Here’s my random thoughts after my recent first viewing:
Snoke’s abrupt end was a surprise and he was well animated, but he was still just grandpa in a bathrobe. I’m actually a little disappointed after seeing his over-sized hologram in TFA that he was more than a few inches tall in the flesh.
Yodas moments were nice, and a wonderful example of the younger master still needing to learn. But that puppet, holy crap it was terrible. Thumb Wars puppet terrible. I get that they wanted to build an exact replica of the ESB model using the same techniques (and somehow screwed it up) and let Frank do the puppeteering for nostalgia’s sake but this really is a situation where CGI should have been chosen over practical effects.
Leia’s spacewalk, I could take or leave. It was a nice moment for her and a good reveal of her connection to the Force, but might have meant a bit more if it were to some end other than self-preservation. Like save Ackbar or repair something outside the ship.
The lightspeed attack was spectacular and truly heroic. BUT. It would have been nice if one of those brilliant military strategists had thought of doing that earlier in the piece, before three quarters of their fleet were destroyed for absolutely nothing. This is going to make re-watches difficult.
I like the full-circle direction they’re taking the Force. In ANH and somewhat in ESB, the Force is presented as a connection between all living things, Jedi had mastered the ability to use it and, with time and patience, you could too. In subsequent films, once it was decided to make Leia and Luke related, it became a special ability only accessible to an elite few across the galaxy and perhaps their offspring. In TFA we saw Rey with her seemingly ridiculous mastery of the Force over a short period, but now in TLJ we see broom-boy casually do a force-pull, implying a genuine, wider, awakening taking place. This pretty much removes any importance in who Rey’s parents actually were (whether Kylo Ren was lying or not).
The casino brings to focus a culture of decadence that we haven’t seen before, except perhaps at the Opera in ROTS, but it’s a little too close to Earth to be convincing. Tuxedos and cups of tea took me out of the galaxy far, far away.
The porgs were cute and stayed out of the way enough not to bother me.
Luke… took an interesting arc. We now know he had no connection to the Force when Han died so some bizarre questions come up (like why did Artoo wake up at that time in TFA?).
