[CaptainCrunch]

Well at least I can finally join this discussion, after a few delays I finally took my old man and my mom to see this movie as their Christmas gift from me and to carry on a tradition.

And Star Wars was all about tradition, but this movie continues to redefine the Star War Tradition and move it down a new track being created by Disney.

That's not a bad thing, its just a different thing and that's all right. To put it simply for the most part, as a movie goer I really liked this movie, it had a more human element that has been lacking since the Empire Strikes Back came out in 1980. If you can't separate this version of the Star Wars universe from the previous Lucas Generation, in my mind your doomed to probably dislike it a great deal.

From a visual point of view, this film is beautifully shot and framed. From Luke's Island Temple, to the scenes in space to the Casino scene everything looked in place and the attention to detail was served well.

With George Lucas, when he created the Star Wars universe though, he was extremely Lore driven, and he had to be, the old saying is that this was a universe that George created and we were welcome to visit it. From the history to the Jedi, to the rising of the Empire, to the Sith Rule of Two, to the Jedi order, everything had a place and a to the most extent logical backstory.

The new Star Wars, first started in TFA and now continuing in this film is about the here and now, there's no real reason to have a deep backstory. In otherwords from the extent of the Universe this is very much Star Wars light.

Where did the First Order come from? That question doesn't really need to be answered, they're the evil blackhats who's justification is based around bringing order to a galaxy in Chaos. We don't really need to see the machinations of its rise. If you want that, then buy the Aftermath series of books.

What's Hux's story, or Phasma's? Is it important, not really, they're there to be the foil to the virtuous Resistance and more importantly Rey.

What about Snoke? Where did he come from? Is he a Sith, or a clone or an omniscient Dark Side creation, and why does his head look like someone lit fire to his face and put it out with an axe? That doesn't matter, what matters is he's powerful enough to throw people around and connect Ren and Rey through the force as a bait to a juicy. At the end of the day, all that matters is he is the necessary sacrifice to Kylo's ascension to ultimate and possibly irredeemable evil. If Snoke had been in the least way force weak or not formidable, Kylo Ren's betrayal of him would have been meaningless.

Realistically the Lore of this story is reserved for the triangle of Luke, Rey and Ren. Most importantly the Lore was reserved for this.

As a Jedi, Luke was a failure and he freely admits it. Sure he had that one bright moment, when he redeemed his father, but looking back on that now, Luke had lost that fight, and Anakin pretty much redeemed himself by freeing himself from the chains of the Darkside for love. Luke at the end of the day was a poor Jedi, who always looked past the things right in front of him to the future, and that character flaw haunted him until the end.

From his founding of the Jedi Academy to train the next generation of Jedi and not acting to stop Ben Solo's fall to the dark side until the end, to living his greatest fear and creating another Vader. Luke's failures were plentiful, and instead of correcting his mistake he retreated and wanted to die which in effect was an admission of surrender and a willingness to leave the galaxy in the hands of darkness.

In the end when we saw Luke take action, it was an awesome display of power that in effect redeemed Luke, but not in terms of defeating the darkside, but in terms of igniting that spark of light to an ember by allowing what was left of the resistance to survive and maybe grow again.

For Rey her Lore was based around the duel question of "Who am I?" and "What am I going to be?". I suppose that a lot of fans were bitter that Rey's parentage whether its a lie of not was nothing. Her parents were anonymous junk dealers and the reveal in the dark cavern made sense, from a Disney Lore point of view, it was basically that this galaxy is not about the Skywalkers alone but that the Force can be everywhere, that was hammered home in the end with the young boy. At the same time, its clear that Rey has a strong affinity to the Force and her true temptation by the Dark Side is yet to come, and the question is, will she be wise enough to resist it when it offers the power to defeat Ren.

For Ren, we finally get the answer to the question, what if Anakin had betrayed Palpatine and taken over. For Ren, hes the representation of an Anakin without Jedi training and the emotional control of Vader. Kylo is probably not ready to lead the Empire, just like Vader could have never ruled the Empire. Kylo is too driven by his rage and anger, and lacks the charisma, patience and knowledge to be anything more then a murderous thug. In that way, Kylo is fairly two dimensional, he's a powerful force using, impulsive third world dictator.

But one thing is clear, Kylo hates his past and everything about it, and his only solution is to destroy the past, all of it, his parents, the resistance, his enslavement to Snoke and Like, all of which offer him only pain and rage, and to create a fresh start with him in charge.

If you look at it from the point of view of the Sith, Kylo became more Sith in a way then Snoke or Vader ever was.

Through Victory his chains are broken, the Force shall set me free. This is the final two lines of the Sith Code, and its understandable here. By killing Luke, and his parents and Snoke and the resistance, Ren will snap the chains of his emotional bondage and be free to be more then his grandfather was.

As for the rest of the characters. yeah the Poe storyline was ok, it was the cookie cutter story of the eager warrior becoming a better leader though emotional suffering. For Finn and Rose, they basically have become this generations version of Han and Chewie, the cavalier hero and his faithful sidekick.

For Leia. she became the emotional center of what's left of the Resistance, and in a sense is the Ben Kenobi in guiding the Resistance to its rebirth.

Overall I liked this movie, some of the humor fell flat, and the Casino storyline was maybe drawn out a bit.

The whole slow speed chase in space could have probably been better, if you look at the BattleStar Galactica episode where the Cylon's kept jumping after the Human survivors ever few hours was a better storyline. But it serves the Disney mandate in their movies of not thinking about things too much and enjoy the ride.

The fact that Phasma turned out to be a red shirt was disappointing as she basically showed up in this movie for 10 minutes to die, and nothing was done to establish her as a formidable foe, in the end she was just another storm trooper with pretty armor and did very little to elevate Finn like the death of Snoke elevated Ren.

Where would I place this movie in terms of quality, that's tough because again this is a departure from the George Lucas Star Wars Galaxy, the three films of the OT were all deeper films that might not have been as pretty. So I would say this is firmly wedge between the PT and OT trilogy in terms of quality.



Would I watch it again, well I have no choice, I'm going again on Saturday with a friend who wants to see it. But it just doesn't strike me as a movie that has a lot of rewatchability because of the lack of depth to the subject matter.