SPOILERS AHEAD! (But also how have you not seen this movie yet?)
Like most of the world, I saw the latest installment of the Star Wars franchise: The Last Jedi. I came late to the world of Star Wars - I didn't watch any of the original movies until just before The Force Awakens came out a couple years ago. That was the Christmas break of the movie marathons leading up to when I would see my first Star Wars movie on the big screen. I've been hooked ever since, seeing Rogue One and The Last Jedi since then, and I'm (im)patiently awaiting the Han Solo movie (May 2018! Also RIP Han Solo *sobs*).
Episode VIII lived up to what I expected and surpassed expectations in a lot of ways.
I love Rey's character. I love seeing her find her place as one of the most powerful Jedi after coming from "nowhere," aka Jakku. Her steely optimism rivals even that of Luke Skywalker's in the original trilogy - never once did she stop believing in Kylo Ren. Even now, I don't think she truly believes he is completely lost to the Dark Side. But I suppose time will tell.
Speaking of Rey, the female empowerment in this movie was amazing. The original trilogy and the prequel trilogy had few female leads in any significant powerful role, excluding Leia and Padme. All of the main characters were male, you watched men fight. The addition of Rey and Rose and Jyn Erso (in Rogue One) and even Vice-Admiral Holdo were excellent choices - Star Wars needed some "girl power," and Episode VIII did not disappoint. And of course, Carrie Fisher brought her usual brand of amazing to the movie (her last *sobs*).
My favorite part of The Last Jedi was the overarching theme that humanity does not exist in black and white. There is a greyscale - no one person is ever completely good or completely evil. The original trilogy did very little of this. In Episodes IV through VI, Darth Vader was evil and Palpatine was evil and Luke was good and Leia was good and you watched Good struggle to triumph over Evil, which it inevitably did. Han Solo was the only character who kind of lived in that grey area as the "bad boy with a heart of good." Everyone loves a good nerf herder! There was a never time when you truly questioned if Luke would go to the Dark Side. Even Darth Vader's big moment at the end of VI wasn't a true reflection that he was now good. The prequels did a little bit to change this; Episodes I through III showed Anakin Skywalker's full transformation to Darth Vader, and you sort of understood why he turned out the way that he did (even though you still hated him because the prequels were horrible).
But Episodes VII and VIII change the game. Introducing characters like Kylo Ren (who is one of the greatest characters in Hollywood history) and Rey, wildcards that could potentially change sides at any moment depending on what the situation was, added another dimension to the story: Good was still fighting Evil, but who was to say who was truly Good and Evil? Kylo Ren and Rey are mirrors of each other, either one could have been the other under different circumstances. And that's what made Episode VIII so fascinating. The old order is dead, the old order of black and white and nothing in between. The First Order is still bad and the Resistance is still good, but the characters are fighting internal battles in addition to their military battles.
Also, who doesn't love a sarcastic Luke Skywalker?
There were a few disappointments in this movie. Leia Force-flying back to the ship after she clearly should have died? I'm all for Leia showing off her ability to use the Force (I truly think if the Star Wars movies would have originally started now and not in the 1970s, Leia would have been a Jedi, too), but that felt way too cheesy.
The literal entire subplot where Finn and Rose go to Canto Bight? And trust the creepy "codebreaker"? And he leads to the murder of half of the Resistance? That makes me angry. I understand the Canto Bight adventure was for character development purposes for Finn and it makes him care about the whole Resistance, not just his friends. And Rose is a pretty good character. It just felt like Indiana Jones where the Nazis would've still gotten the Ark and all died, even without Indy, except maybe this was worse.
The first half of the movie where Vice-Admiral Holdo (aka Laura Dern aka The Lady from Jurassic Park™) wouldn't tell a single person her plan to save everyone? Her plan was great and the sequence where she blows up their ship by going to light speed was ~AMAZING~ but was the secrecy necessary? I think not.
And last but certainly not least, WHY WAS CHEWBACCA NOT IN THIS MOVIE MORE.
The Last Jedi was a solid installment to the Star Wars franchise. Parts of this movie were some of the greatest fight sequences I've ever seen (and the scene where Holdo destroys The First Order's ships by going to light speed is probably my favorite scene of any movie ever), and the overall plot of the movie was good (excluding Canto Bight), but there were some glaring problems. Overall though, I can't complain too much - the good overpowered the bad in this movie.
