{Not spoilerish}

It's better than "The Last Jedi".

Sort of.

More enjoyable, maybe?

JJ Abrams is a theoretically technically proficient filmmaker. And he's all about the fan service. Also re-hiring people. And there's two of those three things in this one.

One of the issues I have with the criticism of the prequels is that people keep talking about why they are bad by the rules of movies. I don't care and didn't notice. I've only recently started becoming aware of what they mean by the bad CGI in the eponymous attack of the clones scene. But even I could tell, right off the bat, after one viewing, that this was not well made.

Part of it, I think, is the structure of the trilogy, where tLJ was an indulgent waste of time that veered off in its own direction, so all the stuff they need to get to the end of this one has to be crammed into the movie. There's a lot of things that are brought up abruptly and suddenly, that you don't have time to process, that the story doesn't give a chance to breathe. Characters pop up whom you're supposed to care about. During the final shot of Maz Kantata, the thought passed through my mind "for this (meaning the whole trilogy) you needed to hire an Oscar-winning actress?" Captain Phasma apparently died in tLJ, btw, so that's another dead end character, much like Rose Tico. Who was introduced in Empire Strikes Back, was a major character in that movie and then disappeared except for a few lines anyone could have said, like Charlie from Lost or Parkman from Alias (told you)? Imagine if Lando spent Return of the Jedi as Mon Mothma's secretary. Speaking of whom, he's back. You might have seen that in the trailers. Pay no attention to what else you see in that shot of Billy Dee Williams in the trailer, it will spoil a red herring.

Before I learned to appreciate Duel of the Fates, I was a bit disappointed by that music during the duel between the Jedi & Darth Maul, because in the trailer, we got a shot of Qui-Gonn & Obi-Wan jumping to the bridge while the Star Wars theme played. Well there's an action montage in this one's trailer set to a more, IDK, mournful? sentimental? version of the Star Wars theme, and when we got those scenes in the film, they were something of a let down, because they seemed less cool and epic in context. But there's no Duel of the Fates there.

The movie really tries to be both faithful to the history of Star Wars and come up with an epic ending, but it feels rushed and at times like they couldn't decide which element was supposed to be the epic climax, and so they were kind of undercut. Is it when this character shows up with the Rohirrim or when that character comes charging in to save the day, or when this character makes the selfless sacrifice or that one tries to make amends ...

Really, you could have trimmed tLJ down to a couple of important plot points and stuck a good bit of this movie in it, to stretch things out more. And it's very weird that there was a sentimental coda, rather than ending with the wide angle celebration.

Also, a LOT of the stuff going on, and some major things are "just go with it, don't think too hard." Not nitpicky "well the Force doesn't..." or "how did he..." but more like "WHY hasn't this come up until now? What have they BEEN doing until their dramatic appearance in this movie?" And if you think about the roles of two of the original characters, it kind of undermines one in comparison to the other. But I like it, because it services a secret subplot or characterization that only I know about (probably other people too. They just don't talk about it).

There are two kisses in this, by the way. One you might miss it if you blink, and will probably make some people mad. The other is going to infuriate everyone but its 'shippers, and they probably aren't going to be any happier. I was in full blown "yes, yes, go ahead Steve, faster, you're almost to Spencer, more coal, here's that three mile grade, never mind the airbrakes..." mode by that point, and having more fun rewriting the movie in my head.

The best thing I think about this movie is the first paragraph of the opening crawl tells you how badly they done fucked up. You're just like "THIS is the place to tell us THAT?! Did I miss a cartoon or something, that was supposed to lead into this movie?" I thought General Grievous kidnapping the Supreme Chancellor of the Republic was a bit of thing to keep off-screen and open Ep3 in media res, but WOW. And that's how you send your heroes on a series of quests to find the artifact to unlock the final level. Another good thing is unlike the other movies, the core surviving gang from the first movie spend most of it together, and getting along fairly well. It does right by them and their relationships. Aside from putting them in this plot, I mean.

This is a mess, with some good elements to it, and some fan service, and not much in the way of visible space battles or new types of combat. There is only one light saber duel and both characters' hearts aren't really in it, so that's a disappointment. Where climactic light saber duels in the past were expressions or representations of conflict between the characters and in-universe, an expression of their power and skill with the Force, in this one, they cut out the light saber middleman and skip right to Magic! without much build-up. Also, that teaser scene of Rey being chased by a TIE interceptor and then flipping over it, and you want to see the movie to find out the cool context of that shot? There isn't any. It was there for a cool shot, and really, Rey could have been doing better things at the time.

If I rated movies, I would automatically deduct one star or letter grade or whatever if someone in the movie used a bow instead of a gun, without a really good reason. This one makes the list, in addition to the improbability of the use. And it's not Chewie's laser crossbow. And the fan-servicey thing for Chewie at the end, does not by a long shot make up for what they did to him earlier in the film.

I'm about out of non spoiler things to say. I'm going to have lunch and maybe tack on a spoilerific rant in the replies.