Nice to know I'm not the only one who feels this way, RedEye9.

I continue to be baffled by the near universal critical acclaim TLJ is receiving. I've seen people assert that critics are afraid of angering Disney but I'm not sure that explanation makes sense to me.

Been lurking here forever, though I've posted a few times. The critical comments in this thread made me feel much better about humanity in general, because if everyone agreed that this was a good movie ... all hope in humanity would be lost.

Say you are watching a viking movie. It's a viking movie, with vikings, set in viking times. With me so far? And there's a big battle, and during the big battle, one of the vikings pulls out a ... light saber! Cool, right? Just like, totally unexpected and bad ass!

I fear there is a significant subset of the population that would, in fact, think this this was cool and bad ass, offering arguments as seen from some in this thread like: "It was great because I didn't expect it!"

If Jedis can survive in a zero oxygen space environment, if they can fly through that environment (why do they even need spaceships?), if they can astral project, etc, etc--then they aren't "Jedis" anymore. They're just ... magical super people, unbound by any limitations or their own traditions or anything. When "magic" is the answer to any question about how something incredible happened in a movie, you've got a totally bullshit movie on your hands.

If Luke Skywalker can sense that the SON OF HIS FRIEND Han Solo is going to turn bad later and decide to KILL HIM IN HIS SLEEP just like that, then ... he isn't Luke Skywalker anymore. He's just some other, made up character with an entirely different moral code than Skywalker's.

If Yoda can torch the library containing all the written knowledge and history of the Jedi Knights because "Rey knows it all anyway" then who needs knowledge or history or training or anything? In a way this was the scene that encapsulates much of what was wrong with The Last Jedi. At its core it's a just a deeply stupid, deeply anti-intellectual movie.

Watching this movie was like watching little kids play with Star Wars figures for two and a half hours. "Oh, wouldn't it be cool if Leia got blown out of the ship and then flew back into the ship using The Force!" But--you guys, there's no oxygen in space, how is she going to breathe? "So what, Dad! It would be cool! Oh, I know, what if Luke tries to kill Kylo Ren but then Kylo Ren blocks him with his Laser Sword and makes the whole hut EXPLODE!" But, you guys, that's totally out of character for who Luke is ... Also, no one calls them 'laser swords,' they're called ..."Who cares, Dad!" Etc etc.

It was also two and half hours of climaxes strung together back to back to garner audience applause with little narrative sense and not a single second of honest, earned human emotion.

This comment was edited on Dec 23, 2017, 15:35.

This "none of us are ever going to die of terrorism" argument pisses me the hell off. So what if none of US are going to die from it--lots of other people ARE dying from it. Are the lives of people in other countries worth so little to you?

What if you happened to be born in Afghanistan? Or Pakistan? Or Saudi Arabia? Or, for that matter, France or England?

Islamic terrorism is a global issue, even if you're lucky enough to live in a country that doesn't suffer from it.

As for "being a pussy," I have no fear whatsoever of a terror attack here in the U.S. I'm not afraid, period. But I still have empathy for the victims, and hatred for their attackers, and for those who would defend the religion that drives them.