There are a lot of things I really loved about Last Jedi and a lot of things I really hated about Last Jedi. It was such a mixed bag.
I hate the way it threw out the Star Wars universe's physics - because it took me right out of the universe. Yes, the Star Wars universe never had realistic physics, but it did have reasonably self-consistent physics and Last Jedi threw them away. It had bombs falling in space (as opposed to being projected as missiles), it had turbolasers arcing (not something it ever had before), it introduced hyperspace fuel in order to make the finale escape make sense (they could have just used an interdictor instead). It was maddening.
But they almost did something really cool with the force, throwing out the dark/light dichotomy and replacing it with balance. They could have had Rey and Ben actually see eye to eye and both become grey Jedi after dispatching Snoke and finally obtaining the prophesied balance in the force. That would have opened up all kinds of interesting new places to take Star Wars and new stories to explore. But they chickened out at the last second.
And then yeah, the whole last half of the movie with the slow space chase, escape plan, side quest... none of that made any sense in terms of its writing.
I strongly agree on all counts. Overall, the bad outweighed the good for me; but at least it tried and I give it points for that. The other two sequels were just lazy.
The best modern Star Wars movie by far was Rogue One. In some ways Rogue One had an easier job because it was explicitly an exercise in elaborating on the original movies, rather than trying to expand in a brand new direction. But it did its job tremendously well. (And the TV show Andor is taking things in cool new directions.)
Rogue One was great. The moment I saw Jyn being transported in Jaggurnought, I was sold. The Star Wars universe, from the original triology over the Clone Wars to the extended universe from the days of Westend Games, has so much stuff to work with. Stuff, that is now free to use since it is not canon anymore. The sequel triology did nothing of the sort, insetad it took the idea of a reborn Emperor, IMHO among the worst ideas of the Legebds EU, and made somehow even worse.
When the hinted at a fleet of hidden star destroyers in Rise of Skywalker, I so hoped they would steal some elements of the Katana-fleet story arch. But nope. Funny how all the series set after Endor do their utmost to ignore the sequel movies, at least it feels like that to me.
Fo rTgrawn so, they could have skippes the zombie stormtrooper part. Star Wars zombies were a bad idea when introduced in that book about an infested star destroyer, written at the hight of the pop culture zombie craze, and are an element the new canon could have well lived without. After all, Thrawns thing in Timothy Zahns book triology was cloned soldiers. But we will see how that story goes, Thrawn is bavk, and I'm all for it!
At this point with movies, especially franchise movies, I'm more interested in how high the highest points of a film hit than the average level.
If you do 1 really cool thing and 99 shitty things? Still into it! And TLJ does better than that.
There's far too much average pablum out there. Or almost worse, a movie that's entirely just slightly better than average... but never exceed slightly better.
Most egregiously, IMO, was the Holdo Maneuver (jumping the rebel cruiser into the pursuing First Order ship). If that's a thing, why didn't they use that on the Death Star, the Executor, etc. Why weren't people building massive objects with no guns or shields, just a hyperdrive? It just wrecks the internal consistency for an admittedly awe-inspiring moment in theaters.
Interaction between hyperspace and non-hyperspace is (unintentionally) telegraphed in episode IV when Han says "Without precise calculations we could fly right through a star or bounce too close to a supernova, and that’d end your trip real quick, wouldn’t it?”
That being said Star Wars script-writing has been totally winging it on surprisingly big plot points from the start. It's frankly astonishing that it's even as consistent as it is.
They specifically had a line about the pursuers rushing to catch up and dumping all power into that effort. Diverting from shielding and anything that would protect them. After all they had a much larger more powerful force, hubrus lead them to believe that they were safe enough to do so.
As for the "why not just build a hyperdrive shell that you can use to javelin a planet into dust" this is a problem that is ignored in MUCH more serious science fiction than star wars. Because it's a pain I nthe ass to explain away.
Gravity well. You would exit hyperspace before hitting the planet. Same concept as how the Interdictor class Star Destroyers prevent hyperspace/pull ships out of hyperspace.
We see a few collisions major in the original trilogy. I don't think it necessarily clears anything up. I haven't watched in some years so the details are a little hazy and might be wrong:
In ESB:
- An asteroid collides with a Star Destroyer. Communications with the Star Destroyer are lost, but nothing past the hit is shown on screen. (Presumably shields are active since they're putting these ships in the asteroid field.) [Just to speculate, the asteroid itself might have been pulverized and its materials interfering with communications, or some other shield/asteroid interaction causing loss of communications.]
In ROTJ:
- The Executor loses its shields and the A-wing crashes into the bridge. (No shields.)
- The Executor subsequently loses control and crashes into the Death Star. (No shields.)
And in Rogue One:
- The corvette pushes the two Star Destroyers together and they take major damage. (Unknown shield status.)
They could have bought themselves some points by saying "...and that's how the Death Star works, you need a massive space station as a power source if you want to do it more than once."
Even within the SW universe there were limitations on the practicality of this strategy: (1) a large enough mass relative to the target so as to cause enough damage, (2) enough armor or shielding for the sacrificial mass to get within hyperspace jump range of the target, (3) a very limited window of space in which to actually hit the target while making the jump to hyperspace, and (4) a crew willing to sacrifice itself in such a manner (because droids and others couldn't simply be ordered to do something like this within the cannon of the SW universe).
But more to the point: we don't know if the Holdo Maneuver became more common in the SW universe because the only subsequent film decided to try and ignore everything that happened in the previous movie in favor of having space horses galloping on the exterior of a starship.
This is my complaint about approximately every sci-fi that has both "shield" and "warp" technology. Just warp a large mass into the bridge, or a bomb if you're feeling nasty. Add instantaneous "subspace" communication a la Star Trek, and you can call in the equivalent of an air strike from the nearest hub. Warp core goes boom.
I hate the way it threw out the Star Wars universe's physics - because it took me right out of the universe. Yes, the Star Wars universe never had realistic physics, but it did have reasonably self-consistent physics and Last Jedi threw them away. It had bombs falling in space (as opposed to being projected as missiles), it had turbolasers arcing (not something it ever had before), it introduced hyperspace fuel in order to make the finale escape make sense (they could have just used an interdictor instead). It was maddening.
But they almost did something really cool with the force, throwing out the dark/light dichotomy and replacing it with balance. They could have had Rey and Ben actually see eye to eye and both become grey Jedi after dispatching Snoke and finally obtaining the prophesied balance in the force. That would have opened up all kinds of interesting new places to take Star Wars and new stories to explore. But they chickened out at the last second.
And then yeah, the whole last half of the movie with the slow space chase, escape plan, side quest... none of that made any sense in terms of its writing.