This might be going against the grain of popular fan-thinking, but I actually preferred this installment to The Force Awakens. It attempted to do something different with the Star Wars brand (just like George Lucas set out to do with his prequel trilogy), whereas J.J. Abrams was more concerned with repeating the past successes and making sure everyone still liked him at the end of it, but did nothing revolutionary to make itself stand out from the rest of the series. This film does the opposite and subverts the viewer's expectations, and it's thrilling as long as you're open enough to accepting change. It's too bad Abrams ended up retconning most of it for the divisive third entry.
4 swigs of green milk out of 5
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I don't usually do this, but I wrote three different drafts of this nut, so here's a peek behind the curtain at my process:
Fans like to bitch and moan when things don't go their way, but Rian Johnson's subversive stab at the Star Wars saga is a marked improvement over the previous installment, mainly because it pushes the franchise into new directions rather than offering a fan service remix of what made the others great. This is the kind of movie that Lucas would have approved of, since he always tried to subvert expectations within the franchise (just ask any fan who saw The Phantom Menace in 1999).
I can only compare this one to what came before and what came after, but it's the best installment in the sequel trilogy, for my money. J.J. Abrams would once again undo all the goodwill that had been done in his concluding chapter.
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