[belsarius]

I feel conflicted right now with this movie and need another couple viewings to really get my bearings. Truth be told the Luke death took a couple hours to sink in.

I'm conflicted in that I thought it was a great movie. I think it hit the right notes of a Star Wars movie, had a lot of similar elements from ESB and ROTJ without seeming too repetitive. Space battles were well done, the humour may have been a little overdone at times but I enjoyed the extra attempts, especially Luke's shoulder brush.

I didn't enjoy it as part 2 of a trilogy, or part 8 of this story. I found the tonal switch from the last movie was a little jarring. This movie had some very hard hitting, "this is not the same story anymore" points. The lightsabre toss, the helmet destruction, the dice fading, the lightsabre torn in two and Luke's demise. This felt like the perfect type of ending to the Skywalker story, or a good start to the last trilogy. But as a middle chapter it felt too much like throwing away the old halfway through a story, Frodo tossing the ring in book 2. Fantastic at moving from one storyline to another, poor timing imo.

I really look forward to Rian Johnson getting his own new trilogy. I really liked the movie on it's own merits. I enjoyed the call-backs, particularly the fact that in the dark side cave Luke sees himself in Vader's helmet and when Rey see's herself when looking for her parents. I liked Luke's zen master translocational trick but it kind of ruined the whole "Luke got in so there must be a way out".. oh wait he didn't actually find a way in.

I would have loved to see Rey join Kylo, that was along the line of Vader is Luke's father twist I was looking for. Have her join the First Order, the remnants of the resistance trapped in a cave, Finn in a cell and set up a third movie where it is up her friends to help her find her way back to the light and redeem herself. Maybe that was just too Empire of an ending tho.