Michael's Movie Grade: F
Review: This film wasn't as bad as Rogue One. However that is the best thing I can say about this movie and in my mind that is not even a compliment.
This movie simply gave me no reason to care about anything that happened on screen. The new characters were devoid of anything resembling personality, and the old characters seemed to have lost any personality they once had. There were moments that I knew were supposed to be suspenseful but being left with no one to root for I kept waiting for them to end. There was not a side of this battle I wanted to see win or lose, because I felt no connection with any of them. This movie also seemed to lose the atmosphere that is so visible in the best Star Wars movies. What made the best Star Wars movies work is that the planets the characters stayed on felt so real and vivid, that you completely believe these places and picture yourself there. Every place that is seen in this movie is horribly undeveloped and simply uninteresting. I could never image any of these places as real, they simply felt like locations in a third rate science fiction movie. The one thing this does have over Rogue One was that there were some plot twists I didn't see coming. However I was so uninterested in anything I was seeing that they left no impact at all on me. This film also had some attempts at humor that would have been nice, if they were at all funny. Sadly they are just as bland and boring as the rest of this movie.
After this and Rogue One I have lost all hope in the Star Wars franchise. I know it is possible for the series to turn itself around, but I just don't see it happening. Simply put this movie is pure boredom and I simply just don't care about this franchise any more.
-Michael J. Ruhland
Personally, I enjoyed the movie as a whole. I never found myself thinking that it was dragging on or waiting for something to end. The action was great and suspenseful (at times). It was something very different than the previous iterations and I think that was a welcome sight for me. Force Awakens was great, but it was basically just a remake of A New Hope, with better CGI and new characters. That being said, there were things that I did not find enjoyable. Yes, our beloved characters of have kind of faded away, but that was to be expected with Disney taking over and trying to distance itself from the George Lucas era. I thought they did a great job with Leia, and her role in this movie. Though, that surviving space/pulling herself back to the ship thing was ridiculous. Luke was a little disappointing, in that he became this paranoid hermit, he did have a lot of redeeming qualities though. I wish that fight with Kylo would have been a lot more intense. It did kind of remind me though of the Vader/Obi Won fight with the master/pupil theme. For me, the movie suffered a lot in the middle stages, when they were staling, and then went off on a somewhat pointless side mission to find the code breaker, which they did find someone, and then he was never seen from. Also from Rey becoming a competent Jedi in a matter of days, whereas Luke trained for much longer.
ReplyDeleteI did find myself invested in a lot in some of the new characters though. Rose, who I know has been given a lot of bad responses, was someone I enjoyed. To me she was that new wave of people who need to and are going to step up and help fight the new order. They are that spark that ignite the resistance to overtake them. Though brief, I liked Benicio del Toro, and hope to see him again. I get that it can be hard to bring in new faces, especially to a story so epic as this.
As for Rogue One, I thoroughly enjoyed that movie, and even got choked up at the end.
I have hope that they will end the story on a grand note (but to me, that would be to see Rey overtake Kylo, and become the new Supreme Leader/Darth Vader/Palpatine or whomever you choose, because I am just a dark side person.
-Nick (your cousin) :)
I understand and fully appreciate your thoughts about this movie. The more I think about it, I think the reason I did not like this movie was because the environments and planets, lacked the vividness that previous movies did. As I stated here, what I liked about previous Star Wars movies is they made me feel like I was transported to another world and that is something I found completely lacking here. Still I understand your appreciation that they are trying something new, I just wished I found their new chances more interesting.
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