I hear ya. There’s a lot of conflicting information out there regarding what was planned and what wasn’t. I’ve read interviews with Kathleen Kennedy that the fundamentals of Rey’s story were locked down even before J.J. was hired for TFA and Daisy said years ago that J.J. told her who Rey’s parents were and that has…

“...a complete retelling of a trilogy I already watched when I was like five. Don’t get me wrong, I loved it and still do. I just didn’t need to see it told again.”

Somebody needs to go spend some time on tvtropes (Rian). Subversion of tropes is in itself, a trope. All TLJ did was make space chases boring, that itself is damning enough. They could have had nearly the same exact plot but have it be a lot more exciting if they had just aped BSGs “33". 

The trailer implied Rey would go “gray” but I was disappointed that it wasn’t really a factor in Last Jedi. She also took the books with her, so Yoda was just punking Luke. Which...I’m ok with. I just wish they didn’t have Kylo stick with the First Order, I get not just redeeming him, but have him go a third way and…

RO’s biggest strength is it had the guts to have protagonists do fairly questionable things like murder people, and also have them ALL die at the end. Which is honestly what should’ve happened in Rebels too. 

And then the prequels showed them all getting killed off and introduced a prophecy about a messiah figure bringing balance to the force. 

I completely agree and that was my point as well. I fear that J.J. isn’t capable of “good” fan service and that, based on the reviews, he spends that service in TROS just trying to undo or recontextualize the interesting parts of TLJ.

I liked TLJ because Luke said what anyone that watched the prequels thought: the Jedi Order was a complete failure and we shouldn’t try to just make another one. It was a cool subversion from the original idea that got smashed to pieces in the prequels when they were played for fools by Palpatine.

Rouge One has some problems — a fairly weak lead, too much planet-hopping, the absolute dumbest strategy possible from the notoriously idiotic Resistance/Rebellion/what have you — but the good stuff is great, and it’s my favorite depiction of the Force in these movies, something that may or may not exist but even its…

Hell the Mandalorian supports this take that basically nobody in the Galaxy knew who Luke Skywalker was post-Jedi or what happened on Endor.

I’m in the minority,

I feel like no matter what your feeling is on any of these movies, we all fall into the same trap, which is taking them as a personal attack. Kylo pieces his helmet back together after smashing it? It’s not That Progress Isn’t Linear, but that They Are Retconning The One I Liked!

I’ve thought about this for a very long time and The Last Jedi breaks down like this to me.

So far, the Star Wars reddit is shitting on the movie precisely because it tries to course-correct TLJ so hard. Those who saw it argue that RoS makes TLJ worse because there’s next to no pay-off to anything that happened in that film, so it was a pointless middle chapter. Rian Johnson ended up making a polarizing film…

Good writing IS.

Is that sarcasm? Most of us love Star Wars despite the iffy writing, not because if it.

I can’t say I shared the frustration. Even with the recruitment scenes and backstory I felt it moved swiftly and had solid tension that built throughout.

But the Allsafe guys aren’t dead (as far as we know) and I’m sure the same can be said about a lot of people Elliot meets. I think it’s just something about how Elliot’s life changed. His dad not abusing him. His mother not being there.

There’s definitely something off in the fact that Darlene apparently doesn’t exist in this world. That suggests that this is just one of a number of permutations of the ‘real world’ rather than an actual, definitive ‘ideal world’. Tyrell didn’t seem to happy in it either. Also - although perhaps it was my imagination…

I think Darlene isn’t there because she’s not dead in real life, but Eliot, his dad, Angela, her parents, Whiterose, and Tyrell all are.