Rob V

I know negative headlines will garner attention but yeezus, I can barely find a single positive (overall) review. Nothing matters unless we like it as individuals... but color me concerned that I won't.

RichC2

I've seen plenty of positive ones and plenty that slam it for playing too much to fanboys.

big e

The problem I always had with the prequels is that the two movies we had that dealt with the Clone Wars didn't really cover the war that well or show the impact the war had, that would have given credence to the Empire rising. In my mind, Episode I should have been the lead up and beginning of the Clone Wars, Episode II should have been the bulk of the war, and Episode III should have covered the war ending and a period of instability in the Republic, that would have seen the people and Republic government turning away from the Jedi (maybe even blaming them for the war) and ultimately become a police state to maintain order, which would then become the Empire. Instead, we had Palpatine out of the blue declare the Republic an empire. I know this was in the wake of Mace Windu's attack, but it felt really rushed and needed more setup.

dex14

This just didn't work for me. This entire sequel trilogy was inconsequential and a failure.

spsimmons

Just got back. As a TLJ hater, I actually really liked this one. The pacing was exhausting, but there were several surprises to me since I avoided most spoilers. It may have helped that my expectations were as low as they've ever been for a movie, so it wasn't too hard to be better than expected. Over all, I think this makes the sequel trilogy a little easier to swallow after the awful TLJ, but I think my Star Wars will live and die with Episodes 4, 5, and 6.

stingermck

Loved it. Much better than the Last Jedi. Yes there is fan service, but sometimes you gotta send the fans home happy. Without the fans you don't get to come back for more.

I went in spoiler free and walked out with several surprises and really enjoyed it all.

TLJ is still a dud but 7 and 9 are solid for me.

Excited to see what comes next post Skywalker family.

mewmartigan

I thought it was okay but the least of the new 3.





Mike86

First impressions are I liked it far better than The Last Jedi. So that’s a win for the movie. Some of it I’m still iffy on, but I feel like it was overall a decent wrap up to this trilogy. In terms of serving as an end to the Skywalker saga though I’m not so sure. I feel like the movie was a lot to unpack in one film. This was a case where I think a two part finale would have been justified.

I feel like there needed to be more of an explanation for how Palpatine was still alive. It’s kind of one of those things that you just have to accept, but at the same time it’s hard to look past without questions.

Rey being a Palpatine worked for me. Better than her just having all her powers from nothing. That said I do still find her overpowered in this. At least with some context to who she is thought I can get it more.

Kylo/Ben I overall enjoyed in this. The redemption arc came about fairly suddenly and was predictable, but I didn’t hate it. I liked his scene with Han, and while again rather predictable I liked that he gave his life to save Rey.

The legacy characters all get nice scenes. I still will always hate the way Luke was handled no matter what. The scene with him as a Force ghost on Ach-To was good though and I liked him pulling the X-Wing out of the water.

I’d have never guessed in my wildest dreams that of the human characters Lando would be the only one to survive the trilogy. I liked him in the film though. He wasn’t overused and served the film well. Abrams knew how to respect legacy characters at least.

Leia was overall pretty good when you consider that the film was forced to use extra footage due to Carrie Fisher’s passing.

Overall my first viewing is pretty positive. I think walking in with low expectations helped my enjoyment. I still think the sequels were relatively disappointing in many aspects, and I still don’t know that they progressed the story past the end of the Original Trilogy. For what they are there’s a couple decent films and a piece of shit. I don’t know how I’d rate this yet. It’s not as bad as it’s being made out, but it’s not the strongest of the saga by a long shot. Maybe around 3 or 3.5ish.

stvn1974

I loved it. Felt like Star Wars again.

I actually teared up few times and lots of sniffling from other audience members at times.
I felt Leia was handled well and everything wrapped up nicely for me.
Luke was also actually saved as a character for me with 2 minutes of screen time.

Going to process it all and go see it again tomorrow.

JeremyM

The first 40 or so minutes were rough. After that, I think it settled in and I enjoyed it. Lots of mumbo jumbo in there about the dark side and this and that, but so goes Star Wars.



JeremyM

With Palpatine being alive, that was kind of explained with him being a shell of himself--possibly blind, unable to walk, and living off of some IV-like contraptions sort of like the blood banks in Mad Max Fury Road. It's not that much of a stretch for him to survive a fall down the random bottomless pit while still sustaining heavy damage I suppose.

Palpatine' s heard-but-not-really seen audience was creepy as hell. Not sure my kids could handle some of it.

Mike86

Eh. I mean you can interpret it that way but still. He fell down a fucking shaft that blew up, and yet most of his body was still in tact. He wasn’t in great shape but still.

Why So Blu?

I just got back from this and I think JJ saved the trilogy. Is it a masterpiece? No. It's definitely leaps and bounds better than the last two and I liked LJ and thought FA was a retread of a New Hope. Rise had a great first three quarters before JJ used the ROTJ tremplate for the final act. I thought Palpatine was great as he always is, and they really used a lot of horror film overtones, which I dug. Even the opening crawl reminded me of watching a silent film - "The dead speak!"

The one bummer I did take away from it all is...no one is getting laid, with the possible exception of Lando.

rocket1312

I kind of enjoyed this for what it is (which is big budget, officially sanctioned fanfic) but really, it was a complete mess. The amount of fan wank surpassed even what I imagined JJ capable of. I'm mixed on Last Jedi, but the manner in which RoS goes about retconning it was complete and utter horseshit. I mean, it's fine if you to want to walk back some of the lesser loved ideas, but to outright thumb your nose at it is the worst sort of audience pandering. And JJ, can we really not come up with something better than "find the dumb macguffin that leads to the other dumb macguffin that we can only use if we talk to this dude and trade the triforce for the magic amulet which opens the hidden door..."? And you're going to cast Kerri Russell and not even let her take her mask off? Egads man.

Ultimately this trilogy was screwed the moment they decided to just make it up as they went along. Each of the 3 movies feel like they're telling a different story. This works ok as an ending, I guess, but it moves 100mph and is totally schizophrenic to the point where we completely lose all sense of what the characters are even about anymore. It also re-frames the franchise in a way that makes it all about Palpatine now, which seems kind of weird to me. Oh well. I'm glad I can go back to not caring about any of this anymore. I just need that ESB 4k fan restoration to get finished and I'll be good.

bunkaroo

Fairly underwhelmed by this. The pacing was awful - just too frenetic, rushed, bouncing place to place too fast. First 1/3 of the movie was terrible.

Liked that Ben was redeemed. Didn’t like that Rey is a Palpatine. Would have preferred she was created by the Force by Palpatine’s power. We still don’t really know who Rey’s parents were.

Regarding Snoke, it appears he was a clone? Seemed like there was some tank of beings that looked like him in Palpatine’s lair. Was also wondering if the Sith acolytes were all “Snokes”.

Keri Russell was pretty much wasted. Wouldn’t be surprised if some of her scenes hit the floor. She doesn’t even get to show her face.

Glad Rose was sparsely used a la Jar Jar in AOTC/ROTS. She didn’t deserve her treatment in real life but her character is by far the worst thing about TLJ IMO.

I liked Rey taking the Skywalker name since Luke and Leia were more like parents to her than those other people. But the final scene on Tattooine was a little too on the nose, where in ROTS it was a little more gracefully done.

I’m sure my opinion on TROS will soften a bit over time as it has with TLJ, but this one felt the least like Star Wars to me. Oh and we can finally say we’ve seen the first lesbian kiss in a galaxy far, far away!

Definitely the weakest of the ST and Saga. 3/5.

SmackDaddy

Enjoyed it. They pretty much hit the ground running and didn't really let up. I enjoyed both TFA and TLJ, and would put this in between the two. Loved the glimpses of Endor and Cloud City at the end and of course, I got a little sand in my eye when Maz uttered "Chewie, this is for you...." On Ben's "redemption", I'm glad there was no big speech to anything, he just made his sacrifice. And wow, how did it not get out that Han makes an appearance (I know there were supposed screening spoilers out, but I avoided them, I'm talking about a more mainstream "leak').

I'll be watching it again Saturday!

mapasu

Just came back from a late show. Wife & daughter were asleep for most of the movie. As for me, it felt like I was in an Oprah show where the audience is getting gift after gift and it does not stop (too much fan pleasing). I give it a pass and it is definitely better than TLJ.

Boba Fett

While the film had a few of the saga’s best moments (Han/Ben in particular) it also had some of the lowest lows:

Rey Palpatine is laughable and there’s zero argument to be made she was officially cemented as a Mary Sue. I personally had high hopes for her character but they yanked it here,
big time. So much so had they went any other way, this would have been at worst an average film in my book.

Carrie Fisher’s cobbled together one-word performance was painful and unsettling. Her eyeline never matched another actor and building a plot around obvious outtakes from TFA and TLJ was brutal. She came off as more zombie like than Palpatine.

The final threat. Yep. Once again we get...



For me this was a C- at best. Well filmed. Generally well acted, but in the end pointless. Not nearly as drab and boring as Phantom Menace or Attack of the Clones, but pretty close.

DJariya

Saw a 7:30pm show tonight. It was good. It was well made and directed and for the most part entertaining. I'm no Star Wars geek and don't know everything about the convoluted mythology and all the characters and such.

I have to admit the first hour or so felt very convoluted to me. It was kind of hard to follow. But, things picked up afterwards and I really enjoyed the climatic battle sequence.

For what JJ had to work with, I think he did a pretty good job with Leia/Carrie Fisher in the movie. It worked pretty well considering it was leftover footage from 5 years ago.

Loved the cameo from Harrison Ford. Did not expect that at all. If you want to call that fan service and a call back, I guess that's it then. It was nice that he came in to help Ben rid himself of Kylo Ren and lead him towards redemption. It was also no surprise that Luke appeared as a force ghost to guide Rey for that final showdown with Palpatine. Lando's return was also a cool touch/fan service. Billy Dee looks pretty good for an 80-something year old man.

Overall, the last 45 minutes was pretty awesome and it was a nice wrap up to this climatic trilogy. I may have to do a re-watch of The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi again before I potentially do another theatrical visit to see this again. I only saw a regular screen tonight, but next time it will be a Dolby or IMAX,

This one redeems The Last Jedi's faults. I give this a B

tanman

Haven’t read any of the thread yet. (It’s a pain to read on mobile).


Quick initial thoughts. Some background. I loved TFA hated TLJ but I loved RoS. Yeah there was a lot of fan service but honestly that’s exactly what I wanted. It was a love letter to Star Wars fans. I also loved the jabs at TLJ. Makes me really wish JJ did that one as well. But I think it actually improves TLJ and makes it more palatable. I don’t think it necessarily negates anything TLJ did. It certainly isn’t without precedence in Star Wars.

That kiss was really weird and out there. I guess she was more overcome with emotion. I was thinking “oh, that’s why they called it Rise of Skywalker” 😉. But overall I liked his turn to the light and thought it was earned. As was Palpatine’s return.

I loved that they made Rey a Palpatine. Makes sense with her struggle with the dark side and her abilities with the force.

I loved seeing Luke and Leia training together! Even for just a hot second.

Loved Rey’s lightsaber at the end!

Was that Anthony Daniels as a pilot? Out of costume?

Did anyone catch in the credits they list who were the Jedi. Of course the main players but also Ashoka Tano was one.

D-O was the biggest cash grab. Even worse than the porgs I think. Not enough R2. Loved that threepio had a bigger role.

They had me with Chewies fake out death. I was about to storm out of the theater. Lol

tanman

After reading the hype from critics over TLJ and going in with that mindset I don’t give a rat’s ass what critics have to say about Star Wars movies.

dex14

It was Wedge.

I also noticed a John Williams cameo. And Jodie Comer played Rey's mom.

tanman

I love it. I absolutely love it. 😆

nickdawgy

I saw it a few hours ago in IMAX. 7/10 for me. Cheesy and predictable. But good. I don’t know how people want to see this or any movie multiple times in the theater.

The movie started twenty minutes late. The crowd cheered the LucasFilm logo. They cheered the opening crawl (which I missed half of because a bunch of people walked past me right as it started). Han, Luke, and Lando got cheers. One guy yelled “No!!” when Rey and Kylo kissed. A couple of people behind us talked the entire movie about Disneyland and building Light Sabers at Galaxy’s Edge.

bluetoast

Who is coincidentally Ewan McGregor’s real life uncle.