Minor spoilers ahead.
The reason why I give this movie such a low review is simply because it fails to follow through narrative/character mechanics any competent storyteller should employ if not intending the story to be some sort of bizarre postmodern project. I watched the film with friends as per their request on an opening night. Otherwise, I would not have gone so early. Coming out, I really wanted to like the movie, but something about it felt intuitively wrong. It seems that I wasn't the only one. I've done some reading on why people were disappointed, but, as I am not a die hard fan, I could not catch on to all the supposed plot holes. I am coming strictly from how the film is structured and how it defies tried-and-proven methods of storytelling, leading to a poorly executed entertainment product. Two points: Pacing and Characters.
1) Pacing
At very beginning of the movie, the story tellers introduce a sense of urgency right off the bat. The puny rebel fleet, which consists of one battleship and two support ships, after engaging with the First Order, are running out of fuel while the first order is pursuing them. Within hours, the fuel will run out and they will be destroyed.
However, the two intertwining story-lines, Rey/Luke and Finn/Rose, do not reflect the urgency at all. Rey and Luke are having a relatively peaceful time on a beautiful island, and Finn and Rose are commenting on how animals are mistreated and how wonderful the casino city is.
The movie defies the pacing mechanics ALL movies should employ: simply being consistent. If you introduce a sense of urgency, you must keep that sense of urgency in all subsequent scenes until the urgent circumstances come to an end. Likewise, if you introduce a sense of peacefulness, you must keep that slow-paced peace until a crisis is introduced. It's simple storytelling 101 mechanics even B movies that go straight to DVDs employ.
It is quite disappointing how the movie failed to do this one simple thing.
2) Characters
The flaw, which turned out to be quite fatal with the fans, is how underdeveloped so many of the characters are. In an already expansive cast of characters introduced by the previous movies, they introduced even more characters we are supposed to feel for. Namely, Rose and Admiral Holdo. Rose is introduced out of nowhere and begins to assist Finn. Yet the two characters don't have any "clinks" two or more characters must have in order for us to like them. See soap opera character interactions. Further, Admiral Holdo appears to be some sort of First Order spy, but turned out that she was a loyal rebel after all. This tension, which led to mutiny, is something that does not make sense. On a side note, she took the death scene Carrie Fisher should have deservingly had. What exactly went inside the director's head? Also, Snoke was introduced as the chief bad guy, but he wasn't even fleshed out over the two movies. Each movie must fulfill some sort of curiosity audience members have, while leaving some to ponder on. There needs to be, as the characters love to say, a balance.
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