Spoilers! You have been warned.

It feels daunting to review a Star Wars movie. I understand that pretty much everything I “review” is bigger than myself, but Star Wars is on a grand scale. On top of that, the reviews going into The Last Jedi were stellar, some people even saying they think it could be the best movie in the series. I thoroughly enjoyed it, but let’s not go that far. Empire all day.

I’m going to get my complaints out early so we can end on a high note. I have 3 main criticisms, 1 extensive, and 2 quick. Let’s start with Finn’s storyline. I don’t have an inherent issue with the plotline, but I believe breaking up Finn/Rose and Poe/Leia just made everything too busy. Cutting back and forth between the Rebel Fleet and Finn’s adventure was getting a little too time consuming, especially when I was so invested in the Rey/Luke/Kylo story, which I will get to later. In hindsight the mission that Finn was on seemed like it was just an excuse to get them off on their own, and I think the same could have been accomplished in other ways. The last two grievances are petty, but I didn’t need the weird milking of the space cow, or the poor CGI of Leia flying through space. If you want to make a point to remind us she has the force, I think we could have done that better.

Okay, onto the strengths. I am here for everything Rey/Kylo Ren. They are awesome foils, and their connection through the force were some of my favorite scenes. However, the uncontested best scene in the movie was the throne room scene. I am not going to go too deep into spoilers here, but I was literally shaking with joy during that scene.

We still don’t know if Rey is actually from nothing, or if Kylo just said that to manipulate her. However, I have an argument that I hope she isn’t from some notable Jedi family. Snoke says that as Kylo rises in the dark side, his opposite will rise in the light. If that is Rey, it makes sense that she has no notable bloodline. Kylo Ren is steeped in Jedi blood, coming from the Skywalker name. It would make sense that his opposite is not.

Okay before I just go way off the deep end in analyzing, I am going to cut myself off. I think this was a fitting middle chapter, which is probably the hardest of the three to make, and it set us up for a great finale. 8.5/10