The Last Jedi: Professional Reviews, Articles

I thought it would be nice to have a thread where we could share published reviews from professional film critics and articles about the movie, so we could comment, agree, disagree or just post.

List of Articles:

• The Atlantic: The Fan Fiction That Predicted a Big Last Jedi Storyline (x)
• Bitter Gertrude: Why So Many Men Hate The Last Jedi But Can’t Agree on Why (x)
• Bright Lights Film Journal: The Last Jedi: Enjoying Corporate Cinema’s Quasi-Risks While They Last (x)
• Bullseye with Jesse Thorn: The Last Jedi's Rian Johnson & The Go! Team (x)
• Bustle: These Kylo Ren & Rey Relationship Theories Could Change How Star Wars Fans Feel About Reylo (x)
• Buzzfeed: 28 Fictional Couples Whose Love Felt Extremely Real In 2017 (x)
• Buzzfeed: "Star Wars" Has Created A Villain Too Real For Its Own Fantasy Universe (x)
• Channel3000: The Force re-awakened: Rian Johnson talks evolution of 'The Last Jedi' (x)
• Cinema em Cena: Os Últimos Jedi (Portuguese Review): (x)
• Collider: How ‘Star Wars: The Last Jedi’ Shows the Dangers of Being Controlled by the Past (x)
• Conway's Corner: Star Wars, The Generations (x)
• Edmonton Journal: The Last Jedi Takes an Iconoclastic Leap Into a Larger World (x)
• Empire: Star Wars: The Last Jedi – 10 Revelations From Director Rian Johnson (x)
• Elite Daily: Does Rey Love Kylo Ren? 'Star Wars: The Last Jedi' Gives Us Our Answer (x)
• Empire: What The Last Jedi Means For Star Wars's Future (x)
• The Empire Film Podcast : Star Wars: The Last Jedi Empire Podcast Spoiler Special With Rian Johnson (x)
• Entertainment Weekly: The Last Jedi: A Force Push Against the Backlash (x)
• Film: ‘The Last Jedi’ Doesn’t Care What You Think About ‘Star Wars’ – And That’s Why It’s Great (x)
• Film School Rejects: The Best Movie Villains of 2017 (x)
• First Things: Millenials Strike Back (x)
• Fishnet Cinema: The 10 Best Films of 2017 (x)
• Folha de SP: Filme Resgata Grandiosidade (Portuguese Review): (x)
• Forbes: Box Office: 'Star Wars: The Last Jedi' Topping $1 Billion Today (x)
• Forbes: Can We Please Stop Pretending That 'Star Wars: The Last Jedi' Is A Box Office Bomb? (x)
• Forbes: Here's Why You're Wrong If You Think Rey Needs More Training In 'Star Wars: The Last Jedi' (x)
• The Guardian: Star Wars: The Last Jedi review – an Explosive Thrill-Ride of Galactic Proportions (x)
• Hollywood Reporter: The Path 'The Last Jedi' Didn't Take (x)
• Huffington Post: What Really Happened To Luke At The End Of 'Star Wars: The Last Jedi' (x)
• JSTOR Daily: The Last Jedi’s Twisted Theory of the Self (x)
• Kotaku: Star Wars: The Last Jedi Makes The Force Awakens Much More Interesting (x)
• Los Angeles Times: Rian Johnson on the evolution of the Force in 'Star Wars: The Last Jedi' and more spoilers (x)
• Los Angeles Times: 'The Last Jedi' brings emotion, exhilaration and surprise back to the 'Star Wars' saga (x)
• LWOS: A Better Class of Criminal: The Best Movie Villains of 2017 (x)
• Medium: ‘Star Wars: The Last Jedi’ Fails Rey On Every Level (x)
• Movie Web: 17 Major Spoilers in Star Wars: The Last Jedi (x)
• Nerdist: The Last Jedi Finally Deals With Star Wars’ Most Toxic Relationship (x)
• New Yorker: Why Are All “Star Wars” Movies the Same? (x)
• The New York Times: The Women Who Run the ‘Star Wars’ Universe (x)
• Peachy: The "Shocking" SW topped Box Office Chart for 2 weeks and Received Split Reactions! (Japanese Review) (x)
• People: Adam Driver Had No Problem with That Shirtless Scene in Star Wars: The Last Jedi (x)
• People: Star Wars: The Last Jedi: How Adam Driver Went the Distance for Daisy Ridley During Filming (x)
• Polygon: The Last Jedi Shows What It Means to Fail as a Teacher (x)
• Polygon: Star Wars: The Last Jedi is divisive, but Kylo Ren shouldn’t be (x)
• Popsugar: Yes, It's OK to Ship THAT Couple in Star Wars: The Last Jedi (x)
• Rawstory: What Are the Politics of ‘Star Wars’? (x)
• Reverse Shot: Paradise Lost, Regained (x)
• RTL: "Star Wars 8" : Kylo Ren est-il le centre de gravité de la saga ? (French Review) (x)
• Screen Rant: The Last Jedi Director Says Kylo Ren Can Be Redeemed (x)
• Slash Film: Why ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ is Better Than ‘The Last Jedi’ (x)
• Slate: A Guide to The Last Jedi’s References to Other (Non-Star Wars) Movies (x)
• Slate: The Last Jedi Isn’t for the Fans (x)
• Slate: The Last Jedi Is the First Genuinely Sexy Star Wars Movie (x)
• South China Morning Post: Star Wars: The Last Jedi – the Chinese themes in the eighth instalment of the franchise (x)
• The Times UK: Film Review: Star Wars: The Last Jedi (Jane Eyre Comparison) (x)
• Tor: Luke Skywalker Isn’t Supposed to Be “Nice” (x)
• Tor: Star Wars’ Vice-Admiral Holdo and Our Expectations for Female Military Power (x)
• Tor: Wow, People Are Really Mad at Poe Dameron (x)
• Vanity Fair: How The Last Jedi Became the Sexiest Star Wars Movie Yet (x)
• The Village Voice: “The Last Jedi” Is the Most Entertaining Star Wars Movie in Many a Moon (x)
• Vogue: Why the Star Wars: The Last Jedi Backlash Is a Good Thing (x)
• Vox: The Last Jedi came thrillingly close to upending Star Wars — but lost its nerve (x)
• Vulture: Adam Driver Was Pleased by His 'Last Jedi' Shirtless Scene (x)
• Wired: ‘The Last Jedi’ Is the Most Intellectual ‘Star Wars’ Movie (x)
• Yahoo Japan: Star Wars The Last Jedi Movie Review (Japanese Review) (x)

(I will be listing all articles mentioned in this thread).

Review from a Japanese critic: https://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/article?a=20171218-00010000-agora-soci
She gives score 75/100 and 5/5 stars for the new generation cast. I love the closing sentence.

レイとカイロ・レンが時空を超えて語り合うその姿に、愛と希望の存在を願うのは、私だけではないだろう。なぜなら、本作で重要な役割を担う新キャラのローズは劇中できっぱりと言うのだ。「愛する人を救うこと。それが勝利よ」と。
"I'm sure I am not the only one who wishes for love and hope seeing how Rey and Kylo Ren able to communicate (telepathically) across the galaxy. Why? As the new character, Rose, said, "Saving what we love. That's how we're gonna win."

Oh, thank you so much for sharing this. It's nice to see that the new movie didn't close the door for Kylo's redemption, as some of us sometimes think.

I will share some, I found interesting:

Vanity Fair: How The Last Jedi Became the Sexiest Star Wars Movie Yet (x)

Joanna Robinson wrote:Two years ago, the Star Wars fans of Tumblr eagerly latched on to the Force Awakens electricity between Kylo and Rey, launching the #Reylo hashtag and inspiring an older generation of fans to caution against rooting for romance between two the leads lest they be, you know, related. But I hate to break it to you: the Tumblr fans were right. With Rey’s non-Skywalker lineage confirmed, she and Kylo burn up the screen in the franchise’s most intense relationship we can’t help but root for—even though we know we shouldn’t.

***

Film: ‘The Last Jedi’ Doesn’t Care What You Think About ‘Star Wars’ – And That’s Why It’s Great (x)

Jacob Hall wrote:But with Star Wars: The Last Jedi, director Rian Johnson wants to burn Star Wars to the ground. Not because he harbors ill will toward it, but because he loves it. He loves it so much that he wants to cleanse the garden and allow something fresh and new to grow. The Last Jedi is not concerned about what you, the moviegoer and fan, thinks about Star Wars. It wants to challenge you and make you question what Star Wars is and what it can be

***

The Guardian: Star Wars: The Last Jedi review – an explosive thrill-ride of galactic proportions (x)

Peter Bradshaw wrote:The Last Jedi gives you an explosive sugar rush of spectacle. It’s a film that buzzes with belief in itself and its own mythic universe – a euphoric certainty that I think no other movie franchise has. And there is no provisional hesitation or energy dip of the sort that might have been expected between episodes seven and nine.

***

Popsugar: Yes, It's OK to Ship THAT Couple in Star Wars: The Last Jedi (x)

Shannon Vestal Robson wrote:All I know is that I desperately wanted Rey to take Kylo Ren's hand after they defeat Snoke together and rule a whole new world together. Go gray, baby! And that part where he breaks her heart to tell her her parents were no one special, but she is, to him? What else are we supposed to make of that? There's no other reason for Kylo Ren to be causally hanging out shirtless, making Rey all flustered. If the audience is supposed to infer a romantic connection, then I say: I'm into it. I'm shipping it into Episode IX. I'm making my #KyloRey shirts.

The Village Voice: “The Last Jedi” Is the Most Entertaining Star Wars Movie in Many a Moon (x)

Bilge Ebiri wrote:It’s refreshing to see these villains not as monolithic, sneering, all-powerful beings but as essentially dumb, angry kids, somewhat out of their element: Hux is ambitious and overconfident, Kylo is volatile and conflicted; they piss each other off as much as they piss off the good guys.

Brazilian critics are being very good:

Cinema em Cena (★★★★★): (x)

Pablo Villaça wrote:But, perhaps what fascinates me most in The Last Jedi is the beauty (and it's the third time I use this word in this text) of the structure in the arcs of Luke and Kylo Ren, which act as reflections of each other, including the eventual inversion of their trajectories.

Folha de São Paulo (★★★★★): (x)

Cássio Starling Carlos wrote:The scar on Adam Driver's face accentuates more than his evil side, also indicates an original trauma, a wound that opens doubts, casts shadows on the narrative.

More critics stating the obvious.

Slate: The Last Jedi Is the First Genuinely Sexy Star Wars Movie (x)

Brogan Morris wrote:In this private place, where they hide conversations from respective surrogate fathers like two teenagers conducting a secret relationship, Rey and Kylo confess deeper feelings of pain and yearning. It all feels shudderingly romantic. In one of these scenes, through some miracle of the Force, these two lonely, conflicted figures touch hands through the void, something which leaves the pair practically in rapture. In another, as Rey gasps, Johnson indulges the female gaze to cut to a shot of a shirtless and obscenely buff Kylo (kudos, Adam Driver’s personal trainer) that practically salivates over his humongous pecs. For the first time ever, a Sith uses not just mind tricks and manipulation, but also sex appeal to seduce his Jedi prey.

Apologies if this was already shared in another thread, but it's important to note that Vogue gets it:


https://www.vogue.com/article/star-wars-the-last-jedi-review-backlash

tl;dr: Vogue is Reylo AF. They want that Kylo/Rey action just as bad as we do, apparently. XD

The Last Jedi takes an iconoclastic leap into a larger world
Edmonton Journal

But, to Johnson’s ongoing credit, by sacrificing Snoke — both Ray and Ren’s goal — he builds something more important between them. The moment their seduction towards each other is torn apart by their fundamental misunderstanding of one another is tragic and beautiful: Rey says, “Don’t do this,” then Kylo begs her to stick with him, anchored on the word, “Please.”

It’s in this gorgeous setting we also shrug off the tease of Rey’s family history, perhaps Johnson’s boldest move against the last film and the entire saga. Who were Rey’s parents? “Nobody,” she sniffs.

And who, ultimately, was Snoke?

Seriously, who really cares?

He served his purpose, then got out of the way for the real core of the new trilogy: the Rey-Ren relationship. Here, Johnson tosses lightsaber after lightsaber over his shoulder.

source: http://edmontonjournal.com/entertainment/movies/the-last-jedi-takes-an-iconoclastic-leap-into-a-larger-world

LONG LIVE REYLO

Darth Rowan wrote:Apologies if this was already shared in another thread, but it's important to note that Vogue gets it:


https://www.vogue.com/article/star-wars-the-last-jedi-review-backlash

tl;dr: Vogue is Reylo AF. They want that Kylo/Rey action just as bad as we do, apparently. XD

@Darth Rowan

This article gives me life...

shii405 wrote:The Last Jedi takes an iconoclastic leap into a larger world
Edmonton Journal

But, to Johnson’s ongoing credit, by sacrificing Snoke — both Ray and Ren’s goal — he builds something more important between them. The moment their seduction towards each other is torn apart by their fundamental misunderstanding of one another is tragic and beautiful: Rey says, “Don’t do this,” then Kylo begs her to stick with him, anchored on the word, “Please.”

It’s in this gorgeous setting we also shrug off the tease of Rey’s family history, perhaps Johnson’s boldest move against the last film and the entire saga. Who were Rey’s parents? “Nobody,” she sniffs.

And who, ultimately, was Snoke?

Seriously, who really cares?

He served his purpose, then got out of the way for the real core of the new trilogy: the Rey-Ren relationship. Here, Johnson tosses lightsaber after lightsaber over his shoulder.

source: http://edmontonjournal.com/entertainment/movies/the-last-jedi-takes-an-iconoclastic-leap-into-a-larger-world

LONG LIVE REYLO

@shii405

OMG, finally people started to see that. I was never really concerned about Rey's parents or Snoke, it was clear to me, since the beginnning, that the new trilogy was about Rey and Kylo.



Wow, I just read this review and, wow, it's so good!

IoJovi wrote:

Darth Rowan wrote:Apologies if this was already shared in another thread, but it's important to note that Vogue gets it:


https://www.vogue.com/article/star-wars-the-last-jedi-review-backlash

tl;dr: Vogue is Reylo AF. They want that Kylo/Rey action just as bad as we do, apparently. XD

@Darth Rowan

This article gives me life...

@IoJovi Omg...this article is everything I've been feeling. They would def. have f***** by now on GOT. ughhh. Honestly rey went about it all wrong- had she seduced him in the elevator right there and then, he would have turned in a heartbeat for her loll.

This is an interesting take on Kylo from a Buzzfeed reporter. I don’t think you can compare him to a “school shooter” because Star Wars is just not realism, period, but she makes some interesting points.

"Star Wars" Has Created A Villain Too Real For Its Own Fantasy Universe
Alison Willmore

Despite his aspirations toward it, there is no grandeur in Kylo Ren. But as a character, he verges on being too big and too complicated for the movies he's been a part of, especially as Adam Driver plays him, with a mixture of pain and hurt so raw it threatens to rend the fabric of the series every time he's on screen. Driver is terrific as Kylo Ren, so good that his wounded smoldering sometimes puts the character at odds with castwide acting that's otherwise calibrated to the straightforward pitch of an interstellar adventure. It feels as if Driver's working in 24-bit when everyone else has committed to 8.

[Kylo's brooding, his temper tantrums, his petulant desire to carve out his own path, and his overall air of fetching, long-locked gothiness made him into a instant meme when The Force Awakens came out in 2015. He spawned the infinitely enjoyable Emo Kylo Ren Twitter account (whose two follows are Hot Topic and Darth Vader), Tumblrs devoted to his imagined awkward adolescence at home, and an army of shippers rooting for an alluringly dysfunctional endgame in which the character would end up with pure-of-heart hero Rey (Daisy Ridley). The Last Jedi, with its shirtless scene and its earnest, Force-enabled interplanetary conversations between Kylo and Rey (akin to late-night DMs), gives shippers plenty of fuel to recontextualize the relationship between the characters as a tortured, war-torn romance.

Kylo Ren doesn't seem to want anything at all, except to shed the past and the person he was, and to maybe have some company while doing it. He has gone to huge lengths to prove how little he cares about anything, when, obviously, he cares a lot about everything.

Kylo Ren is such an intriguing villain that, despite everything he shows us about who he is, we — like the characters in the film — keep trying to turn him into something else: an anti-hero, a romantic lead, someone due for a happy ending instead of just possible redemption. Star Wars continues to struggle to introduce moral complexity into its fictional universe. But in Kylo Ren, the franchise has certainly introduced some complexity to its fandom, by reminding us how susceptible we are to giving unlimited chances to sad, angry young men.

https://www.buzzfeed.com/alisonwillmore/star-wars-has-created-a-villain-too-real-for-its-own?utm_term=.vcYqKL0aP#.qhJYzxd6w[/quote]

Hmm I think there's a difference between how many chances one is willing to give a fictional sad, angry young man and a real-life one?

Why can't we have our fictional bad boys? Why is that wrong?

Wow. That was a lot of pretty and astute wording that basically just amounted to a sugarcoated "fangirls are stupid and if you like a fictional male villain you probably support real life bad men" conclusion.

I think this may have been the review that pissed me off the most.

Acritiqua wrote:Hmm I think there's a difference between how many chances one is willing to give a fictional sad, angry young man and a real-life one?

Why can't we have our fictional bad boys? Why is that wrong?

@Acritiqua

I appreciated the points I bolded in particular, but I continue to not understand people who equivocate these movies with real life. Comparing him to a school shooter is just nonsense. You can’t take Star Wars sins out of context and compare them to real world crimes. It’s just not the same thing. Fiction is supposed to be the land of the impossible. Not the land of the “everything must be morally clear and just and right OR ELSE.” It’s not real. What is acceptable in real life is not the same as what flies in fiction.

I get quite tired of the idea that only “good messages” or “good role models” must be presented in fiction. Limiting art to what is “right” is a slope straight to censorship.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KvnLxXPL8eQ

This is a brief, 20-minute video discussion of the controversy over TLJ in the context of the larger history of Star Wars, and it's thoughtful, challenging and awesome.  It's nice to hear a straight white male who grew up with Star Wars take on the reactionary fanboys who want it frozen in amber and forever unchanging.

Alex Shaw and his wife Sharon are at the helm of my favorite film podcast, School of Movies, usually bringing on other thoughtful, dedicated speakers-- they are, I'm guessing, in their mid-30s and grew up with Star Wars and are huge fans.  They loved The Force Awakens and, although I haven't had a chance to listen to their (much longer than 20 minutes) TLJ podcast yet (it was just released today), it sounds like they loved it too.  I have no doubt that they will dissect its flaws, and I'll enjoy that as well.  

Anyway, this gave me a lot to think about, just like TLJ did.    Edited to add:  I just started listening to the audio podcast, and the video is also the first 20 minutes of the 2 hours & 28 minutes TLJ podcast.  So you can skip those 20 minutes if you already watched it.

You want to get angry? Here is one that had me vomit in my mouth - sorry for the graphic image.

https://screenrant.com/star-wars-last-jedi-kylo-ren-redemption-rian-johnson/

This part. It’s worse to kill your father and virtually your uncle than younglings. Yeah, right, who cares about children as long as they’re not yours, right? But then that train of thoughts is not surprising when you look at the news. We got it, you hate Ben because he killed your beloved childhood heroes - I am a Han Solo fan too btw -, but it could be smart to think about what you’re publishing online.

Okay, he didn't murder Han in cold blood and Kylo wanting to kill Luke is an ENORMOUSLY different animal than what he did to Han. Of course Kylo wants to kill Luke considering what he thought Luke was about to do to him back then. And the "not only" just makes that sentence more ridiculous, like "you thought killing his father was bad, he wanted to kill his UNCLE too!" Wow, gee, I wonder why. It's almost like seeing the movie answered that. 

Comparing it to Vader's choice with Luke is asinine. Luke didn't raise Vader and wasn't in a position where he was supposed to protect Vader. Luke wasn't someone whose job it was to make Vader feel safe and loved who then spectacularly failed at doing all of these things. The father toward his son dynamic from the OT couldn't BE any more different than Kylo's dynamic with his family.

It's infuriating when writers are so painfully purposefully obtuse. When even the director of the movie laughed at the notion that Kylo even approaches Vader's level of evil, maybe these people should start thinking that they're the ones in the wrong on this.

@SanghaRen

As stated above, Leia (of all people) gave up on her only child, and Rey (who had developed a bond with Kylo in Last Jedi), closed the Millennium Falcon ramp and severed their connection, illustrating she too was moving on. Kylo Ren is now the sequel trilogy’s big bad, and he’ll have to be defeated in order for the Resistance to triumph. If Ben Solo comes back, it would ring too close to Return of the Jedi, so the safe money is on him staying evil.

Cowgirlsamurai wrote:@SanghaRen

As stated above, Leia (of all people) gave up on her only child, and Rey (who had developed a bond with Kylo in Last Jedi), closed the Millennium Falcon ramp and severed their connection, illustrating she too was moving on. Kylo Ren is now the sequel trilogy’s big bad, and he’ll have to be defeated in order for the Resistance to triumph. If Ben Solo comes back, it would ring too close to Return of the Jedi, so the safe money is on him staying evil.

@Cowgirlsamurai

These people must not have much confidence in LF if they think they'll do a whole plotline just to be contrary to what happened to Vader. Or, you know, have any basic understanding of the main theme and entire point of Star Wars that this would be going against.

Cowgirlsamurai wrote:@SanghaRen

As stated above, Leia (of all people) gave up on her only child, and Rey (who had developed a bond with Kylo in Last Jedi), closed the Millennium Falcon ramp and severed their connection, illustrating she too was moving on. Kylo Ren is now the sequel trilogy’s big bad, and he’ll have to be defeated in order for the Resistance to triumph. If Ben Solo comes back, it would ring too close to Return of the Jedi, so the safe money is on him staying evil.

@Cowgirlsamurai

Um, they realized Vader died, right?  And if a romance comes to fruition between Rey and Kylo, I'm pretty sure he'll live to tell about it.  

I just can't with these people....

I suppose it also comes down to Vader being that old tired dude at the end so you obviously have to forgive him whereas the young guy, who still has a future, cannot be forgiven. I think that is a very bad trend in our society. Young people are not given much opportunity to make mistakes.

I even had arguments with my family on something as very RL as one of my nephews not really knowing which professional route he wanted to take and trying one, but not being sure about it. Both my brother and mother said “He has to know, if he does not like it and changes to another route, he will have lost one year.” For Universe’s sake, he is 16! And yes, he changed his course in the meantime and I still believe it’s ok.

Given the ‘disparity’ in critics rating and what’s been going down on a certain site Anthony Breznican felt the need to write this article : The Last Jedi: A Force push against the backlash

http://ew.com/movies/2017/12/22/star-wars-the-last-jedi-backlash-reaction/

EDIT I’m seeing TLJ with my kids this weekend (3rd time for me) and I’d really like to mindful of everything that’s been discussed here over the last 9 days

Nice HISHE review. They got it right

MrsWindu wrote:Given the ‘disparity’ in critics rating and what’s been going down on a certain site Anthony Breznican felt the need to write this article : The Last Jedi: A Force push against the backlash

http://ew.com/movies/2017/12/22/star-wars-the-last-jedi-backlash-reaction/

EDIT I’m seeing TLJ with my kids this weekend (3rd time for me) and I’d really like to mindful of everything that’s been discussed here over the last 9 days

@MrsWindu

This article makes a lot of good points ... but OMG, once again total cluelessness on Reylo! She wasn't attracted during the Shirtless Scene????????? If she wasn't attracted she wouldn't care if he was shirtless!!!!!!! Even in the half-way intelligent the cluelessness has no bounds.

All this inane backlash is annoying because it will just encourage other studios without the Disney/LF clout to make safe, bland products. TLJ is challenging.  People should like that even if they don't care for the particular method of challenge. Without this kind of challenge, Hollywood will die a boring death of Michael Bay films.

SoloSideCousin wrote:

MrsWindu wrote:Given the ‘disparity’ in critics rating and what’s been going down on a certain site Anthony Breznican felt the need to write this article : The Last Jedi: A Force push against the backlash

http://ew.com/movies/2017/12/22/star-wars-the-last-jedi-backlash-reaction/

EDIT I’m seeing TLJ with my kids this weekend (3rd time for me) and I’d really like to mindful of everything that’s been discussed here over the last 9 days

@MrsWindu

This article makes a lot of good points ... but OMG, once again total cluelessness on Reylo! She wasn't attracted during the Shirtless Scene????????? If she wasn't attracted she wouldn't care if he was shirtless!!!!!!! Even in the half-way intelligent the cluelessness has no bounds.

All this inane backlash is annoying because it will just encourage other studios without the Disney/LF to make safe, bland products. TLJ is challenging. People should like that even if they don't care for the particular method of challenge. Without this kind of challenge, Hollywood will die a boring death of Michael Bay films.

@SoloSideCousin

Take comfort in the fact that the Reylo aspect of the film is getting rave reviews- the majority of those out there absolutely DO get it, and understand what’s being laid out. Out of the stuff I’ve seen panned, the Resistance plot and the convolutedness of it are what’s not going over as smoothly as they’d hoped.

The fact that it’s said JJ plans to go bold in IX gives me comfort.

Lol, dumbass interpretations are irrelevant. What matters is what Rian was going for. Romantic drama. Their relationship is tinged with mutual attraction. It's a romantic dynamic. Rian confirmed this. End of story.