I don’t know if I can avoid spoilers. I am going to try. But if you (like me) did everything you could (including avoiding interviews) so you could go into this movie with as little knowledge as possible – well, I might let slip something you didn’t want see. Fair? Good.
I would give it a 3/5. Overall it was ok, I enjoyed it, but… BUT
My biggest critique is the length. So they introduced a new character (Rose) who I like a LOT, but I feel like they added an entire segment to the movie which…. was really only there for us to get to know Rose. And…. it made the movie feel long. I honestly kind of wish they hadn’t had it. It had some fun moments, but it made for weird pacing because it was trying to weave 3 sets of characters and (all) movies struggle anywhere above 2 groups of heroes.
The Rey & Luke segments were very well done – Mark Hamill is amazing. Luke’s arc during this movie might be one of my favorite parts. I like how the character struggles with his past – and they all but steal one of my life phrases! Avoiding obvious spoilers – teacher me was quite happy.
There were some call-backs to Empire and even Jedi which were… decent. Nothing too in-your-face and I enjoyed it.
I enjoyed the movie. I am still processing whether it felt like a Star Wars movie. There was a lot more humor (as my husband said, it felt like they were trying to mimic some of Guardian‘s humor Correction: he told me that what he said is that it’s like they let Lucas try to make a Joss Whedon movie – I stand by my memory that he compared it to Marvel). I enjoyed most of it – and the porgs were NOT annoying. I was expecting to hate them but they were in the movie just enough to be amusing – not annoying.
I will be honest, I don’t know that I will be as excited about “young han solo” as I might have been 10 years ago. I think Star Wars in running into “long running game syndrom” – when RP’ers have been running the same game a long time eventually they get to the point where their characters are ridiculously powered and not much feels like a threat anymore. Star Wars is reaching that for me – there were some scenes where it just felt like they wanted to “top” what they’d done before (Fast & Furious has gone there too…)
I think I am moving more towards “I’d like to see a different universe on screen” in fantasy, superhero, & sci-fi. Star Wars is great, Marvel is fun – but what are the stories we aren’t getting to see because the directors and writers are getting stuck in these boxes?
Dream by Day 