That’s just, from my point of view, Rian Johnson doing whatever he can to destroy everything that’s within his reach simply because he can, to prove some sort of point to someone.
Seriously?
That’s going a bit far.
It didn’t seem like he was destroying things just because he could (to me, at least). It did seem like he was continuing or building importance of things only to make them unimportant for some shock value.
Well, I think he did that to everything he could without making 100% of the audience being really bothered by the direction and twists of the movie. (Only 40-30% was, I think. Maybe less)
See, I didn’t see it that way. This is the middle act of a three act play. Same as the OT. In act 2, everything goes south. And while I think the majority of things went wrong in this film for our heroes, none of it was for shock value, none of it was gratuitous, none of it was ultimately unimportant. Finn and Rose did what any good hero would do, try and find a way out of the predicament. The success or failure of what they tried is secondary to the importance of character development. Finn’s character develops hugely during his mission. The mission fails, but lessons are learned. Poe similarly tries to find a way out of the predicament and fails. Failure is the hallmark of the 2nd act. Look at TESB. Yes, the rebels escape and regroup, but Han and Leia have a running chase that ultimately ends in Han being turned over the the Boba Fett and Liea escaping on the Falcon. It is a running series of failures until the final escape and rescue of Luke. Rey tries to get Luke to come back, but fails. At least initially. She gets some lessons out of him, a very important one among them, but ultimately she is beyond the level of most students and embarks on a self-study program with the ancient texts. Leia and Luke act as mentors, shepherding Poe and Rey into their roles. Luke does so unwittingly until Yoda shows up to let him in on the secret. The movie doesn’t take the obvious route if you were expecting success, but the 2nd act is about failure and that is what this movie is full of. The pay-off will be in the third act, like it was with the OT. In a world where there is only Star Wars and TESB, TESB isn’t a very satisfying story. But the final act is where he payoff is. RJ built a very good 2nd act and now we have to hope the final act can match it.