#like criticism is fine and everything but straight up character bashing is just so unnecessary

[whatifitoldyou]

me going to the todoiida tag to see some nice fanart :D

me after realizing that the majority of posts are just straight up shitting on bakugou >:(

#no but seriously #you can like todoiida without hating bakugou #also people bashing bakudeku by saying that bakugou doesnt care about deku #like i didnt know reading comprehension was this hard #todoiida #bakugou katsuki #bnha #mha #also can we please stop putting character hate in that characters tag? #like criticism is fine and everything but straight up character bashing is just so unnecessary

[delayedcritique]

ROUGH NIGHT REVIEW

“The world needs a really great comedy ASAP”

BY COLLIN DE LADE

              Rough Night is the latest comedy starring Scarlett Johansson as a bride-to-be who goes out with her longtime friends, played by Jillian Bell, Zoe Kravitz, Ilana Glazer, and Kate McKinnon, to Miami to have the best bachelorette party ever. After hiring a stripper to come to their place and accidentally killing him, the coked-up friends much work together to resolve the situation before anyone finds out. It has been a very long time since we had a great straight-up comedy. It's the third time this summer that a comedy releases that has the potential to be the next comedy event but fails on its execution. While Rough Night is a funnier film than Snatched or Baywatch, cliché writing and unnecessary drama drag this comedy down to be simply okay.

              There are four plotlines going on in this film; the dead stripper main story, the jealous friend conflict, a misunderstanding of the groom incorrectly assuming their spouse is cheating on them, and a last-minute crime subplot involving stolen diamonds. Every time the movie cuts to anything besides the main story of the dead stripper, everything becomes cliché and predictable. The jealous friend storyline between Jillian Bell and Scarlett Johansson and the sudden crime twist needs to be completely ditched for more room for the main story to expand. Also, the first half of the plotline with the groom, played by Paul W. Downs, worrying with his best men about his future wife cheating on him needed to be cut too. All that his film needed was completely focus on the dead stripper main story and possibly the second half of the groom storyline where he is jacked up on adrenaline and energy drinks as he drives down to Miami. Rough Night could have been the comedy event of the summer if it has more focus and fewer cliché elements.

              Now that the critical story development segment is addressed, let me back up and go into the main purpose of seeing this movie; is it funny? I had my fair share of good laughs throughout the movie. There are some really funny moments that land, while unfortunately also having some failed comedic parts too. The entire movie is very hit and miss in both what you will find funny and the performances of the main actresses. While I found Scarlett Johansson to be fine in the movie as the more down-to-earth character, my other family members who I saw it with found her to be terrible and miscast in the role. Some people will also find Jillian Bell’s character to be the funniest one while others will find her irritating. The overall comedic tone throughout goes back and forth from being really funny to be pretty lame. Personally, I found the movie to have more laughs than groans.

              The biggest problem with the movie is how much it plays it safe with its dark material. Especially near the end when all is revealed, everything wraps up in a nice bow thanks to the convenient and typical writing. There are moments that push the bar that truly do work, but the movie needed to keep going with its dark moments to fully succeed with its premise. I’m not asking for a depressing ending by any means, but the way everything wraps up feels like a very Hollywoodize happy ending. There’s a precise moment where the humor is completely ditched in favor of developing the main characters’ friendships and making everything about their situation turn in their favor. The filmmakers are so afraid of offended their audiences that they restrict themselves from delivering a hilariously dark movie.  I truly believe that this could have been the next big comedy if the filmmakers took more of a risk in delivering something that audiences haven’t seen before for the sake of comedy.

              I really ache for a truly well-made and hysterical comedy. It might appear that I’m bashing Rough Night for not being that great comedy that I want, but it does have a mediocrity to it that needs to be fixed. Just basing my recommendation on the film, itself, it would make for a really fun rental. The movie does have some really big laughs and some surprising moments that I didn’t see coming, but it never reaches that level of having to see it in a theater. The movie doesn’t damage anyone involved but it also doesn’t help them either. Plenty of enjoyment to have with Rough Night, but not enough quality to be worth seeing it right away.

6/10

AUDIO REVIEW

#rough night #scarlett johanson #comedy #bachelorette #bachelorette party #movie #review

[rawinternets]

Star Wars Episode 8: a rediscovery

The latest Star Wars installation is all of 3 months old, so it’s hard to call it “a rediscovery,” but here we are. I watched Episode 8 again, and again I was disappointed, maybe even moreso the second time around. 

This movie has lots of good, even great, in it - although for everything it does well, it completely botches at least one other thing. To use the “cooking” analogy that went so well in my Ep1 review: it’s like there are half amazing ingredients, half just straight Crisco, and the instructions, steps, and timing are all off. Instead of a cake (or an Ep1 Jar Jar Shit Cake), you end up with a nasty soup with delicious chunks of gourmet chocolate swimming around in there. 

It’s sloppy, is what I’m trying to say. Not inspiring. It felt like a fairly hollow installation. The magic was gone.

One reason? Cut scenes. Every scene felt *too* fast-paced. Cut, cut, cut. I could barely keep up with my note-taking, and had to pause many times. I reviewed 68 scenes or set pieces in Ep8, far more than the rest: 

R1: 25 Ep4: 29 Ep5: 31 Ep1: 39 Ep2: 42 Ep3: 41 Ep6: 41 Ep7: 46 Ep8: 68

(Yes, there was an upward trend - maybe I just took more discrete notes as I went on - but still, Ep8 is a clear outlier).

This cut-scening gives a frantic pace and no time to emotionally settle into the storyline. It’s almost too much to process. The movie finally settles in when Rey is trying to learn from Luke, but for the majority of the film, we’re brutally bashed between scenes and set pieces such that we become numb. 

The other structural problem with this film is one which you can’t necessarily see in the histogram or the “journey” chart. This is my belief: the glittering veins of the film are the Jedi-Sith struggle, the blurring between the two... the genuine, moving, and perplexing connection between Kylo Ren and Rey. An orthogonalization (is that a word?) of the Jedi-Sith struggle into a young-old struggle (sounds kind of similar......... #trump). 

This is truly some inspired stuff. Some great scenes. many 9′s, a 10. But these veins of value are set in a truly worthless plot substrate. We have a horrifyingly re-treaded and cheesy and just generally infuriating attack on some ship called a “dreadnought,” and then we have a Battlestar Galactica simulacrum for the remainder of the film, a wretched and unnecessary and heavy-handed side-excursion to a cantina v3 (this time rich and black-tie, not a grungy bar!), we have Hux over-acting, and we have a god-awful Snoke, whose cancerous presence from Ep7 metastasized and was mercifully destroyed in Ep8 but not before causing lasting damage to the story arc.  We have so many moments of “this will never happen now... oh wait, it happened!” both on the good swing, and the bad. It’s as if in trying so hard to subvert the old tropes, the movie itself was simply an inverse image of the same old tropes. 

The other problem this movie has is that everyone... I mean pretty much everyone, except Kylo, Luke, and Rey, are mediocre at best. They’re caricatures of themselves, or someone/thing else. They have no depth and nuance. It’s extremely off-putting.

You can see I have a lot to say about this movie, which maybe is not surprising since it prompted me to undertake this entire exercise. Without further ado... 

Average score: 6.31 Standard deviation: 1.89

SCROLL. 6. Really lacking nuance. Everything is "heroic" vs "tyranny". And then... "But the Resistance is exposed!” How did they get exposed? I just don't get any of this. Why do they hope Luke will save them? This scroll is a total shit show. And it sets up another desperate escape from another rebel base... You know what? It seems like a bot got trained on all the other scrolls, and this is the output.

Rebel base discovered. 6.  Umm, intense walking and stilted dialogue and "oh no..." as the First Order arrives... mmm ok? This is at least a cool shot, where you can see the Star Destroyers from Earth.

Hux. 5. Dialogue is so bad. "I have orders from Supreme Leader Snoke himself... this is where we snuff out the Resistance once and for all." Incinerate Obliterate blah blah blah. Dreadnought.... meh. Burned out on superweapons.

Dreadnought and Poe’s Joke. 5.  Are we supposed to be afraid of another Mega-Star Destroyer after seeing so many destroyed by single ships in the past? And this is like a Death Star Lite with ground assault capabilities. I mean this just feels kind of uncreative and bland. Maybe a bit like Star Trek sorta showed up in Star Wars... REALLY bad cheesy joking with Poe. "Can you hear me now” joke? Your mother joke? Come on. Meh.

Attack the Dreadnought. 4.  Like I said... another single ship beats a huge ship... another “droid fixes shit in the middle of battle” shot... another hot shit pilot disobeys orders... and the worst part of all, Fuckin' gravity in space! If the bombers’ bombs are so dangerous, why do multiple bombers fly in such tight formation? Why not put them on oh, I dunno, missiles? Anyway, it's all down to one bomber... one person has to save everyone, of course. Of course the trigger falls below the deck but OH WAIT! she catches it with a backhand grab. Of course the bomb doors are open and she's not sucked out into space... Of course one bomber can take down the whole ship but they had like 10 at the beginning all tightly clumped. This is pure spectacle with no thinking at all. This is Pirates of the Caribbean 2 and 3. This is Michael Bay level shit, and not The Rock Michael Bay.

Snoke angry. 5. Snoke sucks. He can do Force shit that nobody else can to the extent that it’s diminishing, kind of like back to Eps 1-2 treatment of the Force. Slaps Hux from across the galaxy. OK. 

Finn wakes up. 5. Why was he in a coma again? Because he got back-sabered by Kylo on the Death Star 3? I guess. And he wakes up: “I’m sure you have a ton of questions...” “Where’s Rey?” Laying it on preeeeeettty thick here with the whole “hey, guys, this guy really cares about Rey!” unrequited love thing. (By the way, this unidimensional Finn shit will continue). 

Rey meets Luke. 8. ... and Luke throws the lightsaber over his shoulder. Some have criticized this for being a “try too hard to be different” moment but the first time I watched, I laughed genuinely and appreciatively, and the second time, I still liked it. What’s with this Rey hair of three-loop-ponytail? It’s trying too hard. Leia’s earbuns were truly singular. 

Porgs+Lightsaber. 8. I liked this near-Porg-death joke. And Rey sees the X-wing. OK. 

Chewy and Luke. 7. Luke starts putting it all together... but if he abandoned his family, the Jedi, and everyone else so many years ago, why does he care “Where’s Han?” Shouldn’t he be totally resigned to the inevitable decay and death of the universe and everything? 

Throne Room Snoke. 6. Meh. “We have them tied on a string.” Meh. Snoke is being a dick to Kylo. I am distinctly aware of Serkis overacting. Maybe Serkis Saturation is a thing... March of the Empire music is hokey here, rather than good. Snoke says "HOPE lives in the galaxy" Meh. The former evil empire wasn’t so like, blatantly and caricature-evil. “You're just a child in a mask.” Fine. Snoke sucks.

Kylo kills his mask. 8. Another “Reject Ep7″ moment, but I still liked it. Fits well with the character also. 

Rey and Luke. 7. "Within weeks, the First Order will control all the systems." "You think i'm going to walk out with a laser sword and face down the whole First Order?" Three thoughts here: 1) yeah good point Luke, actually. 2) Wait, how does Luke even know what the First Order is? 3) Wait... this is the first of many “I’ll/we’ll never X” and then (spoiler) X happens later. Anyway, the island is beautiful. I don't know how I feel about the milking the weird animal. OK I guess? It's different at least. Flying across a pole to a cliff to stab a fish? It's OK. I guess this is a decent sequence.

The Jedi Tree. 8. Rey is called to the tree, Luke figures out she has force sensitivity (why didn't he sense it before? wasn't listening for it?) and she explains she feels the Force after he confronts her. I liked this scene fine. “It's time for the Jedi to end, i came to this island to die.” All good.

Leia on the ship. 6.  Cloaked binary beacon connecting Leia to Rey... mehhhhhh. Poe demoted - good, what an idiot. The Dreadnought thing was a disaster. Finn sucks here. Just not greatly acted. Probably not his fault - script problem. So overly focused on Rey. Now they need a new base for asking for help from outer rim.... wonder where we’ve heard this kind of thing before...

Snoke’s ship shows up. 5.  Snoke's ship is like 1,000x the volume of regular enormous Star Destroyers? Mehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. And Poe “permission to get into an X-wing and blow something up,” with Leia’s “permission granted”... meehhhhhh. and then Kylo Ren fucks up the entire hangar bay anyway. Just doesn’t feel right. And this is where the “poor man’s Battlestar Galactica” really starts to set in. 

Kylo attacks the cruiser. 6.  Another "one ship destroys the fuck out of an enormous ship"... but I liked the conflict in Kylo, can’t fire on his mother.

Keeping out of range of shields. 3.  It was at this point I realized there were a lot of cutscenes in this movie. Like we had been been cutting and cutting and cutting for the first 30 minutes. I wrote: “I can barely keep up. and what the fuck? a smaller, lighter ship in space can keep out of range? what kind of bullshit physics is this? SPACE! FRICTIONLESS!”

Leia survives. 3. I wrote: “ OH dear god. that was atrocious.”

Chewy and Porgs, Luke. 6.  "Nothing can make me change my mind." OH REALLY? I BET SOMETHING WILL! R2D2 Plays Leia’s old message to Obi Wan. Mind Changed! Luke: "Tomorrow at dawn. 3 lessons."

Battlestar Galactica Laura Linney. 5.  Back to trying to escape the Cylons. Akbar dies offscreen, all Resistance leaders are dead. Bridge dead. Laura Linney comes in as the so-blatantly-queer leader of all. "The downtrodden and oppressed"... Hollywood laying it on a little thick, here. They are the spark that will light the fire, fine I guess. But even as a pretty left-leaning person, this scene broke my fourth wall. 

Holdo slaps Poe silly. 8. Very good scene. Finally, someone puts Poe in his place. This was the kind of feminist “resist toxic masculinity” thing that regardless of whether you like the message or not, had some subtlety to it rather than being ham-handed. 

Finn escapes, meets Rose. 4. Finn the idiot trying to find Rey for really no good reason. No depth of character - really obvious. He’s just the "GOTTA FIND REY!" guy this movie. Rose overacts. Finn running away again... Good, this makes sense! Finn and Rose are smart enough to talk jibberish at each other and solve the whole situation! Yeah, let's shut down the Destroyer! Yea let's sneak on board the Destroyer and disable the tracker! Also... how did Rose not already know they could be tracked through lightspeed? that obviously already happened literally hours ago, and there’s no way she didn’t know about the attack...

Poe and Finn stupid mission. 3.  Poe: "It’s a need to know plan and she doesn't." Ughhhhhhh booooooooo. Worst fucking plan. This is truly painful... another ragtag small group mission against the odds and against the wishes of leadership. Sure, this movie (spoiler) subverts the trope eventually, but in such a clear and blatant way that it still feels like the trope. 

Maz Kanata in union negotiations. 3. You can just imagine the writer’s room... “well, Kathleen Kennedy / JJ Abrams says we need to have Maz in Ep8 so she can return in Ep9. So how are we gonna get her in there? Hmm... well, let’s make it a hologram cameo so we don’t have to change script or design set. And maybe, hey, here’s an idea, a fun cameo! Something funny and unexpected! Like let’s have her be in the middle of a gunbattle! With who though? Nothing too serious... Oh! What about like Union negotiations? haha, that’s great! But let’s make sure it has some plot relevance... I got it, she can be the one who tips them off to the master codebreaker! Let’s make sure she says ‘find the master codebreaker’ twice so everyone is clear what’s happening.” fin

Rey-Kylo mind bridge. 8.  Pretty interesting scene. Kylo is good again, here as in most scenes. "You can't be here... the effort would kill you." Foreshaadowwwwwwingggg. Rey fires her blaster at the wall and the Nuns are pissed. Why didn't Rey tell Luke? Caretakers of the island. nice.

Luke trains Rey. 9.  It's a bit too fast how Rey just "gets it" ... like can't we warm up into that please? Kind of OK with the joking around with her when she reaches out, literally... OK and then the balance point is pretty cool, and Luke's lesson is pretty good. Although I don't love the seaweed anus (you know what I’m talking about), I do think that was a pretty cool scene. Luke is scared of Rey.

Back to Battlestar Galactica. 4. Getting frustrated, I wrote: “fuck i mean why are they so dead set on dumb ass missions?”

Chewy and Porgs. 7. Still too many scenes! I’m fine with porgs, I guess. I dunno. Not loving them, but also don't hate them like I hate the plot.

Rey and Kylo bridge 2. 9. Pretty great bridge scenes. Kylo more nuanced and mature than Rey. Kylo has water on him from the rain... should have been a foreshadowing to transportation in the galaxy or something awesome like that.

Canto Bight intro. 6. “Worst people in the galaxy.” Of course this would also be Hollywood ham-handed... The worst people are fancy richers. Stupid Western accent on big monster. It’s basically Monte Carlo. And it’s a New Cantina... but with bowties and cocktails this time! meh.

Canto Bight reveal. 4.  It's bad people! Heavy-handed. BB8 full of coins, ha, ha.... ha. Codebreaker plot gamut is over, good (sort of). 

Rey training. 7. Rey knocks over some rocks with her lightsaber. Funny. Decent. Although I wasn’t really impressed with her lightsaber wielding, to be honest. It seemed like they were trying to make it impressive. 

Luke and Rey lesson 2. 7. “The Jedi legacy is failure, hypocrisy, hubris.” I NOW KNOW THIS IS TRUE! Kylo takes a couple students and kills the rest... fine. Leia blamed Snoke... boooooO!!! Snoke is so dumb.

More BSG - fleet dying. 4. Current fuel at 6 hours. How does this square with the Luke/Rey pacing? Are we on two different timescales, like the great movie Dunkirk? Hux is lame.

Back on Canto Bight Benicio. 3.  Benicio del Toro is fine. The stutter tick is a bit overwrought. I wrote: “BB8 shoots coins like a fuckin’ bullshit idiot” so you know I was enjoying myself. I continue: “They escaped and left the fuckin' grate open?! now they're with the big dumb animals. show kids they're with the resistance. yay rebel logo. now they're riding the big dumb animals. on a track. now they're bulldozing a casino. now they're destroying cars. now the ship is destroyed. now they run up cliffs. and of course there's a cliff they almost fall down. ‘It was worth it to tear up that town and make'em hurt’ BOOOOOOO. Free the animal! ‘Now it's worth it...’ booooooo.”

Benicio saves the day. 4.  ddddddddd need a lift? what kind of stutter is this, anyway? 

Kylo-Rey and Luke-Leia bridge. 9. “Let the past die. Kill it if you have to. it's the only way to become who we're meant to be.” In addition to being a fantastic @EmoKyloRen tweet, this line and scene was pretty great. 

Rey goes to the dark hole (seaweed anus). 9. She opens up to Kylo. so cool. Really like this complexity. They fall in love halfway between light and dark, kinda? Luke blows up the cabin and Rey confronts him.

Rey and Luke fight! 8. “ This is not going to go the way you think!” “I saw Kylo's future as solid as I'm seeing you. Ben Solo will turn.” Seen this before! It's cool but it's also a bit of a rehash. Luke won't take the saber. she leaves.

Luke and Yoda. 9. Yoda, laughing, burns the tree. “Skywalker. teach the failure. always looking to the horizon, not here, the need in front of your nose.” “Failure the greatest teacher is.” “We are what they grow beyond, that is the true burden of all masters.” I guess Yoda is just an amazing character because the lines writers write for him are almost universally great. 

Finn, Rose, and Benicio. 7.  Selling weapons to the bad and good... military industrial complex. "It's all a machine. Live free, don't join." OK... I like the different take, at least. 

BSG Again. 7. Poe confronts Holdo. Meh.

Rey goes to Snoke’s ship, Poe mutinies, Finn and Rey slip through shields. 6.  Who cares.

Robots ironing joke. 8. I liked this!

More sneaking around. 6. Is the hacker a good guy!? they get caught trying to shut down the tracker. I wrote: “Now stupid chrome Captain Phasma is dumb.”

Rey and Kylo in throne room. 9. “My good and faithful apprentice, my faith in you is restored.” Snoke still sucks but this scene is good. 

Poe and Leia. 6. Poe stunned by Leia. He's a dumbass.

Leia and holdo bye. 7.  Didn't feel that much emotion here either. Rebels "escape" sneaking out the back. 

Throne room again. 7. Snoke is super all powerful mehhh. "I bridged your minds, I baited you all." Emperor 2. Just like Luke, Emperor, and Vader. Tired. 

Crait rebel base. 6. Send a signal to allies in Outer Rim. Holdo knew to get transports out. Hide until First Order passes. Poe: "that could work" mehhhhh.

Benicio Betrayal. 3. How did he know that the transports were happening? nobody else did. Ridiculous. Why are the bombs arcing!?!!?! TOO MUCH GRAVITY. THIS IS SPACE. 

Throne room again. 7. Snoke super all amazingly powerful evil amazing omg. so dumb. Andy Serkis overacting is not good. Kylo "turns" against Snoke. Snoke really ruins this scene.

Transports getting domo’d. 5.  Still meh!

Post-Snoke throne room battle. 10. It's fine. So much action. Not sure why Red Guards are scary really. Rey and Kylo kill all the red guards. TWIST! Kylo didn't actually turn! Old v New, not Light v Dark! Great stuff here. "Your parents sold you off for drinking money. They’re dead in a pauper's grave in the Jakku desert. You don't have a place in this story. You're nothing. But not to me. Join me. Please." I mean this is really interesting!!! This like light-dark love mixing here! The Rey-Kylo interactions in both movies have been great. 

Holdo’s sacrifice. 9. I mean OK holy shit, but why had nobody ever done it before? Beautifully shot, total quiet was very impactful as well. Good job on this, although potentially problematic for the greater Star Wars universe.

Finn vs. Phasma. 6. BB8 in an ATST? meh. Finn: "Let's go, chromedome." Phasma: "you're a bug in the system." Matrix callback! Bleh. another villain falls down a large chasm. Good riddance, Phasma. 

The New Supreme Leader. 6. The supreme leader is dead, long live the supreme leader, mehhhhhhhh.

The New Hoth. 5.  Rey and Rose sneak under the door, of course :( Miniaturized Death Star Tech. Battering ram cannon. Siiiiiiiiiigh. Ice foxes are cool I guess. We have now had a Death Star or a Death Star-like superweapon in all films except Episode 1.

Battle of Salt Hoth. 6.  Trench warfare. It’s salt, so it's OK that it looks just like Hoth! Everyone drive in straight lines right at the enemy, Yeah that's the ticket. Monoski, yea that's the ticket. It's pretty, at least. Remember at the beginning of the movie when they said it was “A dreadnought,” not the last one? Why not just bring a dreadnought to this situation and destroy the whole planet? Falcon + Chewie + Porg + Rey having fun again. The falcon goes into a mine that looks exactly like the Death Star 2 scaffolding and tie fighters follow...... sigh.

Finn tries to sacrifice. 3. Rose saves him from himself.... booooooo. And in the process basically kills herself... to save each other from .... the evil? By love? We're gonna win by not fighting what we hate but saving what we love! As the Death Star tech punches thru the door and she passes out. dumb dumb dumb. Could have given Finn a non-unidimensional redemption!

Luke and Leia. 6. “The galaxy has lost all its hope. The spark is out." I BET IT’S NOT! mehhhh. How many times do we have to do this in this movie? "nothing can change my mind." "it's over." the spark is out." Just kidding! Something Can/It's Not/No it isn’t! Here's Luke! zomg!

Luke faces down the First Order. 9. Very pretty. intense. Hux "do you think you got him?" is funny. Kylo's anger is good. Very pretty shots. Luke brushing dirt off his shoulder is good. Hux getting crushed to the wall is a good and funny joke.

Luke vs. Kylo. 9.  Luke no footprints on second viewing, hey, nice job guys! “Every word of what you just said, is wrong.” Good Luke line. Second time in the movie he’s said it to good effect. I like that. 

Escape! 7. Why wouldn't Luke have just told them, "Hey, I'm stalling, you escape?" Why make Poe figure it out? Rey lifts the rocks. Hooray Force. 

Luke was projecting!! He dies. 9. That was an emotional end. Well done. Sun setting. Good callback.

Resistance escapes. 7. Luke is gone, Rey and Leia talk, Finn and Rose, how do rebuild Rebellion from this, we have everything we need right here. Meh. Aaaaaand we're back where we started 9 movies ago.

Little kid has Force. 6. ...and Rose’s rebellion ring. Hooooookey. "The masses will rise up.” Once again... It's been 70 years and we're back where we started.

VERDICT: 

Given the score distribution, I was surprised to see that the stdev was not the highest of all the films - but I suppose Ep1 had both Jar-Jar and Darth Maul. With the sheer scene count, our histogram starts to approximate a normal distribution around 6. Which is sad. The outlier 9′s come to us because of the good Force-centric scenes with Kylo, Luke, and Rey (but not Snoke). The outlier 3′s come to us because of Dreadnoughts, Canto Bight, Poe, and Finn (bad storylines). 

Which brings us back to what I said before about this movie being great in its Force thread and bad everywhere else. When you calculate the scores for all scenes with any of Luke, Rey, and Kylo Ren, but nobody else, the average score is an 8.42. All other scenes average a 5.52. This movie had a very good story vein, set into a very bad plot structure. 

Perhaps the most damning verdict of all, however, is that I just don’t really care what happens next. I read one review which made the point that by this movie, the struggle between the Empire and the Rebellion has been going on openly for 70 years, and so little has changed. I noticed that, too. Death Stars have been built and destroyed and built again, destroying planets, narrowly missing the chance to destroy planets, and so on. Rebel forces have been against the wall and overwhelmed all odds to defeat an evil menace, only to find themselves under the menace’s thumb once again with historically instantaneous speed. Why is Leia still fighting? Maybe beyond the botox, this weariness is what kept me from connecting with her character or struggle at all. And no wonder nobody answered the call for help at the end of the film. 

Yes, Ep9 will have some inspiring uprising by a bunch of nobody’s, just like the climax of V for Vendetta, but how predictable, how uninspiring. Episode 9 - take it or leave it. And that’s the saddest realization of them all. 

REVIEW LINKS:

Introduction: Star Wars, a rediscovery.

Rogue One: 6.92 / 10.00 (stdev 2.06).

Episode 4: A New Hope. 8.00 / 10.00 (stdev 1.34).

Episode 5: The Empire Strikes Back. 8.00 / 10.00 (stdev 1.29).

Episode 1: The Phantom Menace. 5.00 / 10.00 (stdev 2.08). But probably worse than that, actually.

Episode 2: Attack of the Clones. 5.48 / 10.00 (stdev 2.07).

Episode 3: Revenge of the Sith. 7.00 / 10.00 (stdev 1.77).

Episode 6: Return of the Jedi. 7.90 / 10.00 (stdev 1.91).

Episode 7: The Force Awakens. 6.57 / 10.00 (stdev 2.01).

Episode 8: The Last Jedi. 6.31 / 10.00 (stdev 1.89).

Verdict: Star Wars, A rediscovery.