I have a lot of mixed feelings about this film. On the one hand it was a great movie and had some very strong moments of action, (Admiral Holdo save the day scene) expanded lore, (force based Skype and astral projection) and drama (the throne room scene.) On the other hand, the direction they went with Luke’s ark was just abysmal in my opinion.

I felt that the backstory/raison’detre for Kylo Ren and Luke’s confrontation and Ren’s turn to evil really just ruins Luke’s ark as a character over the course of the whole saga. It makes our hero into a huge asshole who didn’t amount to much or learn anything.

Luke knows about pain, loss, and extreme darkness first hand ten times over, but he needs to kill Kylo Ren to stop his power? Or think about doing it? Absolute BS!!!

That plot point alone invalidated whole swathes of lessons learned from the original films. Its as though OT Luke didn’t even exist or lose his limb, his aunt, uncle, father, mother, and mentor.

The idea of Luke being afraid of his Nephew’s power is like the idea of Freddy Kruger being afraid of the dark. ARE YOU KIDDING me?

The idea that Luke is VERY scared of Ren’s darkness is just absurd.

I appreciate that they were going for a “broken” or disillusioned take on Luke, where the weight on his shoulders of rebuilding the Jedi order was so overwhelming. Being deified and of mythic proportions would sour anyone who was alive to see it happen to them.

I also understand that Luke perceived training to be an ultimately dead end vis Jedi, due to the flaw he saw of hubris in Jedi teachings, but the way this was handled in the movie was just bad.

That to me constitutes the central flaw of the film. I did not fundamentally believe that we were dealing with Luke Skywalker at all.

If anything, it was like “Luuke” the clone, from the Heir to the Empire novels.

-I would have made Rey into Kylo’s half sister. Han could have been her dad, and an unknown woman her mother. The conflict between Luke and Kylo could have been framed in such a way that Ben was just sick of all the lies from his family, and this could have fed his turn. Luke in turn could have felt betrayed by Han, and passive aggressively (Jedi Hubris) taken it out on Kylo.

Sending Rey away (because Luke is following the Jedi code where attachment is forbidden,) could have been the spark that lead to Kylo’s turn rather than Luke trying to kill Ben. It would also mean that Luke actually learned and grew as a Character.

I absolutely loved Snoke’s command ship, and I thought of some edit ideas surrounding that.

If parts of Episode 7 and 8 could be joined such that Snoke’s ship would replace the star killer base concept, this would add weight and uniqueness to both films.

(A mobile super weapon destroyed by a loyal officer’s self sacrifice would be so perfect and make a more menacing weapon.)

The plot hole created by Episode 8’s “mobile death star tech” made a bigger hole out of Star killer base than it was before, so replacing Star Killer Base, and editing 7 and 8 together might fix that.

-Scenes from 7 could also add much needed breathing time to The Last Jedi. For being a 2 1/2 hour film, it never gave anyone time to breathe or process.

The Gambling planet ends up just being a pointless plot device. (another version of finding the map to sky walker anyone?)

-Battlefront 2 Maz Kanata scene needs to be axed

Frozen floating miracle Leia scene needs to be recut or removed. If we can make it look like a force field caught her before she goes out into space, that would be a cool fix.
The New Yoda puppet looks like its the family guy Yoda cartoon character made for live action film. I loved the scene itself, its heart, and its humor, but I have to ask if they even checked reference photos or the Archives? Did Frank Oz know it wouldn’t even look like Yoda?
No backstory for Snoke? JESUS CHRIST ON A BIKE MAN! Upon seeing what happened, I was really wondering how to pull off a future film in 9? Totally wasted potential with Snoke.