(Spoiler Alert - as if you don't already know everything) I came out of the theatre kind of neutral on it, but upon reflection really disliked it. (Yes, I saw it in a theatre. Seeing a movie in a theatre has become a tradition on my visits to my brother down south. Otherwise, never would I.) That tells me that it had some at least some things going for it for me to not hate it at the outset. Considering it was 2.5 hours long, the pacing must have been pretty solid: lulls in action were tolerable, plot was easy to follow. Also solid was the acting -- especially Daisy Ridley and Adam Driver, and Mark Hamill. The Rey-Kylo Ren connection was holding my attention and offers a good core theme for the trilogy.
But dear God was the secondary story, with Finn and Rose, inane. Honestly, it was after-school special bad. Let me say it: It was Phantom Menace bad. How do adults, even if they are writing for kids, come up with something so unrelentingly stupid?
Nearly as stupid was the Carrie-Fisher-and-Laura-Dern-teach-Poe-not-to-be-such-a-cowboy tertiary plot. At least this served the purpose of "prepping" Poe for leadership of the Resistance, but, wow, was it a cut-and-paste job.
The Force has always had a bit of deus-ex-machina feel about it, but here it's taken to absurd levels with mind control across vast reaches of space, along with Yoda reappearing in a truly ham-fisted turn of events, and when Carrie Fisher uses the force to survive unprotected in empty space and fly back to her ship -- well, that is a nuke-the-fridge moment if there ever was one.
So now Han and Luke are dead and Princess Leia is dead in real life so maybe they can let go of the fan service. The core storyline of Rey vs. Ren is still intact and serviceable. I suppose there is a thread of hope. The best of this generation so far has been the one-off Rogue One so maybe the upcoming early Han Solo movie will work well. But, hope or no, this trilogy is likely to go down as only marginally better than the prequels.
