I have been an absolute hardcore Star Wars fan for 35 years....hence my username which is a play on words for 'Tusken Raider' and The Alabama mascot having Tusks. I own all the films several times over on VHS, DVD, and BluRay. I have tons of Star Wars Comics and EU Books, I still have all of my original '77, '80, and '83 vintage Kenner Action Figure (in Climate Controlled Storage), and numerous other items of memorabilia. The only area I show SOME restraint is I have never cosplayed....not that there is anything wrong with that. It's no different than a sports fan wearing a Jersey of their favorite player etc.
Having said all that... I absolutely HATED this movie with every fiber of my being. For casual moviegoers I can see how it could be a decent popcorn flick. But as a 'Star Wars' movie it was absolute trash and insulting to the well established lore and mythos.
It started off with the wrong tone right off the bat with that 'joke' where Poe does the lazy and tired cookie cutter "can you hear me now" cellphone gag with Hux that just about every cellphone company ever has done to death in varies ways.
There were so many cringy moments filled with bad dialogue and wooden acting. Those 'Force Facetime' scenes between Rey and Kylo were just embarrassingly bad. It was 'Twilight' level bad.....or even Attack of the Clones 'Anakin and Padme' bad.
The way they had Leia use the Force was just ridiculous in execution. I have no problem with her using the Force but all we've ever seen her be is Force Sensitive by hearing fragments of Luke's echo'd voice. Nothing noteworthy....no background information to establish her knowledge and she just shields herself from a huge explosion and the freezing vacuum of space, and then flys like Mary Poppins in a statue like pose. Ugh...
Rey continues to be a Mary Sue in the plot. She is grossly overpowered and just absolutely perfect in every way. She has no flaws......she faces no real trials and no real failures. We are seeing her embark on the Hero's journey with the middle act completely cut out. It's just ridiculous for her to have barely ANY training at all and just continue to destroy people in fights and lift tons(weight) of objects like we've only ever even seen Yoda do and He's had 100's of years of training to be that proficient.
Poe is completely 'one-note' as a charater....the hothead pilot. Finn is just a complete joke. He is a walking gag used for comedy relief. Actually the 3 main leads are so surface level they each can be defined by 1 of Luke's traits/roles.... The Orphan Padawan, The Hotshot X-Wing Pilot, The Rebel Spy.....yet Luke was all those things but so much more as well. These new characters have no depth, bonds of friendship, or chemistry at all.
The movie completely destroyed every potential interesting plot setup by JJ Abrams in the 1st film. There is absolutely no hook to see the final act now. What do you need to see...?? Rey fight Kylo?? We've already seen her beat him in a Lighsaber Duel. She continues to grow in power by the second and after stalemating Kylo in Force Grabbing for Anakin's original Lighsaber..She even WAKES UP FIRST from the aftermath long before Kylo. She needed to lose to him somewhere in some way to set up ANY kind interesting rubber match.
But I can forgive a lot of my previous plot and character issues if not for the largest and most damning creative choices. They absolutely DESTROYED the character of Luke Skywalker. Just a complete 100% assassination of character.
He would NEVER behave how they wrote him in this film. Luke always ran towards a fight....even to a fault....he would do ANYTHING to help his friends and family. He convinced Han to help rescue Leia from execution. He paused his training to face Vader in ESB to rescue Han, Leia, Chewbacca, C-3PO, and R2..... without even blinking. He went into Jabba's Palace to save Han. Then after coming to the realization Vader was his father he went to extremes to save and redeem him because he sensed a sliver of conflict...just a speck of the Light. He even turned himself in voluntarily to Vader and the Emperor....defeated Vader(from Anger to protect Leia) and then discarded his Lightsaber in defiance to the Emperor. Luke made a ton of mistakes along his journey to be sure but at his fundamental CORE he was always BRAVE and LOYAL.
So yeah I have a BIG problem with them turning him into a coward.... who hides and shuts himself off from the Force..... and abandons his Best Friend (Han), his Sister (Leia), and his Nephew (Ben). But not only that....they have him contemplate straight up murdering and betraying the trust of said nephew because he felt a sliver of the Dark Side in him??? Oh but REY can sense the good in Ben....not a Jedi Grandmaster like Luke....but REY....who has less training than the 5 year old Padawan's in the prequels.
These are things Luke would NEVER do or BE.....it is fundamentally opposite of who he is as a person. The REAL Canon Luke Skywalker would do ANYTHING to save Ben from the Dark Side including finding and confronting Snoke head-on.....he would do ANYTHING to fight back against the First Order and help the Resistance. It would be in person as well....no 'Force Projection' garbage.
This movie did everything it could to destroy his legacy and the Original Trilogy fan's love for the Lucas universe. From throwing Anakin's Lightsaber away like a piece of trash to making Meta Jokes like 'What do you expect....me to go take on the entire 1st Order with a Lazer Sword....pfffft'.....
YES....YES that is exactly what we expected....what I expected....what I wanted...to see Luke be LUKE. To see him in his full power as a Jedi Grandmaster just absolutely wrecking the 1st Order and being the Hero he has always been.
But Disney made the purposeful choice to alienate the true original Star Wars fans that grew up with Luke, Han, and Leia in the 80's. They don't want us around they made that clear with actions and dialogue....'Let go of the past....Kill it if you have to' etc.
Well they got what they wanted....they killed the past. The result was a 69% Box Office drop and a $150 Million loss in repeated viewings. That's the #1 weekend to weekend drop of All-Time.
WE were the hardcore demographic that watched this films 5,6,7 times in theaters. The average casual fan only watches once and then moves on. Here....the hardcore alienated fan DID NOT come back for seconds. They made a mockery of our childhood heroes and we answered back and hit them where it hurts.
The future of 'Star Wars' as a franchise is shaky at best now. They have absolutely lost the part of the fanbase that cares the most and spends the most money on merchandise..... and barring them retconning what that Hack Rian Johnson did to Luke Skywalker they have lost us forever. We just evaporated....like 'Luke'.
If I come off like an overly passionate nerd then good....I don't care. Lots of people don't understand people's passion for watching 18-22 year old's fight over a oddly shaped ball on a field of grass either.
