Someone had to say it.

Rest of the rant -

https://imgur.com/gallery/wzT8Z
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But they made big money at the box office!
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Yeah... I understand why some hate TLJ, I do not understand how some are putting it beneath any of the ****piles that were the prequels.
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Never liked his character.
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I know it is futile, but I keep hoping Finn will die from all his stupidity.
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And again, without quibbling over the 'reality' of things and motivations, I'm frustrated by writers taking a cheap way out with Finn.

They had a perfect avenue for closing his character arc and killing him off. They clearly have no use for him anyway so they send him on bizarre side-missions that are largely immaterial. He's served a valid purpose and somehow given a face to nameless storm troopers.

It was a great idea executed okay, but it's run its course. Killing off Finn would've potentially been a nice saving grace for this movie and would've streamlined things for Chapter IX. It's a perfect 'redemption story' for him to go out in a blaze of glory and save his friends. But again - the writers dropped the ball, IMO. Because Disney isn't going to kill one of their new characters.

Just another missed opportunity in a movie absolutely loaded with them.
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Yeah, he's like a live action Jar Jar.
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Yes, it is futile.

Anyone else think it's odd that in less than TWO WEEKS Finn is now a resistance hero?

I don't care what color or sex a Star Wars character is. Hell, we have giant Yeti's flying space ships for fuck's sake.

I just thought the writing was lazy and sloppy. And no, I don't think the director had any part in the writing. He created a beautiful film and people looking down on him from above found a way to foul it up.

What if they touched on the idea of Finn being force sensitive in a lesser way?
What if they even hinted at why Ray is so powerful?
What if Ray convinces Kylo that both sides are necessary?
What if Kylo convinces Ray that both sides are necessary?
What if Luke actually shows up to sacrifice himself instead of (why is this so dominant in the film?) using augmented reality force powers?
What if Yoda shows up and tells Luke he needs to help Ray/his sister/the resistance and he has a change of heart?

All ideas better than what we saw...
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Are you seriously comparing Solo to Finn?!
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Really?
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Rian Johnson both wrote and directed Episode VIII and was originally slated to write Episode IX.
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I can list HUNDREDS of writing credits where the writers were told what to do by editors/publishers/creators (Marvel comics for instance - owned by Dinsey.)

You can see clear instances of Johnson influence and clear instances where things were (no pun intended) forced in...
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Non specific things I liked about this movie:

The humor - some people clearly hated it. I think it fit the tone of the series quite well. Star wars humor was generally just an Nth above pies to the face as it is. There were actually some really dry, almost laconic bits of humor throughout this. And while I think they overused the 'Hux as a slapstick rube' comic-device something awful by the end, it was damn funny early in the movie. I didn't find it distracting and by the end, as disappointment set in, it was one of the few things that gave brought me back into the movie.

Adam Driver and Ren's development - again, a lot of people dislike Driver almost as much as they dislike Kylo Ren. I think Johnson actually did a lot to dispel the emo Darth complaints of the first movie here. He gave Ren some pretty incredible character moments throughout. We got a great glimpse into his past and he assumed the mantle as the clear baddy which will pay dividends going forward and allow him to be a truly sinister figure. As for Driver - dude's main strength is emoting and it's pretty obvious why they had him destroy his mask. They wanted the audience to see his face so they could take advantage of that strength (even if it was 'scene chewing' in a lot of ways -
again, subtle acting hasn't really been a thing in the Star Wars series apart from Alec Guiness) and frankly, as a character he's coming into his own so he doesn't feel the need to emulate Vader anymore.

Um.....not much else. Some individual moments here and there were visually stunning (kamikazee sequence was mind-blowing) and certain scenes had entertainment value in their own right without being part of a greater whole, IMO (the throne room scene).

Like I said - this movie isn't objectively bad like any of the prequels. It's just not very good either. At least not in a holistic way. As a series of occasionally entertaining vignettes it wouldn't have been bad, but it just never pulled itself together into as good a move as it should have been.
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Rian Johnson wrote the script and KK approved it. This was not a collaborative effort and if it was, credit would have been listed in the end credits of the film and registered with the Writer's Guild of America for all to see.

I have a good friend that's written several blockbuster movies and once, a manager tried to claim 33% of the writing credits because he managed the star and co-writer. Lawyers were involved and it went to Arbitration.

My friend won the case and was given his 50% share but he'll never work with those people again.

If that happened on a Star Wars film, it would be the talk of Hollywood so the bottom line is that it didn't happen.
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I hated the early comedy.

The later stuff like Yoda (and I know I'm in the minority here) I liked. To me it was Yoda telling Luke to let go. And here I started to slowly pull back into the film.

I liked Luke's leaf tickling scene. It was perhaps the only scene in the film where Luke points out "you have no clue what you're doing. Shut up and listen."
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