The problem with this film is that Rian Johnson just said fuck it to just about everything set up in TFA. And it's not all his fault. JJ Abrams set things up in TFA without any future plans to resolve them. Ultimately, I feel it's Disney/Lucas Film's fault for not commissioning a plot outline for this trilogy in the first place. They hired these guys to write off each other's work and just go with it. Now this trilogy is a mess and a highly doubt JJ can fix everything with Episode 9, especially given his reputation. Even George Lucas had a plan for his trilogies.
[EDIT] Apparently there was a plot outline that JJ did, but Rian Johnson just said fuck it and did his own thing, so fuck that guy. I guess I'm letting JJ off the hook for this fuck up. Though, I still have no confidence in him fixing things in Episode 9. [/EDIT]
Here's some of my problems with these films so far:
Rey has a mysterious origin? Nope, her parents were nobodies and
she knew that all along! It's like Rian Johnson thought that would be a great twist that no one would have predicted. No one predicted that because it's fucking stupid. The only way that could have been satisfactory is if both movies didn't hype up her origin as some big mystery in the first place. Rey's origin is the
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Snoke doesn't even get an origin, outside of what we already knew.
Not knowing a damn thing about Snoke was the wackiest part of this movie. They could clarify that in IX but who's going to care about him at that point?
Yep. Snoke is this trilogy's Darth Maul; a bad guy for the sake of having a bad guy. I guess his only purpose was just so Kylo Ren could be trained in the dark side (and off screen at that) and to give the First Order a leader. Snoke is just a powerful dark force user that came out of nowhere, took over the remnants of the Empire and formed the First Order. That's literally all they came up with for his character and origin. What was the whole point of his scars? I don't think we'll ever find out (in the movies, anyway). Any mystery about him doesn't matter now that he is dead and his character was wasted. If he was Darth Plageius, then he's the biggest fool in the galaxy for having been betrayed twice by his apprentice.
What about the Knights of Ren? They were completely ignored in TLJ.
Captain Phasma to get a bigger role? Nope. She had a smaller role... and then dies?
What about Anakin's lightsaber? That whole plot line was for nothing. JJ Abrams took the explanation out for how Maz got the lightsaber from TFA and left it for the next movie to deal with, and we still got nothing. The saber was destroyed anyway, so what's the point? Maz could have given Rey any lightsaber she could have came across (Mace Windu's purple saber would have been cooler). Instead, somehow she got the one Luke apparently dropped into the atmosphere of Bespin. And if you're thinking it had to be Anakin's lightsaber so Rey had a reason to find Luke, she also went to him for training and because Leia sent her. Now I'm stuck imagining some goofy moment where Luke/Anakin's lightsaber crashed through the window of some CGI alien's cloud car in Bespin during ESB and they sell it to Maz because that's probably what Rian Johnson would have come up with.
Even Finn being injured at the end of TFA was completely dismissed. He just wakes up at the beginning of the movie all healed. And Rian Johnson had to make it another goofy moment with Finn walking around naked in his bacta suit spilling bacta fluid all over the place.
TLJ was still a retread of the original trilogy; albeit sort of a reverse ESB with a touch of RotJ. They start off getting chased, then find the city to get help, then end with a ground assault on the planet not-Hoth (Crait) where the planet is covered in salt instead of snow. I think this was a huge missed opportunity. They could have had the assault take place on Dantooine; an actual abandoned rebel base that was mentioned in ANH. Instead, we're to believe the rebels had multiple Hoth-like bases scattered throughout the galaxy?
The Leia flying through space thing like something out of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon could have been done better. Maybe she could have used the force to keep her from being blasted out into space to begin with? That would have looked less weird.
I haven't heard anyone talking about this yet, but I was kind of surprised that Leia made it out alive. I don't know what they are going to do with the character in the next film now that Fisher died.
The Yoda scene was the best part of the film. Aside from looking like he stepped out of the Clone Wars show initially it was nice to revisit the character and the chemistry between him and Luke again (one of the few scenes where Luke felt like Luke, and the scene with R2).
Except that "chemistry" was all a farce in ESB. Rian Johnson doesn't understand that Yoda didn't really behave like that. Yoda was only putting on an act to test Luke. It was an out of character moment.
While, I don't mind that Luke died in this movie, his death scene was a bit awkward to watch. It looked like he had a stroke from using the force too hard.
The last 2 minutes of this film and all this crap about "legends" left a bad taste in my mouth. It was like they ended the film with a fucking Disney Land commercial.
I'm starting to think that the reason Disney loves [Rian Johnson] so much is because he could made the movie cheap.
I think it has more to do with all the marketable crap (porgs) and goofy moments that was shoved into the movie to appeal to a greater audience (meaning children) to sell toys. Rian Johnson is the new Brett Ratner, willing to do whatever makes the corporate heads happy.