The World Doesn't Need Another The Last Jedi Thinkpiece, but Please Read Mine
EDITOR'S NOTE 5/24/2022: I no longer feel the way I did when I wrote this piece, nearly five years ago. In fact, I am at a point where I am essentially who I was complaining about, as I despise this film, and can give counterpoints to everything I say below, including what I say in the comments. However, out of respect for my late 2017 self, who was at the tail end of pretty tough period of life, I'll leave the below writing intact, just as it was when it was written.
* * *
I spent last Friday, like most Americans, in a dark room watching Star Wars: The Last Jedi. I enjoyed the movie very much, and like most of my fellow theater-goers, clapped at the end. My son enjoyed it, though he thought it was a little too long, my wife actually stayed awake through all of it, but something unexpected happened outside of the theater. The guy I usually go on adventures with (if I am not solo in a travelogue, he is the person I'm with) said, "Just what I was worried about. Now I know why the Rotten Tomatoes user reviews were so low." He didn't like it.
When I got home, I immediately ended my "no spoilers" Internet avoidance routine, and was shocked to see that a movie I enjoyed unequivocally was, despite receiving some of the best critical reviews in Star Wars history, facing some vitriolic backlash.
Did I miss something? I wondered, as I read how certain contingents felt The Last Jedi had ruined Star Wars altogether. So, I did the only thing I could.
I went to see the movie again.
The second time through, I loved The Last Jedi even more. I've heard lots of valid and invalid arguments for why I shouldn't. The invalids are the "the whole thing is feminist garbage" alt-right psychos who hate that the movie has strong female protagonists, and are apparently spending vast amounts of time and energy trying to tank the movie through nefarious means because they also apparently don't have jobs. The other contingent is reasonable, and thus doesn't have a story that features their opinions for me to link to. From that side, I've generally heard, "The humor took me out of it," or "It just didn't feel like the Star Wars I grew up with." I think the humor is subjective. I could have done without that "I think he's tooling you, sir" line, but it didn't ruin the entire movie for me. However, "It just didn't feel like the Star Wars I grew up with" is quite a statement.
Why didn't it? The filmmaking techniques used by the director and crew were similar. There are similar beats as the other seven films. The pacing and editing are similar. The same guy composed the music in the same style. Is it the characters?
At the end of the original Star Wars trilogy, the main characters were victorious and presumably rode off into the sunset.
Rode off into the sunset. Just like real life.
At some point, you ride off into the sunset and you never face conflict again, never change, never fail, never have to endure any type of challenge or pain...you have ridden off into the sunset.
Late in college, the first of three senior "year" semesters, when I passed my last Spanish class, and my life didn't miraculously become free of trials and difficulty, I came to the harsh realization that my entire life would be that way (and Season 6 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer helped me cope with it). You finish something, complete some task that you have dedicated a vast amount of time and energy to...and then life goes on and there are an infinite amount of more somethings. You don't ride off into the sunset and live in a place in life where everything is happy and nothing hurts. More stuff happens, and a lot of it hurts!
As a kid watching the original Star Wars trilogy on new-fangled VHS, I saw a perfect fantasy in which to insert myself. I grew up on a rural farm in the middle of nowhere just like Luke. I worked there, wishing I could get away. My dad was emotionally distant, seemingly unknowable, and in need of redemption. My family seemed like a big deal to me, like it was the center of the universe. People around me, and to a much higher degree, my own imagination, propped up this idea. Surely I would rise up, like Luke, and then ride off into the sunset, like Luke.
Things looked promising. I achieved the highest ACT score in my high school graduating class and received the class award for "most likely to succeed." Luke saved the galaxy, redeemed his father, and seemingly rode off into the sunset.
Almost 20 years later, I live in a trailer at Pointe Coupee Parish's lowest elevation. I have failed at so many things, I've lost count. Luke Skywalker, also a failure, lives in exile on the most remote planet in the galaxy.
This Thinkpiece is going to be biased.
And the SPOILERS will begin here.
Here is how every major character in The Last Jedi fails:
Rey: Fails to persuade Luke Skywalker to physically leave his exile to fight against the First Order. Finds that her parents are not important or noteworthy, but simply poor junkers, buried in a pauper's grave. Fails to turn Kylo Ren from the dark side.
Kylo Ren: Fails to accept yet another opportunity for redemption, this one the least deserved of all.
Finn: Goes rogue to attempt to save Rey. The only result of his rogue mission is that he lets the Resistance's actual plan of escape, which would have succeeded had he just stayed put, fall into untrustworthy hands. His error leads to the deaths of the vast majority of the Resistance's members.
Rose: In joining Finn instead of arresting him for desertion, she helps bring about the aforementioned deaths of all but a handful of the Resistance fighters.
Poe: Ignores Princess Leia's orders to stand down, leading to the destruction of all of the Resistance's bombers, then supports and assists Finn in his own failed mission, then leads a failed coup against a comatose Leia's replacement.
Princess Leia: All of the above happens under her watch (outside of the time she's in a coma).
Luke Skywalker: Never is able to shake Yoda's original assessment of him (and is reminded of this by the spectre of Yoda, himself), looking to the future and hyper-focusing on the possibility of the evil Kylo Ren could become, instead of the present, inadvertently speeding Ren to the darkness as a result, and accepting exile because of it. Can't bring himself to leave exile with Rey, to fight The First Order.
It is Luke's portrayal that seems to be giving the unhappy fans and even Mark Hamill himself the most difficulty. Some say Luke would have never even thought of killing the young Kylo Ren to stop him from being evil in the future. Yoda's words and Luke's actions in The Empire Strikes Back say otherwise. Others say Luke would not have given up, including, in early interviews, Hamill himself, because Luke never gave up before.
Well, Luke also never nearly murdered his own nephew before. How was he supposed to not give up in that situation? He viewed himself as a failure, just as he viewed the original Jedi who came before him. The prequels, for whatever one's view of them, show that the Jedi not only failed to stop the Emperor and Darth Vader from rising to power, but inadvertently facilitated it by their own incompetence. What did the two surviving Jedi from that era do? Immediately fight to right their failures? No. They went into hiding. At least Obi-Wan had the hope that one day Darth Vader's twin children might rise up to fight. Luke has nothing. He was the last Jedi, he failed his nephew, shamed his family, and failed the galaxy--he has nothing left to fight for. Given all of this, the events preceding The Last Jedi don't seem out of character.
Is this ideal? If you want your heroes to be preserved in shrink-wrap like action figures, then no. But if you want a real hero, that hero is eventually going to fail, and fail hard. The Last Jedi deals with this on even a small scale. Just look at Rose's introduction to Finn, who she has made a legend in her mind due to the reputations of his previous acts. As soon as she looks past what she thought of him, she sees a guy with his bags packed, heading for an escape pod.
How many times this year has some random Internet person been hailed as a hero, only for someone to dig into their past to find something disreputable? But the heroes in Star Wars have to be flawless?
No. The Last Jedi diverges quite far from The Empire Strikes Back in form, but Empire's characters experience just as many failures.
Han Solo: Captured and frozen in carbonite.
Princess Leia: Loses Han, fails in rescuing him before he is taken to Jabba the Hutt.
Yoda: Fails in keeping Luke from rushing off to fight Darth Vader before Luke's training is complete.
Darth Vader: Fails in his attempt to capture Luke and turn him to the dark side.
Luke: Loses his hand in a duel against Darth Vader, then learns that his own father was not a shrink-wrapped hero, but Darth Vader himself. Rushed off to fight Darth Vader without completing his training, favoring a vision of the future where his friends need his rescuing to the actual facts of the present, just like Yoda said he would. Also, like Finn, his actions have no bearing in rescuing the person he is trying to save (both Rey and Leia do just fine on their own), and actually causes further complications.
These character flaws and mistakes make these films far more interesting and relatable. A sealed in plastic Luke is boring, and a film featuring him as a flawless human being would be just as enjoyable as playing with that kid who never wants to take his toys out of the box.
To close, there are two other camps I'd like to address. The first is one I fall into.
"Why did they have to get rid of the Expanded Universe! That's the real Star Wars story!"
The expanded universe is composed of more than a hundred novels and supplemental materials that cover what happened after Return of the Jedi. When Disney bought Lucasfilm, and announced this new trilogy, they declared the Expanded Universe to be non-canon. I am a big fan of the Expanded Universe, particularly the Thrawn books, and the nineteen-book New Jedi Order series, the latter of which is closer to me than any long-form fiction series I've read. And who cares.
Those books posit that even 40-years after Return of the Jedi, the only three people who can save the galaxy's last names are Skywalker and Solo. The books actually had to go out of their way near the end to explain that though Luke, Han, and Leia are in their 70's, the 70's are really just like being in your 40's in Star Wars' galaxy. This is ridiculously silly. Some people might think this new film trilogy is a cash grab, but what is 100 books of your main characters never really changing, never dying, and always being the solution to every galactic problem? That's the epitome of "just crank out another one, and they'll pay to see/read it!" And anyway, do we really want all those stories rehashed? I'd much rather this far more believable take that pushes those old characters, forces them to change (just like life forces us real-life people to), and lets them take a bow when their time has come and newer heroes are more capable.
After all those dynastic Expanded Universe years, where only one family is important in the entire galaxy, the The Last Jedi's revelation that Rey has no familial connection to them altogether is a huge breath of fresh air...and thankfully, it's the same with Finn, Poe, and Rose. New heroes! Someone else finally gets a chance to make a difference! I love it!
And finally, I'd like to address all those guys who hated The Force Awakens (spoiler alert, I also vastly enjoyed The Force Awakens) because it was "Nothing but a ripoff of A New Hope!" These folks said "Why can't they do something different?" but are now saying of The Last Jedi, "I hate it! It is nothing like the other movies!" I hope one day y'all can learn to like things. It's way more fun than hating everything.
When I got home, I immediately ended my "no spoilers" Internet avoidance routine, and was shocked to see that a movie I enjoyed unequivocally was, despite receiving some of the best critical reviews in Star Wars history, facing some vitriolic backlash.
Did I miss something? I wondered, as I read how certain contingents felt The Last Jedi had ruined Star Wars altogether. So, I did the only thing I could.
I went to see the movie again.
The second time through, I loved The Last Jedi even more. I've heard lots of valid and invalid arguments for why I shouldn't. The invalids are the "the whole thing is feminist garbage" alt-right psychos who hate that the movie has strong female protagonists, and are apparently spending vast amounts of time and energy trying to tank the movie through nefarious means because they also apparently don't have jobs. The other contingent is reasonable, and thus doesn't have a story that features their opinions for me to link to. From that side, I've generally heard, "The humor took me out of it," or "It just didn't feel like the Star Wars I grew up with." I think the humor is subjective. I could have done without that "I think he's tooling you, sir" line, but it didn't ruin the entire movie for me. However, "It just didn't feel like the Star Wars I grew up with" is quite a statement.
Why didn't it? The filmmaking techniques used by the director and crew were similar. There are similar beats as the other seven films. The pacing and editing are similar. The same guy composed the music in the same style. Is it the characters?
At the end of the original Star Wars trilogy, the main characters were victorious and presumably rode off into the sunset.
Rode off into the sunset. Just like real life.
At some point, you ride off into the sunset and you never face conflict again, never change, never fail, never have to endure any type of challenge or pain...you have ridden off into the sunset.
Late in college, the first of three senior "year" semesters, when I passed my last Spanish class, and my life didn't miraculously become free of trials and difficulty, I came to the harsh realization that my entire life would be that way (and Season 6 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer helped me cope with it). You finish something, complete some task that you have dedicated a vast amount of time and energy to...and then life goes on and there are an infinite amount of more somethings. You don't ride off into the sunset and live in a place in life where everything is happy and nothing hurts. More stuff happens, and a lot of it hurts!
As a kid watching the original Star Wars trilogy on new-fangled VHS, I saw a perfect fantasy in which to insert myself. I grew up on a rural farm in the middle of nowhere just like Luke. I worked there, wishing I could get away. My dad was emotionally distant, seemingly unknowable, and in need of redemption. My family seemed like a big deal to me, like it was the center of the universe. People around me, and to a much higher degree, my own imagination, propped up this idea. Surely I would rise up, like Luke, and then ride off into the sunset, like Luke.
Things looked promising. I achieved the highest ACT score in my high school graduating class and received the class award for "most likely to succeed." Luke saved the galaxy, redeemed his father, and seemingly rode off into the sunset.
Almost 20 years later, I live in a trailer at Pointe Coupee Parish's lowest elevation. I have failed at so many things, I've lost count. Luke Skywalker, also a failure, lives in exile on the most remote planet in the galaxy.
This Thinkpiece is going to be biased.
And the SPOILERS will begin here.
Here is how every major character in The Last Jedi fails:
Rey: Fails to persuade Luke Skywalker to physically leave his exile to fight against the First Order. Finds that her parents are not important or noteworthy, but simply poor junkers, buried in a pauper's grave. Fails to turn Kylo Ren from the dark side.
Kylo Ren: Fails to accept yet another opportunity for redemption, this one the least deserved of all.
Finn: Goes rogue to attempt to save Rey. The only result of his rogue mission is that he lets the Resistance's actual plan of escape, which would have succeeded had he just stayed put, fall into untrustworthy hands. His error leads to the deaths of the vast majority of the Resistance's members.
Rose: In joining Finn instead of arresting him for desertion, she helps bring about the aforementioned deaths of all but a handful of the Resistance fighters.
Poe: Ignores Princess Leia's orders to stand down, leading to the destruction of all of the Resistance's bombers, then supports and assists Finn in his own failed mission, then leads a failed coup against a comatose Leia's replacement.
Princess Leia: All of the above happens under her watch (outside of the time she's in a coma).
Luke Skywalker: Never is able to shake Yoda's original assessment of him (and is reminded of this by the spectre of Yoda, himself), looking to the future and hyper-focusing on the possibility of the evil Kylo Ren could become, instead of the present, inadvertently speeding Ren to the darkness as a result, and accepting exile because of it. Can't bring himself to leave exile with Rey, to fight The First Order.
It is Luke's portrayal that seems to be giving the unhappy fans and even Mark Hamill himself the most difficulty. Some say Luke would have never even thought of killing the young Kylo Ren to stop him from being evil in the future. Yoda's words and Luke's actions in The Empire Strikes Back say otherwise. Others say Luke would not have given up, including, in early interviews, Hamill himself, because Luke never gave up before.
Well, Luke also never nearly murdered his own nephew before. How was he supposed to not give up in that situation? He viewed himself as a failure, just as he viewed the original Jedi who came before him. The prequels, for whatever one's view of them, show that the Jedi not only failed to stop the Emperor and Darth Vader from rising to power, but inadvertently facilitated it by their own incompetence. What did the two surviving Jedi from that era do? Immediately fight to right their failures? No. They went into hiding. At least Obi-Wan had the hope that one day Darth Vader's twin children might rise up to fight. Luke has nothing. He was the last Jedi, he failed his nephew, shamed his family, and failed the galaxy--he has nothing left to fight for. Given all of this, the events preceding The Last Jedi don't seem out of character.
Is this ideal? If you want your heroes to be preserved in shrink-wrap like action figures, then no. But if you want a real hero, that hero is eventually going to fail, and fail hard. The Last Jedi deals with this on even a small scale. Just look at Rose's introduction to Finn, who she has made a legend in her mind due to the reputations of his previous acts. As soon as she looks past what she thought of him, she sees a guy with his bags packed, heading for an escape pod.
How many times this year has some random Internet person been hailed as a hero, only for someone to dig into their past to find something disreputable? But the heroes in Star Wars have to be flawless?
No. The Last Jedi diverges quite far from The Empire Strikes Back in form, but Empire's characters experience just as many failures.
Han Solo: Captured and frozen in carbonite.
Princess Leia: Loses Han, fails in rescuing him before he is taken to Jabba the Hutt.
Yoda: Fails in keeping Luke from rushing off to fight Darth Vader before Luke's training is complete.
Darth Vader: Fails in his attempt to capture Luke and turn him to the dark side.
Luke: Loses his hand in a duel against Darth Vader, then learns that his own father was not a shrink-wrapped hero, but Darth Vader himself. Rushed off to fight Darth Vader without completing his training, favoring a vision of the future where his friends need his rescuing to the actual facts of the present, just like Yoda said he would. Also, like Finn, his actions have no bearing in rescuing the person he is trying to save (both Rey and Leia do just fine on their own), and actually causes further complications.
These character flaws and mistakes make these films far more interesting and relatable. A sealed in plastic Luke is boring, and a film featuring him as a flawless human being would be just as enjoyable as playing with that kid who never wants to take his toys out of the box.
To close, there are two other camps I'd like to address. The first is one I fall into.
"Why did they have to get rid of the Expanded Universe! That's the real Star Wars story!"
The expanded universe is composed of more than a hundred novels and supplemental materials that cover what happened after Return of the Jedi. When Disney bought Lucasfilm, and announced this new trilogy, they declared the Expanded Universe to be non-canon. I am a big fan of the Expanded Universe, particularly the Thrawn books, and the nineteen-book New Jedi Order series, the latter of which is closer to me than any long-form fiction series I've read. And who cares.
Those books posit that even 40-years after Return of the Jedi, the only three people who can save the galaxy's last names are Skywalker and Solo. The books actually had to go out of their way near the end to explain that though Luke, Han, and Leia are in their 70's, the 70's are really just like being in your 40's in Star Wars' galaxy. This is ridiculously silly. Some people might think this new film trilogy is a cash grab, but what is 100 books of your main characters never really changing, never dying, and always being the solution to every galactic problem? That's the epitome of "just crank out another one, and they'll pay to see/read it!" And anyway, do we really want all those stories rehashed? I'd much rather this far more believable take that pushes those old characters, forces them to change (just like life forces us real-life people to), and lets them take a bow when their time has come and newer heroes are more capable.
After all those dynastic Expanded Universe years, where only one family is important in the entire galaxy, the The Last Jedi's revelation that Rey has no familial connection to them altogether is a huge breath of fresh air...and thankfully, it's the same with Finn, Poe, and Rose. New heroes! Someone else finally gets a chance to make a difference! I love it!
And finally, I'd like to address all those guys who hated The Force Awakens (spoiler alert, I also vastly enjoyed The Force Awakens) because it was "Nothing but a ripoff of A New Hope!" These folks said "Why can't they do something different?" but are now saying of The Last Jedi, "I hate it! It is nothing like the other movies!" I hope one day y'all can learn to like things. It's way more fun than hating everything.
Comments
I also appreciate how you encapsulated this movie thematically, as it is quite like Empire in its focus on failure (as great as that snow battle is at the start, it's also a failure of sorts--a retreat not a victory). It helped solidify what I liked about it after having only seen it once. I think that this is the best thing about it, to be honest, and makes me hopeful for how it sets up the third movie. Part of Return of the Jedi's appeal for me is that coming back from the brink of defeat, and you couldn't have that without all the failure in Empire.
My biggest criticism that I feel like is going to hold true for me is the storyline's momentum. It's juggling more than Empire does, and it lags for it (you can juggle three at once, as in Return of the Jedi, but they're so strongly interrelated it works). When they got to the planet at the end, I thought they were setting up for a nailbiter cliffhanger, and when it kept going, I did feel a little fatigue. It really did feel like all the separate storylines, too, they just kept pulling me out of the moment.
A fair criticism that I have heard and can agree with a little is Rey's lack of training. Force Awakens makes sense for me with her, as she has had a tough upbringing and seems to pick up intuitively what Kylo does around her (and he is badly injured before he starts fighting her). But I honestly did feel like she might have had some training beforehand, as that movie did seem to leave enough open for us to think that, with her being abandoned, etc. This movie seems to suggest that is not a possibility, which doesn't destroy my rationale on her in the previous movie, but it does put it into the territory of "these movies are committing power creep." Especially so when Rey in this movie, with little to no training, picks up a massive wall of boulders... this, after it's a huge deal for Luke in training to be moving smaller rocks, and a huge challenge to move an X-Wing (which that wall of boulders is on the same level with).
And given how this movie does seem to be so much about failure and learning from and overcoming it, it is frustrating for this to happen. Rey just is so good at this stuff, without having to work at it. It threatens to make her unbelievable or less interesting. On a related note in Last Jedi, while the dark cave was interesting for its mirror effects, it was more confusing for what it meant for her psyche and character. Luke's experience in Empire is powerful and understandable for the viewer. It's STILL what he is struggling with in this movie. Last Jedi just doesn't follow through on Rey's experience, leaving us to just guess "well, parents would be important for me, too."
Don't get me wrong, I like how positive a person Rey seems to be (and I really like her character). We don't have enough characters like her, in film or literature. I just wanted to feel her struggle, her sense of failure more. The movie doesn't give enough space for this, to my mind.
(more in another comment, I've gone over long)
I agree, the victory in Return of the Jedi definitely feels earned after all the losses in Empire, I hope JJ Abrams is able to do the same with Episode IX.
I have to agree with your third paragraph. I have seen the film three times now, and loved it more with each viewing, but every time it has felt a bit too long. I'm not sure how to make it shorter, but if Johnson could have just cut ten minutes, I think the film would feel more satisfying. I took the kid 2/3 of the times, and he enjoyed, but also said, "It's so good, but it is so long."
I have to gently disagree on Rey, though. While she does seem to be considerably more powerful more quickly than Luke, Luke himself comments that he has only seen that much power in one other person--Kylo. Considering Luke witnessed and felt Palpatine's power (Palpatine who was absolute chucking senator booths at Yoda like frisbees in Revenge of the Sith), and dueled Darth Vader twice ("OMG, he has SOOOO many midichlorians"--lame Jedis from TPM), Rey has got to be obscenely powerful. Considering Snoke (who seems to exist in god mode) also feels that Kylo is insanely powerful, and that Rey is Kylo's equal, I think that doubles the point--she is no ordinary Jedi. For whatever reason, the force is very strong in her...maybe she has the power of multiple Jedis inside her because where there once would have been many, now there is only her. That last part is just me, but this trilogy has so far made sure to note that it also thinks Rey is more powerful than any young force-user we've witnessed before.
I don't mind Rey's purity as a character, but it is different from what we've seen in the other two trilogies: Luke's being continually tempted by the dark side (as you said, it's STILL an issue for him), and Anakin...well, he's about as compromised as possible. Rey on the other hand seems simply delighted by life (her face as she feels its presence on the island during her first lesson) and the force's existence. Both of Kylo's dark side offers to her have fallen completely flat, even this time, when the two of them had forged such a deep and unique connection. The other two trilogies just don't have an analogue for that. I can see how this makes her less complex, though I feel like she is magnetic enough to where it doesn't matter--that inner light is what is going to draw people to the Rebellion.
I enjoyed the cave scene. I feel like it was meant to reinforce the everyman, "anyone can be a Jedi" theme of the movie, as Rey is infinite, despite her poor lineage, yet it was also meant to tempt her toward the darkside, as she is also infinitely alone...except for Kylo...especially considering she not only talks to him immediately afterward, but then subsequently goes straight to him. This would also be Snoke's influence, even though it fails in even getting her to considering turning away from the light.
(continued in next comment)
I don't get it. I think this movie RESTORES, not destroys Star Wars. I came away from the prequels (and this is leaving out all of their basic filmmaking foibles) thinking "Man, these Jedi are complete losers. It's like, if you made a list of Buddhist monks' and Catholic priests' worst rules, those are the ones the Jedi follow." They were boring and completely inept to the point that they didn't even make sense. Maybe that was intentional on the part of George Lucas. Maybe it wasn't. Regardless, The Last Jedi finally calls the Jedi out. Luke himself takes them to task. Had he said "It's time for the Jedi to end" in a world where the prequels never happened, I'd be on the hater bandwagon. But this is a world where the prequels exist, and I feel like the Jedi's failures in those films do a great job of justifying Luke's behavior in this film. They actually gives those stupid movies, whose only previous reason to live in my consciousness were John Williams' masterful scores, a reason to exist.
Jeez, it's nearly one o'clock, and I am still hyperfocusing on my distress at The Last Jedi backlash more than a week after learning it existed. I guess I should give it a rest. I enjoy it. That should be good enough for me.
So maybe I'm just hitting at this from my own beliefs too much, because I do kind of feel that a lot of Catholicism's issues come from forbidding romantic attachments for their religious orders. But I dunno... like you said, it almost seems an accumulation of the worst rules our religious groups can have, and it just doesn't all add up logically.
I don't know if they're aiming completely for a "Jedi Order 2.0" now or not, as they're referring to Rey as the last Jedi now. So is the aim to throw out the rulebook entirely? Tweak the rulebook? I took Luke's "the Jedi need to end" more as part of his defeatism, and Yoda maybe suggesting that Rey will continue on with what is needed and get rid of what led to the Order's downfall.
The critic backlash idea is interesting, but... I feel it's much more with the repressive moment we're in (I refuse to call it conservative, it's different than that), as there's too much anti "SJW" commentary out there to ignore it. Not to mention that article you noted.
For my end, I've only seen it once, so I'll have to see if my opinion on the pacing changes. This could be tied in partially with the movie defying expectations in a lot of ways and doing things a bit differently. I don't think I'm going to change my mind on the "power creep" issue, but I don't hate that as much as I dislike Legolas in the Hobbit (and a little in Return of the King) going into crazy ninja mode.
But I agree, let the haters hate. This movie is solid at contrasting character's actions and talking about what ultimately matters with what we do. And it is well shot and put together. Not acknowledging those feels like an ostrich response to me (that "Snokes is still alive" theory is definitely in that category). I'm putting this one in the same category as the LOTR and Potter movies: stuff I could do without, but they're so good overall I just enjoy and love them.
Anyway, yeah, I'd say just focus more on how you enjoy it.
So yeah, I'll go there. And that is different than previous protagonists, as you noted. I do wish we had a little more of her talking to someone about her experiences at the end of the film or what she is wanting to do now after going through what she did with Luke and Kylo (her face is expressive, but some things need a bit of talk or action).
https://thenicsperiment.blogspot.com/2010/04/star-wars-episode-i-phantom-menace.html
where I complained about how contradictory and ill-written the Jedi as a group were. I especially felt empathetic to Ewan McGregor, who is supposed to be heartbroken that he had to decapitate Anakin, yet is clearly also thinking while attempting to convey that..."wait a minute, I thought I wasn't supposed to feel attachment?" That's why, even though those elements were likely just bad writing by Lucas, and not an attempt to show why the Jedi order failed, I like that Luke called them out on it. It makes me like the prequels just a bit more, even if its only incrementally, and not due to anything they do on their own. With that said, the Jedi as an order with this conflicting non-nonsensical code should be replaced by something more benevolent and empathetic...its what happens in the original Expanded Universe, and I assume what Rey will do in the next movie, even if it's only something she is setting out to do at the end.
Yes, I love that Potter and LOTR sentiment you expressed! Could I do without the lousy "Dumbledore knows how to make an exit" line-reading in The Order of the Phoenix movie? Yes! Does it ruin the wizard's duel and possession scene in the climax? No! Is it annoying that Legolas is essentially invincible in the ROTK film when in the books he and Gimli were evenly matched? Yes! Does that ruin the incredible Gondor battle scene and the rest of the movie? No!
I wonder if an over-sized contingent of Star Wars fans are just overly detail-focused (my 5,000 piece X-Wing model put the exhaust vent 1 micrometer to the left?! Sacrilege!), and can't look at the movies as actual dramatic films. They are missing out!
I see what Jessica is saying with the modern-day Disney Princess thing. It works.
And to your final comment...she is going to have to have some sort of Luke force-ghost talk or its equivalent about those things in this last movie, similar to the one Luke has with Obi-Wan in ROTJ. Otherwise, there will definitely be something lacking in her characterization.