put it in the first couple lines of the crawl, huh? Ok... And the crawl indicates that Kylo knew nothing beforehand and is looking to quash the Emperor? Ok, that is interesting.
Opening scene with Kylo was a great scene.
Luke's introduction in the ST was initially to show him on the island meditating with floating rocks all around him in order to convey his immense power in the Force after so many years as a Jedi. We already know that Rian decided to toss that out in favor of making Luke a Force-rejecting old grump, and they gave this intro to Rey in RoS, because Mary Sue.
The compressed timeline of events in order to force a sense of urgency was weird. "Palpatine is back. He's gonna destroy the galaxy in 16 hours." Wow, ok.
Every Star Destroyer has a planet-killing cannon? JJ really likes blowing up planets. Like, REALLY likes it.
Rey's Force healing doesn't seem as taxing as Baby Yoda's.
Hey, there's Rose. She's not too annoying here. The acting is more subdued. Good. Hope people are nice to her. I hated her character in TLJ, but actually wouldn't have minded more of her if she could have kept it toned down like this throughout.
Cheap trick w/ Chewie's supposed death. Not cool. If you lie to a relative and tell them that their brother died, but later say you were just joking, do you REALLY think their happiness will outweigh how pissed they are because you manipulated their emotions in the first place? Of course not, but hey, give it a go JJ. Maybe audiences will love you teasing Chewie's death.
The lightsaber duel from two places made no sense, but was cool.
Wow, the pacing is fast. This feels like four movies crammed into one. Discussions/decisions that should take hours or days take place in a few seconds, and then they're off! No chance for the story to breathe.
They still have the same person styling Harrison Ford's awful hair as in TFA, or a different person tried really hard (and succeeded) in matching its awfulness.
Han Solo never became a Force ghost, so while the scene with him and Kylo was cool and cathartic, if Kylo's just imagining it...it means he's just nuts, right?
"A Jedi's weapon should be treated with more respect." Said JJ to Rian, by way of Luke's Force ghost. Wow, that wasn't an obvious dig.
Luke's hair grew after he became a Force ghost.
I thought one of the new books said Leia never trained to become a Jedi. This shows she did, even to the point where she had made her own lightsaber.
Did they show Luke's green lightsaber in closeup here during the flashback? I didn't see it if so...
Now that Force healing is a thing, I laughed when Kylo died, because I thought, well Rey will just turn around and heal him and die, then Kylo will wake up and heal her, and so on, and so on, and the movie fades out. Then Kylo's body disappears faster than anyone's ever has before, and it was an obvious and awkward attempt to try to prevent too many folks from thinking this. Totally took me out of the movie.
So in past movies it was a thermal exhaust port they had to shoot, or a main reactor, or an oscillator...Do we REALLY need another story where this huge weapon or fleet is dependent upon this single object to disable it? An antennae? [sigh] Ok.
It's one thing not to explain HOW the Emperor is still alive, but it didn't even explain if he even really WAS the actual Emperor, vs. a clone within which the spirit of the old Emperor had transferred, or...? Shouldn't that at least have been made clear?
The CGI set and backgrounds with the Emperor in his temple look like they would look great in concept art or video games, but the lack of realism affects how much the scenes affect you.
I'm all for adult/sophisticated humor, and morally ambiguous characters. But in the end, I want to be able to bring my 12 year old to this, and some of the scenes with the Emperor are too dark/intense for a movie kids should be able to enjoy, if not always understand. There's going too far in one direction by having a battle with teddy bears. Then there's having Satanic chanting with faces melting off. Surely there is a middle ground, no?
Did they just seriously rip off the end of Endgame? "I am all the Sith." "I am all the Jedi." B'doosh. C'mon, JJ. I know you have Marvel-envy, and would forgive you if you ripped off a secondary plot or dialog element here or there, but the dialog of the climax? Since we have two SW movies abbreviated as "ROS," let's just call this one EG for Star Wars—End Game.
Despite the fact that many of the above observations are criticisms, I actually enjoyed the film overall.
