I kind of wish Finn had killed himself to destroy the cannon thing - it would nicely mirror Dr Sattler's sacrifice from the beginning, and would nicely wrap up his story. What's left for him to do? Poe is the best of the new trio, Rey has got her Force stuff going on, but what is there for Finn? He ostensibly killed Phasma, which would have been a good ending for him, which they could wrap up with him destroying the cannon...

The little touches were nice, like the kid they freed using the Force to grab his mop, and BB8 using the coins the gamblers were feeding into him as a weapon.

I guess they thought it would be too much of a repeat of the Admiral Holdo suicide run earlier.

I thought there was quite a lot of fake outs in the film, where you think someone is dead but, surprise, they recover.

I thought Leia was gonna die at multiple points, I was spoiler-free so I wondered if they'd do clever things with existing footage, stand ins, and CGI to turn a scene into a death scene for her. At first I thought she'd never wake up from the space freeze, then I thought she'd stay behind ... I never thought she'd die on the shuttle, as Poe and Threepio were there.

Thinking of Empire, I wondered if her being in spacesleep would be like a reflection of Han's carbonite, originally to be awoken in the next movie ...

I decided to troll my friends by tweeting "omg they kept THAT quiet! Does that mean Padme is Force sensitive?!" to Natalie Portman

I think killing off Snoke like nothing was the main gripe & Luke was such a wet blanket until the last 20 minutes. Also Finn's story was pointless apart from introducing DJ who was great.

On the other hand I was scalped at Leia using the force (I was lowkey emotional at all her scenes) When Yoda appeared & that brief moment Kylo and Rey worked together </3

Finn had more point in Force Awakens than Last Jedi - the only thing his entire storyline added to the story itself was making the First Order aware the escape pods were released, and that could have been done by the FO having upgraded their scanners, or looking out a window.

I wonder if Snoke really is dead. Just killing him off, and saying "your parents are just junkies lol" to Rey kind of flies in the face of nearly two years of fan speculation!

Kylo and Rey action scene was great, and liked the Yoda appearance. Generally like the island scenes.

I liked the Kylo-Hux back-and-forth rivalry - thought Hux was better in this one, still obviously a pretty comic over-the-top villain.

I thought the Leia flying through space was weird, she looked like a witch on a broomstick - they played around with the lore of the force in this one, introducing new powers we haven't seen before - another example: Yoda's force ghost having the ability to affect the material world (the lightning, though I wondered later if it was really an illusion) which made me think of the implications that could have had in previous films.

It was a sad end for Luke Skywalker really, the original hero - he's portrayed here initially as a failure, and when he turns up at the end it is just to create a distraction to let what is left of the Resistance escape. He doesn't help Rey, who is the one who can take down the First Order and Kylo. He does help Leia escape though, and I wondered if they hinted with the Leia-using-the-force scenes that she would become a powerful force-user in the next one - but that won't be possible now.

The Canto Bight casino section could have been taken out the film, and you wouldn't notice much. It felt a bit like something out the prequels where they have created an exotic location just for the sake of it, rather than the story. It relied a lot on characters not being sensible - Finn and Rose getting themselves arrested for illegally parking their ship - and then coincidence - happening to find another codebreaker in their prison cell.

JJ Abrams is partly to blame, I think, for the Snoke and Rey's parents mysteries apparently not being important. I thought at the time that they should have answered those question in Ep 7 rather than left them hanging, but JJ likes his mystery-box where he sets up things that turn out to often have mundane explanations. I'm thinking about Lost here.

Yoda here was how he should have been in the prequels - he didn't give a **** about the ancient books, but was still a Jedi Master; in the PT he should have been making fun of the Jedi lore and the other Council members when they got all serious, but still been the one giving the best advice when Quiggy, Obes, and Ani wanted it.

Was quite different to a lot of the previous films in that thematically it was about failure, with Finn and Rose's quest, Poe, seeing what had become of Luke, and how he'd failed with Kylo, even Kylo failing with what he was meant to do in firing at Leia. And it was more about them overcoming their personal failures than it was just fighting off the bad guys. It all worked really I felt and I think I'd enjoy it even more on second watch having all that in mind.

Oh and I LOVED Rose, she was a definite highlight.

Yeah I completely agree with this, it's my main gripe with the film. It was such an exciting build up and I was feeling really emotional about losing him :laugh: it was really powerful, so when he was stopped at the last second it was like... 'oh... well... never mind then'. I do like him as a character but yeah he's not completely necessary, they should have been brave and axed him for the moment!

It's so sad to think she would have been centric to the next one (which apparently was the plan for her) </3 and how they might have explored her use of the force.

I think he became like that though because of going into exile after the PT and becoming kind of disenchanted with the whole Jedi thing because of the events in the PT.
He was great in this film though, I didn't realise he was going to appear :love:

Maybe he did, but OT Yoda was much more fun than PT Yoda - discounting vocal tics, you could switch his lines with Mace Windu or Ki Adi Mundi without missing much!

Random but for my first viewing, I was convinced the guy who was on the bridge with Commander Hux was Admiral Piet from the OT!

I loved Leia's scenes and it makes me so sad that we'll never see the Leia-centric Episode IX as it was intended. I think they did a better job at defining Kylo Ren as more than just a moody teenager with a lightsaber but at the same time I don't think they explored Kylo Ren and Rey's connection enough, there was potential with getting rid of all the notions of what a Jedi was for a potential grey area between Light and Dark that largely went unexplored.

Luke was a difficult character, I think. I like that they dispelled any reverence about him almost immediately but I think he was underused and felt too far apart from who he was in the original trilogy. Given that it was his last hurrah as the character he could have played more of a role in the film as a whole.

I think Poe and Rey were great (Poe more so) but I agree that Finn desperately needs something to do in the next one because, as it stands, it doesn't feel like he should have been saved from sacrificing himself. I thought Rose was a decent new character, easily the best one out of the bunch since Benicio Del Toro and Laura Dern's characters were a complete waste.

Snoke was nothing really so I'm glad they dispatched of him quickly since Kylo Ren became way more compelling as a villain then he ever was. Dispatching of their Emperor stand in gives them a chance to stray further from the original trilogy's influence as well.

Phasma's role annoyed me, they built her up so much in the last one to be a joke and they teased her redemption and badassery in this just for her role to be a glorified cameo and a quick uneventful death. A waste of Gwendoline Christie's talent.

The whole Casino bit didn't need to be there and the film could have done with some editing to make it tighter.