I finally watched this today. Here's some AV nerd shit before I get to the movie...I decided to give a Dolby Cinema theater a try for the first time. It's definitely better than any other large screen format I've seen in terms of contrast and image quality, besting IMAX and RDX and whatever other variety of "special" theaters I've been in. It's still not at the level of what a high-end TV can provide, but it still looked pretty good. Even more impressive was the audio, it was fucking awesome. That's the first time in many years at the movies where I wasn't wishing I was listening at home on my own set up. I'd definitely recommend the small price jump versus the other premium formats out there. Anyway...
When I was a kid, I looked forward to eating Halloween candy. I could drown myself in candy corn and Twix bars and enjoy the shit out of it all without any unhappy side effects. These days I just kind of eat it because it shows up in the house once each year. Yes, it can be pretty good as I'm munching it down, but now even a few bites can drive me into a sugar coma and make me feel like I've formed a solid rock in my colon. It's still sort of satisfying but yet kind of painful. I'll never again enjoy the experience like I did when I was six. That's kinda how I feel about these movies.
RoS in particular is like liquefying and mainlining an entire bag of candy at once, inclusive of some of the euphoria and the terrible, terrible side-effects that that would entail. It's been said several times already, but part of the blame for the unpleasantness certainly lies with TLJ. This film was clearly straining to get out of the way of that one. I appreciated the effort, but I don't think all of it was necessary and what we got was far too overstuffed. But if I really have a primary gripe with pretty much all of these new films, it's their severe lack of TENSION. Ok, so Palpatine is back...maybe that's lazy writing and stupid...maybe in good hands it's brilliant...either way, it just didn't have any tension to it. He's there looking nightmarish and menacing, but there's nothing resembling what you feel during his throne room scenes with Vader and Luke. Holy fuck, it's a god damn endless fleet of old school Star Destroyers! Yet, somehow...no tension. Here comes some X-Wings and some 'splosions and it looks great and Star Warsy, but it all just lacks gravity and punch and tension. Where's the fucking kick to the gut and subsequent rush that you feel when the Death Star suddenly starts blasting away capital ships and Lando takes the fleet straight into a similar mess of Star Destroyers? It just ain't there.
They get closest during the Rey and Kylo scenes. I think most of those are done well, although what was with Finn going all "Hey Rey!" during their last fight? Like that wouldn't distract her as Kylo is sending his lightsaber straight at her skull? She should have force choked a bitch for that. Also, whose Cheerios did 3PO piss in? They really shit on him in this one, lol. And what the fuck was Lando's angle at the end? I couldn't tell if they were setting up that girl to be his daughter, or if that was just a nod to him being a creepy horndog. Either way that was awkward city.
I made peace long ago with the fact that Star Wars began in 1977 and ended in 1983. And that's fine. There never really needed to be any Star Wars beyond those three films; they are perfectly self-contained. In large part, because of that, I just can't get all that worked up about how good or bad these news ones are. They've always been just sort of extraneous. I also don't follow any of the Twitter "drama", KK writing group shenanigans, SJW agendas, etc. I don't immerse myself in YouTube videos that surgically shred each element of these movies in detail. So yeah, I'll buy a ticket for whatever the next one is, fret about it slightly like I would when I strain to work out a digested ball of tootsie rolls, and go back home and watch the OT again. If someone actually manages to capture and harness the old magic again, I might just actually get back in line to watch it again. That would be something.
