This was alright. Not the PC cringefest people were making it out to be. Rey demoted from Mary Sue to an actual protagonist worth rooting for.
Can't shake the feeling that they were setting up some daring story beats only to play it straight by the end:
- Rey and Kylo switching sides would have been amazing.
- Luke being overly vigilant against new Sith Lords would have been wild.
- Poe staging a coup over the Resistance for being too soft would have had thematic call backs to Rogue One showing darker sides of the good guys.
Literally all of that was swerved as misunderstandings, red herrings, or just rendered moot. Shame.
Snoke chewing out Kylo for losing to Rey last time was meta. Glad they acknowledged that. In fact there's a lot of evidence that they specifically depowered Rey in comparison to Force Awakens.
Seems some retooling of Luke's personality was required for him to fill the cranky old mentor role but it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. However, I agree with Hamill that basically everything is inconsistent with who we got to know long ago. But whatever.
Probably should have played straight 'that scene' with Leia cause they are in one hell of a box right now.
Needed more Evil BB8. Very surprised not getting a showdown.
Everything about the Casino and the hacker was cutting room floor material. Complete waste of time.