Movies ~*Colin Trevorrow's Star Wars: Episode IX - Duel of the Fates OT*~

[Kal-El814]

7 minutes ago, skillzdadirecta said:

Just left a 615am IMAX screening... I didn't hate it but yeah... This is what happens when you pay waaaaay too much attention to what the internet thinks instead of just making your movie. The first what, damn near two thirds of the movie was kinda pointless and seemed to exist solely so that we could get the gang together for an adventure.  When the film DID pick up finally it still dwelled too much on fan service.  Some lines seemed to be in direct response to internet criticism. Like JJ was reading some of the threads on this board.  It's a shame too because the characters are really great and the actors all did a great job. Oh well... Star Wars needs to be put on ice for a bit so they can figure out where they want to go next with the property.  Again,  I didn't hate it and will probably enjoy it more the next time I see it. But it's a very flawed movie and it didn't have to be. I gotta figure out where it is in my rankings... probably somewhere in the bottom middle I would think. 

I don't know shit about screenwriting or directing, so I'm not saying this from a position of strength...

 

But this movie feels like they started with a list of grievances people have with the movies going back as far as A New Hope and decided to address them in the most literal / least interesting way possible.

 

Like...

 

Spoiler

They give Chewie his medal. But it's not just A medal. It's LITERALLY THE SAME ONE from A New Hope. Get it? People have bitched about this for years! Now he has one! Isn't that fun??? Callback, baby!  

 

5 minutes ago, sblfilms said:

Can we talk about how absolutely terrible the Leia stuff is in this film? It looks soooo bad, and feature some terrible line readings. They had such little to work with, but they should have skipped out on having her at all.

 

I thought they did well enough with what they had, but I am inclined to agree that it would have been better if she wasn't there. Then again without her...

 

Spoiler

They wouldn't have been able to shoe Leia literally perishing so she could... distract her son so Rey could impale him??? What the hell? And then she's just under a sheet and I had assumed dead... but she doesn't vanish until later??? So weird.

 

[skillzdadirecta]

2 minutes ago, sblfilms said:

The fetch quests were completely pointless as Rey got the way finder by stealing Kyle’s ship 😂

Spoiler

The fucking knife... like what the fuck? I don't even fully understand how it was supposed to work or even COULD work. And I'm willing to bet folding money that the few good bits on the script came from Chris Terrio. All of the other shit is pure JJ.

 

KAL WAS ALSO HERE

[Kal-El814]

ALL - We're still spoiler tagging everything, please.

[skillzdadirecta]

My bad... I'm exhausted.  When I get back on later I'll post some things that I DID like and there are some things I really did like. That script really needed another polish because there's a good if not great movie there. All of the issues are with the script though. 

[CitizenVectron]

I will break my thoughts into non-spoiler, and spoiler:

 

Non-spoiler:

The good:

• Rey + Kylo only good plotline
• Adam Driver is fantastic
• Humour was pretty good throughout. C-3PO was great. Some good lines like "General, General," from others.

 

The Bad:

• Pacing. Worst Star Wars movie (ever) in terms of pacing. Felt like the audience should have been on a treadmill instead of in seats.
• Editing. It felt like they used some auto-cut tool in a movie editing suite to trim 2 seconds off the front and back-end of each and every scene. There were maybe 2 or 3 scenes in the entire movie that had even a few seconds to breathe.
• Almost zero new ideas that add to the Star Wars story/lore
• Almost no establishing shots. Every scene is full of tight shots (chest-up)
• Sets felt...fake? They felt like sets, not planets or exteriors of ships. 
• Leia CGI wasn't great. It will hold up poorly.
• Emperor was pointless. 
• All character development in TLJ was undone
• Rose was cut entirely from the movie, relegated to two or three unimportant lines
• Oh look, the new black character only hangs out with the existing black character
• So much explaining instead of showing
• More McGuffins in this movie than the other 8 combined
• Waaay too many characters. We didn't need to add 3-4 new characters in addition to the ones we already have.
• Waaay too many death fakeouts. Like, 4 or 5 at least
• Space battles were bad. ROTJ still champion after 30+ years

 

Spoiler thoughts:

Spoiler

Good:

• Babba Frik was a good addition to the movie. D-0 was okay, but served no real plot purpose.
• I don't like that Ben was redeemed so easily. But Adam Driver sold the scene with him and Han. Also when he heard Leia's voice. So it was a bad idea, but executed well on the back of Driver's performance
• The single new piece of lore that was introduced in two movies by JJ was the idea that the Sith rule of two actually allowed them to cheat death, in a way. That was cool, but of course wasn't executed well
• Daisy Ridley did a good job showing anger convincingly

 

 

Bad:

• Luke was not used well. Hamill did a great job in TLJ, not so well here. Material was bad, I felt
• Rey being a Palpatine was stupid. Entire audience groaned
• Rey kissing Ben was stupid. Entire audience groaned
• 1 million ships showing up was so overkill
• Horses on star destroyer was dumb
• Rey taking Skywalker name was dumb and unearned. Half of audience groaned
• So much stuff didn't even make sense. My gf, in the ride home, said something like "But if Palpatine wanted Rey alive, why did he order Ben to kill her? And if he controlled Snoke, why did Snoke try to kill her?" If the plot holes are obvious to someone who only really cares about Baby Yoda (in Star Wars) then you know you have a problem
• Why would the DSII wreckage open a door for Rey? Magic sensors?
• What did Finn want to tell Rey? That he loved her? Or that he was feeling the force? If the latter, it was the one time they didn't tell us something they should have. If the former...did he just forget to answer that in the movie?
• Finn was wasted again
• Poe went back to be a...General who runs around with guns?
• No stakes in almost any scene (or tension). When they boarded the star destroyed they were literally running around hitting every shot they took

 

The rest:

The entire movie was a trilogy crammed into a movie, and JJ should feel bad. Of the six I went with (including myself), one strongly liked it, three thought it was okay, and two disliked it. Overall everyone thought the plot was dumb and there was too much, but some still enjoyed it. Best scenes of the movie were focused on Adam Driver, especially the stuff on the DSII wreckage.

 

I will contribute more later on, but yeah, this is a sad and disappointing end to the "Skywalker Saga." 

 

And thanks for hinting in the final movie that Finn has force sensitivity. The overall ST would have been stronger if they would have cut Poe and just had Rey and Finn both be potential Jedi.

 

I think the scene that sums up this movie for me is when they go to the forest moon of Endor. They show the crashed Falcon...but wait, when did it crash? I actually leaned in and asked my gf "wait, did they show it crashing?" They did not. They literally skipped the ship crashing but then made it a mini-plot device that they needed to get parts to fix it so that they couldn't take off again right away. The entire movie is filled with stuff like this.

 

Oh and WTF was with the ancient sith dagger. It...had the coordinates of the Death Star wreckage? How? And it worked only if you stood in a specific spot and held it a certain way? That was the dumbest mcguffin/object of all. So brainless.

 

'

 

 

[SaysWho?]

I've read nothing.

 

I'm just hear to say that once I watch the movie this weekend. I can't wait to see how this lined up with everything Riley the Wiley Sly Guy read.

[CitizenVectron]

1 minute ago, SaysWho? said:

I've read nothing.

 

I'm just hear to say that once I watch the movie this weekend. I can't wait to see how this lined up with everything Riley the Wiley Sly Guy read.

 

90% was accurate. Some small differences and things that were omitted/added.

[skillzdadirecta]

Well I was right about a couple of things I predicted, one that I predicted back after TFA. I'm proud of that at least 

 

Edit: and something that a friend of mine said years ago that this movie proves to be true. JJ is still directing as if he's still doing TV. Very few scenes and shots that should have felt epic... were.

[SuperSpreader]

7 hours ago, Bacon said:

via reddit

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Redeemed Ben literally had zero lines except for “ow”

I don't know how I feel about that. 

[Guest]

7 minutes ago, Kal-El814 said:

ALL - We're still spoiler tagging everything, please.

My bad, I thought this was spoiler thread and other was not. Forgive me, but not like

 

Spoiler

Kylo forgave himself via a hallucination of his father, because. What a whacky scene despite Driver’s excellent performance.

 

[CitizenVectron]

4 minutes ago, skillzdadirecta said:

Well I was right about a couple of things I predicted, one that I predicted back after TFA. I'm proud of that at least 

 

Edit: and something that a friend of mine said years ago that this movie proves to be true. JJ is still directing as if he's still doing TV. Very few scenes and shots that should have felt epic... were.

 

Someone on Resetera said it best (paraphrasing): "There wasn't a single scene with tension in TROS. The bombing run in TLJ, you felt on the edge of your seat, and that was not even a main character." Like, even the fleet battle sucked.

 

I think the most generous thing I can say about this movie (besides Adam Driver and Daisy Ridley's performances, obviously) is that each individual scene seems generally okay out of context (except for the horrible editing). But put together it just doesn't work.

[GeneticBlueprint]

1 hour ago, SFLUFAN said:

@GeneticBlueprint- who were you trying to quote in your post?

Nobody. I accidentally hit the quote button instead of the spoiler tag. It wouldn't let me delete it.

[Greatoneshere]

So the movie was . . . good enough. It was enjoyable enough. That's about all I can say about it.

 

 

 

The stuff JJ does well: character chemistry and character interactions, fun dialogue, with the movie moving so fast (as usual) that often you don't get time to question how dumb certain plot points are. But otherwise . . . holy shit, this movie just went so over the top with fan service and overstuffed to the gills with go nowhere plot lines that I felt more exhausted by sound and fury, all signifying very little than I was moved by the end of an epic 9-part saga. The film came off like an overblown TFA. 

 

The good:

-great acting and chemistry between the actors and their characters, everyone was fun and entertaining

-some really funny dialogue which made me laugh

-some really cool action scenes, like when Rey cuts the tie fighter or when Kylo appears with Rey's lightsaber

-brings a lot of the "dark magic" of fantasy into this

-Hux's plotline was quite enjoyable, including his comeuppance

 

-The movie doesn't completely shit on TLJ, which was a nice surprise, though making the subtle idea "everyone can be a hero" to "everyone can be a Skywalker, even though this idea is starting with someone who is a Palpatine" felt both too spelled out and half-assing the idea

 

-one year time jump: fucking finally

 

-movie finally kept all the characters together for the most part, thankfully

The bad/questionable stuff:

-I watched TFA and TLJ right before this (again) and man, like TFA this movie is overly lit and overly bright even when there's some dark scenes, it just feels like an MCU film in that way

-Did we really need to add Palpatine? He was the worst addition to the movie, his appearance and fleet go essentially unexplained, and he was kind of boring/stupid. Snoke was scarier in the throne room scene in TLJ. 

-Why the fuck were the Palpatine scenes done with a constant strobe light effects show? Came off like a cheap Saw movie in those scenes.

-We already have a plethora of characters to deal with, so adding Palpatine as well as Jannah (the ex-stormtrooper) and Zorri (Poe's criminal friend) felt unnecessary, especially when you've pushed Maz Kanata and Rose to the side even more (never got an answer to how Maz got Luke's original blue lightsaber . . . and where did his green one go?)

-All the over-the-top fan service made the force seem stupid, like Palpatine shooting lightning bolts to destroy whole fleets. What seems cool in the moment just came off as too ridiculous 

-Man, the music queue's in this were obnoxious. Anyone else notice? Soft, nice music would kick in every time Leia was on screen, and so on and so forth. It almost became repetitive, the Star Wars needle drops over and over and over

-Man, this movie has way too much action. Like, just endless fetch questing with action crammed in.

-So much pointless running around over Wayfinders that made no sense - a dagger leading you to one based on the destroyed remains of a Death Star II makes no sense (what, Palpatine made the daggers afterward? Based one on Death Star II remains that never shifted or moved for 30 years? And the second Wayfinder is on a random planet? Why?)

-How can the Wayfinders both be created by Palpatine to lead to his hidden secret base but also be in ancient Jedi texts from the first Jedi temple? 

-WTF was up with that Sith assassin bullshit? He had the dagger used to kill Rey's parents but the dagger also leads to the Wayfinder, which he was trying to reach? His plot makes no sense.

-When did Palpatine fuck someone? Who were they? How did they raise a good child who ran away from Palpatine? None of it makes sense or fits Palpatine's character.

-Redeeming Ben: I'm good with it, but any chance he was going to live after becoming "Ben" again was impossible given he'd already become a mass murdering genocidal maniac, and so there was no redemption for him where he lived given how much evil he'd already committed, so they shouldn't have even bothered going down that path. Also, Rey and Ben kissing was lame and made no sense. Yes, they have this deep bond but he still killed millions of people, he's probably not worthy of some grand kiss before he dies just because he undid his mistake after getting lots of people killed.
 

 

 

I could go on but those are some of my immediate thoughts. I genuinely enjoyed parts of the movie, but a lot of it was really dumb too. I'd give it a 6.5/10 whereas TFA gets a 7/10 and TLJ a 8/10. Like TFA copying A New Hope, this movie also copied a lot of the structure of Return of the Jedi. 

[skillzdadirecta]

The space battle just felt lazy.

Spoiler

Even Poe light speed skipping which is a cool as fuck concept, just didn't seem as cool as it should have been visually.  The Falcon deserved better.

 

[CitizenVectron]

1 minute ago, sblfilms said:

My bad, I thought this was spoiler thread and other was not. Forgive me, but not like

 

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Kylo forgave himself via a hallucination of his father, because. What a whacky scene despite Driver’s excellent performance.

 

 

Yeah, it was weird.

 

Spoiler

I thought the actual sequence was very well-done, thanks to Driver, but it made zero sense. Your own mind just said "don't worry about the billions you've killed, you are a good guy now." It's also why the kiss was just horrible. I heard someone say something after like "why would she kiss him when he's done so much evil?"

 

Like, I totally am 100% behind the idea of him doing something good to save Rey. But doing something good doesn't make someone good, right? He should have done something to save her but with the knowledge that he was still not redeemable. 

 

Afterwards when my friends and I were discussing it, I used a horrible analogy. Imagine if, at the end of WWII, Goebbels had turned on Hitler and stopped him...and Churchill's daughter kissed him. It's like, yeah, cool, you're a complex person maybe and you just stopped a bad guy...but you've already committed atrocities, so I can't forgive you.

 

[skillzdadirecta]

Rian Johnson directs CIRCLES around JJ. 

[Greatoneshere]

2 minutes ago, CitizenVectron said:

 

Yeah, it was weird.

 

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I thought the actual sequence was very well-done, thanks to Driver, but it made zero sense. Your own mind just said "don't worry about the billions you've killed, you are a good guy now." It's also why the kiss was just horrible. I heard someone say something after like "why would she kiss him when he's done so much evil?"

 

Like, I totally am 100% behind the idea of him doing something good to save Rey. But doing something good doesn't make someone good, right? He should have done something to save her but with the knowledge that he was still not redeemable. 

 

Afterwards when my friends and I were discussing it, I used a horrible analogy. Imagine if, at the end of WWII, Goebbels had turned on Hitler and stopped him...and Churchill's daughter kissed him. It's like, yeah, cool, you're a complex person maybe and you just stopped a bad guy...but you've already committed atrocities, so I can't forgive you.

 

Literally what I also said a few posts up as well. Totally agree. This movie only makes me appreciate TLJ more. That feels like a real movie even more now after two JJ movies of characters running around so much with so much action that the movie never fucking breathes. Watch the old movies, they are much slower and TLJ at least tries that.

[skillzdadirecta]

1 minute ago, Greatoneshere said:

 Literally what I also said a few posts up. Totally agree.

Yeah I 

Spoiler

Groaned at the kiss... so unearned 

And

Spoiler

If we were never gonna find out what Finn was going to say to Rey then why the fuck is it in the movie?

 

[Greatoneshere]

It was a 6.5/10. Good enough. Enjoyable enough. But dumb, really dumb, a lot of sound and fury signifying very little in the end. Way too cheesy and hokey at times, even for Star Wars.

[Greatoneshere]

Just now, skillzdadirecta said:

Yeah I 

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Groaned at the kiss... so unearned 

And

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If we were never gonna find out what Finn was going to say to Rey then why the fuck is it in the movie?

 

 

I dunno man, maybe he'll tell us when we find a Wayfinder . . .  

[TheGreatGamble]

6 minutes ago, CitizenVectron said:

 

Yeah, it was weird.

 

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I thought the actual sequence was very well-done, thanks to Driver, but it made zero sense. Your own mind just said "don't worry about the billions you've killed, you are a good guy now." It's also why the kiss was just horrible. I heard someone say something after like "why would she kiss him when he's done so much evil?"

 

Like, I totally am 100% behind the idea of him doing something good to save Rey. But doing something good doesn't make someone good, right? He should have done something to save her but with the knowledge that he was still not redeemable. 

 

Afterwards when my friends and I were discussing it, I used a horrible analogy. Imagine if, at the end of WWII, Goebbels had turned on Hitler and stopped him...and Churchill's daughter kissed him. It's like, yeah, cool, you're a complex person maybe and you just stopped a bad guy...but you've already committed atrocities, so I can't forgive you.

 

Spoiler

I mean, it's not like it was different with Vader. Killing the bad guy sudden;y redeemed him and let him die and become part of the light side of the force... 

 

[TheGreatGamble]

I enjoyed it. I didn't love it. I had fun, though. It wasn't as good as TFA of TLJ, but otherwise, it wasn't horrible. There are some problems, but there are always problems in a Star Wars movie. 

[CitizenVectron]

2 minutes ago, Greatoneshere said:

Literally what I also said a few posts up as well. Totally agree. This movie only makes me appreciate TLJ more. That feels like a real movie even more now after two JJ movies of characters running around so much with so much action that the movie never fucking breathes. Watch the old movies, they are much slower and TLJ at least tries that.

 

Yes, TLJ feels like a real movie while this feels like a series of scenes crammed together to please "fans." Looking back, there are a few key moments in the TLJ that everything else builds up to, so you remember them. Both emotional, and physical moments. In this movie...when every scene is the end of the world or everyone is going to die, then nothing stands out.

 

Also, can we talk about the BIGGEST mcguffin in the entire movie: 

Spoiler

the beacon tower. WHAT THE FUUUUCK. So, in order to tell which WAY IS UP, 1,000 ships need a single tower? And if that one tower is destroyed, they can no longer use their engines to just move up? Oh, but the signal can also be sent from any other ship. But not more than one ship.

 

In the original (JJ) script, before revisions, the tower was actually meant to guide the ships out of the unknown regions...so that kind of made sense, since the movie already established that it was hard to get into/out of (though using a single small red gooey nebula was dumb). So by destroying it (and the wayfinders), the fleet was trapped for a while.

 

But using it as a gyroscope was just the dumbest thing in any SW movie. 

 

Jesus fucking christ the worst people wrote this script.

 

 

[Greatoneshere]

4 minutes ago, TheGreatGamble said:

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I mean, it's not like it was different with Vader. Killing the bad guy sudden;y redeemed him and let him die and become part of the light side of the force... 

 

 

It was Luke's father and they didn't share a passionate kiss (obviously). The feeling in ROTJ was tragic, but earned. Here, not so much.

[CitizenVectron]

3 minutes ago, TheGreatGamble said:

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I mean, it's not like it was different with Vader. Killing the bad guy sudden;y redeemed him and let him die and become part of the light side of the force... 

 

 

Spoiler

I don't mind him being redeemed in the sense that he can die at peace. But Vader wasn't immediately kissed by someone. His saving Luke was the first step, but it wasn't final. Actually, my gf made a joke that it seems the force is like space catholicism - as long as you accept space jesus into your heart in your final moment, you are saved. lol.

 

[CitizenVectron]

3 minutes ago, Greatoneshere said:

 

 

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It was Luke's father and they didn't share a passionate kiss (obviously). The feeling in ROTJ was tragic, but earned. Here, not so much.
 

 

 

 

Nothing in this movie was earned, except maybe

 

Spoiler

Rey finally learning to let go of her anger...though she only kind of did it at the last second.

 

[Greatoneshere]

1 minute ago, CitizenVectron said:

 

Nothing in this movie was earned, except maybe

 

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Rey finally learning to let go of her anger...though she only kind of did it at the last second.

 

 

Agreed, I mean:

 

There weren't really moments to "earn" anything. When Finn and Jannah destroy the one Star Destroyer that was the "navigation ship" (lol), I wasn't fist pumping, I was like: oh, another action scene, they obviously won again, let's move on. I dunno, it was all just constant CG and action in my face all the time. It was all so overblown.

[CitizenVectron]

I'd give it a 6 or maybe 6.5 right now. I predict that when I rewatch it in 6 months that will drop to a 5, much like TFA dropped (though TFA was better to begin with, simply because it was less full).

 

Overall, I'd say my rankings are now:

 

The Empire Strikes Back (9.5)

A New Hope (9)

The Last Jedi (8.5)

Return of the Jedi (8)

The Force Awakens (7) [I am hard on this movie, but it at least is still fun]

The Rise of Skywalker (6)

The Phantom Menace (6)

Revenge of the Sith (5.5)

Attack of the Clones (4)

[CitizenVectron]

The only thing this movie was missing was a line from Poe like "Why don't we use giant lasers that curve in space? Or bombs that fall in space?" and have Snap Wexley respond "Poe, lasers shoot straight and there is no gravity in space!!!!"

[CitizenVectron]

Also,

 

Spoiler

Was it just me, or did the CGI ghost effect on Luke look really cheap compared to every other Star Wars movie? TLJ changed it up a bit by making Yoda seem more real (with just the blue glow)...but Luke seemed more ethereal in this than even the OT ghosts.

 

[Greatoneshere]

1 minute ago, CitizenVectron said:

Also,

 

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Was it just me, or did the CGI ghost effect on Luke look really cheap compared to every other Star Wars movie? TLJ changed it up a bit by making Yoda seem more real (with just the blue glow)...but Luke seemed more ethereal in this than even the OT ghosts.

 

 

Nope, I totally agree and was wondering what was up. I felt the same during a lot of the movie, a lot of the CG felt cheap or there was too much CG, not enough practical models, etc. I felt the same during parts of Solo as well. 

[Greatoneshere]

5 minutes ago, CitizenVectron said:

I'd give it a 6 or maybe 6.5 right now. I predict that when I rewatch it in 6 months that will drop to a 5, much like TFA dropped (though TFA was better to begin with, simply because it was less full).

 

Overall, I'd say my rankings are now:

 

The Empire Strikes Back (9.5)

A New Hope (9)

The Last Jedi (8.5)

Return of the Jedi (8)

The Force Awakens (7) [I am hard on this movie, but it at least is still fun]

The Rise of Skywalker (6)

The Phantom Menace (6)

Revenge of the Sith (5.5)

Attack of the Clones (4)

 

I'd say mine match pretty much exactly as yours do. Unsure if TROS will drop with time, but I feel as if I'll understand some things better and dislike other things more for sure.

[CitizenVectron]

Yeah the whole thing seemed cheap compared to TLJ or even TFA. And overall, everything that happened seemed to be in service of the plot, rather than in service of the characters. It was a classic "here's what we need to do, now how do we cram the existing characters into it," rather than "here's who the characters are, how would they react to this situation?"

 

Oh, another line the movie needed was:

 

Spoiler

Finn sees Rey at the end, on the jungle planet. He runs to her and says "Rey, this whole time...you've been the wayfinder...to my heart," and kisses her. 

 

But then he tastes Ben's brand of lipgloss and is sad, or something.

 

[skillzdadirecta]

This movie was written and made with a checklist that JJ made to himself... for example

 

Spoiler

When Leah died he made SURE we got an extended reaction shot from Chewie... you know, the one he DIDN'T GET in TFA. It was a great moment from Chewie and felt right, but it did make me think that it was in response to him not getting the Chewie shot in TFA

 

I'm not gonna rag on the movie too much more because I did like a lot of stuff too, mostly the acting and character interactions.

 

Spoiler

Rel and Kylo's Saber battle on the death star wreckage was pretty cool too mostly because of the performances by the actors. JJ's directing was meh.

 

[CitizenVectron]

Oh, and ONE MORE THING:

 

Spoiler

So the ending is a mirror of ROTJ in terms of celebration. But wait...it doesn't make sense...LIKE AT ALL. Because they won the battle in the unknown regions...but flew back to the jungle base, and then started jumping around and celebrating? That would have taken like, at least a few hours, or days.