DANGER: SPOILERS
I realize that cute characters are a Star Wars staple - Jawas, Ewoks, Gungans, mouse droids, and even R2-D2. They inevitably annoy some adults, but those adults need to come to terms with the fact that Star Wars isn't solely for them. Now that Disney's involved, I wouldn't be surprised if the number of cute critters increases exponentially. BB-8 manages to be even cuter than R2, and the porgs are were obviously invented to be marketable.
But you know what? The porgs aren't nearly as annoying I thought they would be. Yes, they are completely irrelevant to the plot, and literally only exist to make the audience laugh. Even Jar Jar moved the plot forward, but porgs are just superfluous eye candy. But on the bright side, they don't get too much screen time, and they never wear out their welcome like the Gungans did. And some of their scenes are truly hilarious.
BB-8 on the other hand... I still love the little guy, but he's way overpowered in this movie. There's a scene where he single handedly takes out several guards, and another where he saves the day by piloting an AT-ST. I don't know why they even recruit resistance fighters any more, they would be better off building an army of BB droids.
The plot is weird. A large portion of the movie involves the First Order slowly chasing a resistance freighter that only has shields in the back, waiting for it to run out of fuel. I've seen multiple reviewers ask: Why they don't just send a few ships ahead of it to shoot it from every side? The movie sort of answers this question, but not very well.
Meanwhile, during the slow motion chase, Finn and Rose manage to fly off in a smaller ship to look for a hacker in a casino. It's a very weird sidequest. "Hey we're going to fly away from the main plot for a while and come back." If it's so easy to just fly away in a ship like that, wouldn't that have been a better escape plan than the incredibly slow moving escape pods they eventually use?
How many people could Finn's ship hold, anyway? Seems like they could have at least dropped a few rebels off on a safer planet somewhere. It would have saved them from getting blown up later. And yes I know Finn was secretly disobeying orders when he left, but maybe that ship should have been Resistance Escape Plan A.
Of course, when he does finally get back, the codebreaking plan doesn't work anyway. I know it's a bit of a Shaggy Dog Story, but I like that the plot doesn't turn out like you'd think. Much like Leia's survival, it's an interesting twist that keeps the movie from being predictable.
Leia's use of the Force to survive in space was... well, it's a neat idea, but it looked cheesy on film. This might sound cold, but they also missed a good opportunity to write her out of the series. I assume they already have a fate planned for her in Episode 9, so I guess I'll reserve judgment until I see what happens then. I just hope they still have some unused footage, since they already promised not to resurrect her with CGI. I'll be kind of annoyed if Episode 9 just mentions her in passing, like "Oh Leia? She retired on Bespin."
Rey's origin... is Kylo telling the truth? If so, I'm okay with her being a nobody. Maybe it's like Anakin, and she was conceived by the Force itself, because the Force needed her to fulfill some big destiny thingamabob. However, all the hints of her being someone more, like the Unreveal in the cave beneath Luke's island... those teasers aren't going to age well. It's like the director was playing with the audience, making fun of all the speculation that Rey might be related to a main character.
Snoke's death was pretty cool, and the fight afterwards was beautiful. But still... I wish they hadn't killed off Snoke without telling us who he really is first. He's obviously got a history with the other characters. Leia, Han, and Luke all made references about how Snoke was a bad influence on Kylo, as if he was some sort of old acquaintance or recurring villain.
So this is the worst kind of movie secret - the kind that everyone already knows, except for the audience. I know there were a lot of crazy theories about him being a resurrected Vader/Palpatine/Plagueis/etc, but I'm okay with him just being an original character. But there's obviously a story there, and it would have been nice to reveal it before killing him.
But then, maybe they're planning to bring Snoke back. If he is Plagueis, then he's a master of life and death, which would also explain his long lifespan. Darth Maul came back in the cartoons, after dying from similar injuries. So maybe Snoke still has a role left to play. Yet another element that might not make sense until Episode 9.
My biggest complaint, though, was just the overall unevenness of the movie. It felt weirdly structured, and overly long. There were several places where I thought the credits were going to roll. Not that I dislike the ending, but it just felt like it came way after the climax. Still, I was never bored. Action scenes and humorous moments were spread evenly throughout the movie, and I never felt like I was drowning in exposition. There were pacing problems, but I was always entertained.
All in all, The Last Jedi felt a lot like The Empire Strikes Back: It's a good linking film, but incomprehensible on its own. I don't think The Last Jedi will truly be appreciated until Episode 9 is out, so we can see where all the plot threads lead. Until then, it feels less like a story and more like just a bunch of stuff that happens.
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