I have a bad feeling about this.

[Commando]

And the whole Princess Leia surviving in space...what is this? Guardians of the Galaxy did that better.

I thought that was cool. The only manifestation of the "another" ever using the force aside from finding Luke on Bespin in TESB.

[Omaha 680]

Good thoughts and fair review. I also have very little issue with the lack of Snoke's backstory, but I think they could have made the Snoke/Ren stuff bigger and better and more involved and cut out some of the other dumb side story stuff.

Now that I've had a couple days to digest it all, I'd probably rank the SW episodes as such:

Really Good
1. Star Wars (yep, I liked it better than ESB)
2. Empire Strikes Back
3. The Force Awakens

Good
3a. Rogue One (not a real SW episode so it doesn't get an official ranking)
4. The Last Jedi
5. Revenge of the Sith
6. Return of the Jedi (although I still get chills when Vader kills the Emperor)

Yikes, really bad
7. Phantom Menace
8. Attack of the Clones

*Spoilers at the end of this post*

My new rankings that no one cares about:

1. Rogue One
2. Empire
3. A New Hope
4. ROTJ
5. The Last Jedi
6. Revenge of the Sith
7. The Force Awakens
8. The Phantom Menace
9. Attack of the Clones

There were some things I really liked about the movie: Training of Rey, Rey-Kylo interaction, and the entire Rey-Kylo-Snoke scene. There were also some things I didn't like: Poe being insubordinate to the point of treason during two separate battles and the resistance being whittled down to what, 10 people now? The latter is a continuation of my main issue with The Force Awakens. Supposedly the empire was crushed in ROTJ. Then 30 years later the First Order somehow miraculously comes into existence with enough military capability and a superweapon that destroys the new republic in one push of a button. Now everyone in the resistance is dead except for a handful of people, and there is still hope? I want the story of the rise and fall of the different governments in the Star Wars to be believable, but not overly tedious. Destruction of the empire in ROTJ was great. Rise of the Empire in the prequels was ok, but got too bogged down in details that didn't matter. In Episode 7 and 8 I have been pretty disappointed with this part of the story.

Overall I enjoyed 8, and will see it again. I just don't ever expect a Star Wars movie to approach the originals again. Except Rogue One, which was the perfect Star Wars movie in my opinion.

[Commando]

Actually didn't care for it at all. I am a fanboy...so there is that.

And the whole Princess Leia surviving in space...what is this? Guardians of the Galaxy did that better.

Such a horrible movie. I was super bummed walking out of that thing.

I loved the movie and I actually love your reaction. I was getting worried that Disney was going to make Star Wars safe, fuzzy, and luke warm(no pun intended). They bought in big time and have parks opening and the best thing they could have done was play it safe and make the Star Wars movies the new Marvel movies. Nope.

[jay santos]

I loved the movie and I actually love your reaction. I was getting worried that Disney was going to make Star Wars safe, fuzzy, and luke warm(no pun intended). They bought in big time and have parks opening and the best thing they could have done was play it safe and make the Star Wars movies the new Marvel movies. Nope.

Playing it safe was part of the reason I'm not super enthusiastic about it. I thought they totally played it safe.

[Commando]

Playing it safe was part of the reason I'm not super enthusiastic about it. I thought they totally played it safe.

Can't please everybody, I guess. The backlash from the fanboys about how the chess board is all messed up now etc etc etc is pretty dramatic.

On another note, Rian Johnson makes a great point that they expanded the Force powers in every successive SW movie. And here it's been 20 years since the last one, so everyone's locked in on what we last saw in ROTJ. TFA didn't do much of that but Rian sure had zero compunction about it and that's part of why I liked it.

[Commando]

Playing it safe was part of the reason I'm not super enthusiastic about it. I thought they totally played it safe.

Now I'm curious about which aspect you found to have been played safe? That Ren stays bad and Rey stayed good, contrary to what had been teased?

[Color Me Badd Fan]

Linked from Drudge:

http://www.showbiz411.com/2017/12/19...-force-awakens

Force Awakens Monday = $40 million, Last Jedi Monday = $21.5 million. Some of that may be due to the fact that Monday, December 21 means the kids are out of school vs Monday December 18 means the kids are still in school. But, damn, that's a very big drop off.

But this is perhaps more troublesome and points to some serious Star Wars fatigue:

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/he...wakens-1069479

If any of you have had the unfortunate experience of being in the toy section at Wal Mart and walked along the kids' clothes aisles, you know how drenched everything is with Star Wars stuff.

[jay santos]

Linked from Drudge:

http://www.showbiz411.com/2017/12/19...-force-awakens

Force Awakens Monday = $40 million, Last Jedi Monday = $21.5 million. Some of that may be due to the fact that Monday, December 21 means the kids are out of school vs Monday December 18 means the kids are still in school. But, damn, that's a very big drop off.

But this is perhaps more troublesome and points to some serious Star Wars fatigue:

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/he...wakens-1069479

If any of you have had the unfortunate experience of being in the toy section at Wal Mart and walked along the kids' clothes aisles, you know how drenched everything is with Star Wars stuff.

I'd be very surprised if much of any of that variance was not due to the fact that it's a school day vs non-school day comparison.

[beefytee]

Here's the daily comparison:

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/showdow...ndshowdown.htm

[Color Me Badd Fan]

Here's the daily comparison:

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/showdow...ndshowdown.htm

The second Friday made half the money as the Force Awakens did on its second Friday.

[Commando]

For how loud the vocal minority is complaining about TLJ, it’s still waaay less controversial from a critical point of view and more well-liked than the last one.

[clackamascoug]

Got a couple of new Audible books for Christmas... am excited to hear about the life and legacy of Genghis Khan.

[Color Me Badd Fan]

For how loud the vocal minority is complaining about TLJ, it’s still waaay less controversial from a critical point of view and more well-liked than the last one.

Ten days after its release, this movie has the same IMDB score as Revenge of the Sith. Are you willing to bet it will hold onto a 7.6?

The Force Awakens is an 8.1.

[Jeff Lebowski]

Ten days after its release, this movie has the same IMDB score as Revenge of the Sith. Are you willing to bet it will hold onto a 7.6?

The Force Awakens is an 8.1.

7.6. Wow! That is crazy low for a Star Wars movie so quickly after the release.

No way it stays there. All movies decay with time. I wonder where it ends up.

[Commando]

Ten days after its release, this movie has the same IMDB score as Revenge of the Sith. Are you willing to bet it will hold onto a 7.6?

The Force Awakens is an 8.1.

This one made a special contingency of fanboys furious, prompting them to create accounts en masse on rotten tomatoes and imdb and slam the movie. More neutral audience polls show pretty unanimous approval around 85%.