I was hyped to see The Last Jedi in theaters, because as good as The Force Awakens was, copy and paste from the original Star Wars movie. Now with that out of the way, Disney can now take off safety mode and do something we have never seen before, do something that will transform the franchise forever. Who is Snoke? Where did he come from? Why is he doing this? What will Rey learn during her training? How will it help her defeat Kylo and find her parents? Will Luke flirt with the dark side because of his failures as a jedi master? All of these interesting questions will never be fucking answered, because Rian and Disney fucked it up before the trilogy even ended! After the movie was over I was heavily disinterested to see the last movie in the trilogy because of the casino scene, the mediocre second half, and the ending scenes that ensure us that the next movie will be an unimaginative rehash of ROTJ and will plug more pointless toys instead of telling a good story. I am going to list what this new installment should've done differently to not only keep you on the edge of your seat and beg for the next movie to come out, but secure trust with Disney's vision on the franchise for a long time. NEXT PARAGRAPHS CONTAINS SPOILERS !
The first thing that they should've done is kill off Leia while she was still in her coma. Here's why this should've happened, It's her time and before Carrie Fisher even passed, I wanted Leia to meet her end and pass the torch to someone else. This aged war hero and veteran has been fighting this war for more than thirty goddamn years, she had to deal with the losses of her parents, friends and her family, she is an old tired woman with no one close left and she wants it all to end. I think the scene where she uses the force to fly through space was a pretty cool scene, and it showed that Leia's power with the force was more than just 'feeling' other people. During the first half of the climax when the First Order is firing on the escape ships, there needs to be someone left on the ship to pilot it. Instead of Leia shooting Po, it should have been the commander that shot him because it would have made no difference whatsoever. In order to stop the First Order from destroying the last of the Resistance, a paralyzed Leia with Luke's help, redirects the entire ship, jump it to lightspeed and splits Snoke's ship in half, sacrificing herself to save the last of the resistance. It would be something pretty different but way better than what really happened.
The second thing they should've done is probably the biggest complaint many people had with the movie. More training time with Luke and Rey. What made Luke's training sessions with Yoda memorable and iconic in film history, is that of course, there needs to be a lot of time to be devoted to Luke's change in attitude and matures him as a character. The various training scenes need to show Luke's flaws and how he can become less arrogant and more patient. It shows him trying and failing sessions because using the force is not a one two three short montage. Learning how to harness the force is a long and complicated process that involves a hell of a lot of patience and skill to achieve. Luke's training were at least four weeks and at most six months long. His training and visions in Dagobah changed him from a naive, arrogant fighter pilot into a wise, disciplined and strong force to be reckoned with. With Rey's training with Luke, it should've taken way more of the screen time then the goddamn casino scene. The reason why is that this training session is between the most famous hero of the galactic civil war, and an interesting young woman we want to learn more about who she is. Of course it starts out with Luke being kind of a dick at first, then over time Luke becomes nicer and more of a teacher then anything else. I would've liked to see a scene where Luke teaches her how to do a hand stand and floating a rock at the same time and I would also like to see him sneaking in some dark side powers into some of his lessons so she can grow stronger in a quicker amount of time. Over time Rey gets arrogant and impatient with the process and she wants to leave to help her friends. Luke lets her go to help her friends, because that's what he did when he was younger.
The third thing I wish happened in the movie is that Luke had a force battle with Snoke. I'm just going to say it, now that Snoke has been slain by a fucking Vader wannabe, his character was the most pointless in the series. I mean my god, JAR JAR had more purpose than this dried up pig testicle! What did he do in this movie other than show up on holograms to threaten people, talk to Kylo to berate him, and get slain like he like he never even mattered? What I wanted to see was a dark lord who did much more than this bullshit, I wanted to see a dark lord that can use the force at scale we never seen before, like Leia and Luke's combined power to redirect the flagship. Snoke was pretty damn powerful and the movie showed it. So there is no reason why Snoke can't perform similar feats to match Luke in battle. Snoke also creates illusions to fool the enemy and possibly use a force powered lightning to try and destroy ships, of course Luke tries to counter that by confusing the enemy with a mass mind trick. Even though it's gonna be pretty unbelievable to see just two pudgy old men have god like abilities in magic to manipulate time and space to defeat the other, it's a goddamn movie, so pipe down. Also don't you guys think it would have been way more awesome to see EU level force abilities finally used on the big screen?
The fourth thing I wish happened in this movie is Rey takes Kylo's hand and joins him. In this hypothetical version of TLJ, Snoke is still alive and busy with Luke and the resistance. During all of this, Rey and Kylo actually fight each other. Rey tries over and over again to try and stop Snoke but Kylo keeps pounding she literally breaks her ankle trying to flee and gets her arm severed. After the resistance successfully reaches the salt planet, Snoke passes out from exhaustion, Kylo does something that Rey didnt see coming, Kylo begs Rey to join her to destroy all old things and build a new more stable republic than ever before and she ends up taking his hand to know more about herself and the force. After this, Snoke contacts the knights of Ren to meet up at once to make Rey a knight of Ren. The resistance flees to the new planet where they set up camp. Meanwhile, Luke senses a disturbance he hasn't felt since Ben turned, and his worst fear has been realized. The film ends with The resistance realizing that Rey has turned against them as Luke becomes more bitter, hopeless, falling further in darkness.
The fourth thing I wanted was more of Captain Phlasma! She was literally given THREE GODAMN SCENES! Captain Phlasma should have stood alongside Hux to oversee the first battle in the opening scene. I also believe that the ship that Finn took would be tracked and like a Bobba Fett esque character, she follows them to the casino to capture them and take them to Snoke's ship where they will be tortured. Somehow, Finn with his friend will find a way to escape, his new friend is killed by Phasma and the two duel it out. Finn luckily escapes with the help of BB8 piloting a tie fighter but Phasma could not catch up in time, and she vows to destroy this traitor their next encounter.
These are my personal visions I wanted to see come true in this movie and they never happened. I know Rian Johnson is a great director and his previous works such as Looper shows his talent, but it was completely vacant in this movie. I believe after this movie, it's all gonna come downhill from here. I believe there is going to be another super weapon to destroy more pointless toys to advertise and a predictable ending. Are there any more things that should have been in the movie? Instead of those pointless penguin bird things?