J.J Abrams had his work cut out on this one. TLJ had thrown most of the plotlines he created under the bus, and now he had to salvage the plot. Did he succeed?...Sorta, I guess.
The film still suffers from the lack of creativity TFA did. The story doesn't completely follow ROTJ's plot structure, which is better than TFA, but bringing back Palpatine was very clearly a cop out due to the lose of Snoke. It would have been much better to follow on from TLJ with Kylo remaining as the main antagonist, keeping the gist of his "kill the past" shchtick in TLJ, therefore giving the film a much more interesting human antagonist, but the main antagonist of Star Wars always has to be pure evil for some reason. Also, the bad guys have some new tech in this movie that is somehow less crative than what the FO already had.
Also, the plot is a bit messy on occasion. The Knights of Ren finally show up and they are grossly underused, as is Lando. There's an abundence of fake out deaths for some reason. The movie moves at a blisteringly fast pace that feels like it's making up for lost time from the previous two films, and it leaves Finn undeveloped in the process, especially consdering the people he meets in this film.
That said, the movie is not without merit. Rey and Kylo's chemistry is still pretty good, and the force link from the previous film remains open and is used in interesting ways. Poe is used much better here than he is in the rest of the sequel trilogy. There's a lot of laughs, and the action and CGI is as good as you'd expect from a Star Wars film. The fast pace mentioned above, while it damages character development, keeps the movie moving forward and means the film never ends up being boring. Despite it's flaws, the film remains enjoyable, and it is probably the best film in the sequel trilogy. It will probably end up being a guilty pleasure like Episode III.
Overall, I view this film in the same way I view Kingdom Hearts III: it's not amazing, and it's definitely not the sendoff the franchise deserves, but it's still undeniably fun.
This Film's Not Awful! (Kinda spoilery)
J.J Abrams had his work cut out on this one. TLJ had thrown most of the plotlines he created under the bus, and now he had to salvage the plot. Did he succeed?...Sorta, I guess.
The film still suffers from the lack of creativity TFA did. The story doesn't completely follow ROTJ's plot structure, which is better than TFA, but bringing back Palpatine was very clearly a cop out due to the lose of Snoke. It would have been much better to follow on from TLJ with Kylo remaining as the main antagonist, keeping the gist of his "kill the past" shchtick in TLJ, therefore giving the film a much more interesting human antagonist, but the main antagonist of Star Wars always has to be pure evil for some reason. Also, the bad guys have some new tech in this movie that is somehow less crative than what the FO already had.
Also, the plot is a bit messy on occasion. The Knights of Ren finally show up and they are grossly underused, as is Lando. There's an abundence of fake out deaths for some reason. The movie moves at a blisteringly fast pace that feels like it's making up for lost time from the previous two films, and it leaves Finn undeveloped in the process, especially consdering the people he meets in this film.
That said, the movie is not without merit. Rey and Kylo's chemistry is still pretty good, and the force link from the previous film remains open and is used in interesting ways. Poe is used much better here than he is in the rest of the sequel trilogy. There's a lot of laughs, and the action and CGI is as good as you'd expect from a Star Wars film. The fast pace mentioned above, while it damages character development, keeps the movie moving forward and means the film never ends up being boring. Despite it's flaws, the film remains enjoyable, and it is probably the best film in the sequel trilogy. It will probably end up being a guilty pleasure like Episode III.
Overall, I view this film in the same way I view Kingdom Hearts III: it's not amazing, and it's definitely not the sendoff the franchise deserves, but it's still undeniably fun.