Finally saw it yesterday. I liked it okay. It was certainly miles better than The Force Awakens. Not as good as Rogue One. Although talking with someone about it today, I realized that might be due in large part to The Force Awakens being so bad it just plain reset Star Wars. There's definitely something much different about the Disney era Star Wars than the first six. The prequels (which I don't hate nearly as much as everyone else does or at least pretends to) were obviously different to the original trilogy, but still felt very much like Star Wars. I'm sticking with my assessment from TFA of it feeling much like a whole new entity that just happens to be using the Star Wars IP assets. Not a sequel, not a reboot, just.... something else. And in that context, with TFA having pretty well severed the connection to the 'old' Star Wars, TLJ is a decent film. The whole lack of explanation or continuity surrounding Snoke, The First Order being a thing stronger than the old empire, and the ACTUAL galactic government being a rebel resistance to it isn't that big of a deal here, since the last one did all that **** and now this movie is firmly working within that established, however poorly, framework. Alright fine, the empire is back as the first order, Sideous is now Snoke, Vader is Kylo, and the rebellion is the resistance. Now let's move forward.
Yeah there's some wonky stuff I wish they wouldn't have done, but not as bad as in TFA. They toned back the allusions to the original trilogy, but not as much as they should. Closer to being respectful nods than TFA which ventured into ripoff territory, but not quite there. Salt-Hoth was the worst offender. I don't expect hard sci-fi from Star Wars, but the bombers actually DROPPING bombs made me cringe. Especially since I've played a SW video game that used bombers in space 'correctly' as missile boats. Yeah, yeah, I know EU isn't canon. But come on, that one's obvious. Luke's force projection thing shocked the hell out of me, and not in a good way. I thought it was cheap and cheesy. IMO nothing in the established canon shows this being a thing, or really logically leaps to it, so it feels like convenient plot device out of nowhere. If it had just been Kylo (and maybe Rey and Leia) that saw him I'd have an easier time accepting it. But I feel like Luke should have really been there wrecking some ****, not "survived the ****ton of AT-AT (or whatever this version is called) blasters and now gonna kick your a--- PSYCH! NOT REALLY HERE HAHAHAHA!" One of several poorly executed 'twists' in which the film foreshadows/leads to the point of obviousness something that we're supposed to suspect but not really know, only to go at the 'reveal' HAHAH NOPE TRICKED YOU! I might not be describing what I mean there very well.
Bottom line, didn't dislike it, was entertained, not sure it was worth $10 to see it in theater vice waiting for home release.