Alatar wrote:
Do yourself a favour Anduril. Leave your preconceptions at home and go have a blast in an original Star Wars movie. It's a rare enough experience.
Rare? There's going to be one every year, quite possibly for the rest of our lives.

Why did we ever need more than three Star Wars movies? It's hard not to get burnout when the marketing, hype, and even backlash are on an endless short cycle. Even the prequels at least were spaced out over a decade so we got some break from it.
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Naturally, the fanboys are now claiming he was forced by studio pressure to issue an apology. I despair of my fellow geeks sometimes.
As Anduril said, "forced" is probably too strong a word. But it is not common for people in film to openly criticize a project they worked on and not outlandish to think he might walk it back primarily to keep good relations in the industry. Maybe he's also come to accept Luke's role more with time too though - it could be a mix of both.
Anyway, I don't think the Ars Technica article really addresses the movie's fundamental narrative issues. I don't even mean "plot holes" per se (though some are pretty big) so much as an incredibly messy and unfocused structure. There's a major subplot that goes nowhere and the "fifth act" on the salt planet really wasn't necessary - Luke could have shown up earlier and to have things go on so long after Laura Dern's sacrifice kind of dilutes its effect. Also it basically resets the Star Wars universe to rebels vs. empire while talking a big game about letting go of the past. It's a pity, because I do think there's a potential for a good or great movie mostly around Rey and Kylo with some more trimming and revision on the script.
The originals certainly have their faults and I'm not as attached to them as I used to be, though I'll still put ESB down as one of the great blockbusters. But I don't think they're the same in kind as the problems with the prequels and this movie (no, I'm not saying TLJ is as bad as the prequels). Most Marvel movies have tighter plotting, and I don't even like Marvel all that much.