This film has acquired a great amount of criticism over the past 2 years. And just about all of the main points can be summarized into one category: Illogical Subversion. Every big twist in this film, from Luke's lack of ambition for the Jedi, to Snoke's abrupt death, to the revealing of Rey's unimportant parents succeeds at surprising the audience.
Luke is a loyal Jedi master who would never throw away his identity just because of one mistake he made. But I bet you weren't expecting that.
Snoke is built up to be an all powerful being that will have a great impact on the entire trilogy. They wouldn't just kill him off for no reason in the second film of the trilogy. But I bet you weren't expecting that.
Rey has the powers of the force which means the force must be in her bloodline. It wouldn't make sense for her parents to be absolute nobodies. BUT I BET YOU WEREN'T EXPECTING THAT!
The entire film succeeds at surprising us at the expense of the logic of the Star Wars Universe, and the plot of the film. I'm sure we all would have rather accepted a predictable yet logical film than what we got.
However out of all the problems in this film, the one that makes me mad the most is Finn's death (or lack there of) at the end. Finn started in the Force Awakens killing for the first order, however in an epiphany moment decided to leave and join the resistance. He is now at the point where he is instead trying to save the resistance by fighting the First Order. It would have been a poetic and monumental death in the sequel trilogy. However, Rose just HAD to save him at the last second. Her logic for saving Finn is that "we shouldn't fight for what we hate, but instead save what we love." Ironically, this is EXACTLY what Finn was doing. He was saving the small amount of remaining Resistance members in the cave, but I guess Rose and Finn just needed to have a romantic endeavor even though it wasn't built up anywhere in the film. In fact Finn and Rey had romantic tension remaining from the Force Awakens, but Rian Johnson just forgot. I guess.
However there was some good in this film, but none of it overpowers the high amount of criticism contained in it.
Let's just hope JJ Abrams fixes everything with Rise of Skywalker. It's our only hope.
