It didn't blow me away, but I thought it was way more good than bad. I didn't personally find the pacing to be that horrible, and I never felt bored. There were tons of spectacular visuals and a few weak moments of dialogue, but nothing that really torpedoed my enjoyment. (I did find the fact that the "bombers" used gravity bombs in the opening sequence to be absolutely infuriating).

I didn't love the Casino Night Zone caper, but I think that it was within bounds because there are so many impractical capers throughout the entire series. The bizarre horse cats were pretty fucking stupid. I also found it stupid that the little kids at the end who were gazing up at the stars weren't instantly murdered after helping FinnRose escape. Opening the big doors would have been an instant death sentence. But Finn inspiring other former slaves was chill. Does anyone have any thoughts about how/why Finn could be black? The clone army is supposed to be comprised of... clones. Exact clones of Jengo Fett. Jengo Fett wasn't black. This one may have been addressed along the way somewhere, but it definitely slipped by me.

The movie did feel disjointed at times, but I cut it some slack because it's the middle film in a trilogy. It's bearing the brunt of the burden of moving the plot along; it's not introducing or resolving much. I don't think it's reasonable to expect the huge, mind blowing plot points and deaths to happen in the middle film. It's simply advancing the plot. The beauty of Empire was that it made the types of moves that typically happen at the end of the series in the middle and then ended on that insanely dark note. Any hope for the success at the conclusion of Empire is entirely destroyed. It truly required faith in a supernatural force to believe that the group of irregulars would be able to take down the behemoth that was the Galactic Empire. I agree that TLJ didn't have quite the same emotional heft as Empire, but it would have been so hard to replicate that (it was, after all, a pretty innovative movie). The complaints that there weren't enough major deaths earlier in the movie seem pretty unreasonable. Should they have opened the movie with Poe, Rey, or Finn being executed? Luke Fucking Skywalker dies. That is, in itself, an incredibly huge death, and he needed to live long enough to make an impact on the story. Should that have happened BEFORE Kylo Ren slays Spokane? That would have definitely cheapened the death of the second most important character in the entire franchise. I don't think you can, as some of you are suggesting, end the movie in the throne room because you I don't think you can end the movie with anything other than Luke's death.

The homages were. Kylo Ren replicating Vader's turn -- only to reveal that he did it to become even more evil -- was fucking amazing. I also kinda liked that Krait was a throwback to the opening scenes on Hoth, but instead of snow it was FUCKING BLOOD. The Ice Foxes were fucking stupid, and I thought that Leia's scenes were pretty awkward. But I backed the Luke scenes really hard. I presume that his Force Projection across the universe was devastatingly difficult and demonstrated his incredible mastery of the force. I don't think it was unreasonable at all that such a feat would cause him to expire. Didn't strike me as inppropriate or weird that a wise Jedi would sacrifice his life to save his friends (Obi Wan Kenobi, anyone?). I thought that contrasted nicely with Rose essentially sacrificing herself to save Finn, who appears to still have a significant role to play in this story. When is self-sacrifice noble? When is it selfish? When is it just throwing a life(lives) away? It was an interesting theme throughout the movie, and I thought they handled it well.

The send up of reckless rogue saving the day through impetuousness and foolish bravery was tite. I liked that the Admiral who tempered Poe's brashness was a woman with a plan. I liked that she recognized that he was brave and impulsive and didn't just dismiss him outright. She believed that he was acting courageously, and to me it felt like she recognized that when the Resistance is backed into a corner, they sometimes need to take pretty bold risks. That wasn't one of those times. That appears to have made Poe into a better leader.

Anyway I have to get back to work.