He turned from the Dark Side with the help of Rey but also his own inner self as that is what Han represented. I loved that whole scene that mirrored the one in TFA. But with a better ending.

That whole scene when he arrives on Exogol was just incredible. The hand off of the lightsaber made me squeal. When he crawled out of the whole and saw Rey dead, I was like sobbing. That whole scene. God, it really got me.

But then they just tossed him aside and gave it all to Rey, even though they told us they were a dyad. They should have worked together.

Then they killed him off and no mention of him again.

There are rumors that things were changed last minute, but I don’t truck much with conspiracy theories.

It seems they’ve been pretty silent about the whole thing as far as I can tell so I think they know what they did and they don’t care that many fans are angry.

Of course there are always the weirdos who are so angry they send out death threats. I hate that as it ruins the point we try and make.

I’m not heavy into it as I’m not a teenager. LOL. But it still upsets me.

I feel that Adam Driver really brought the character to life and you could see every emotion in his face during those final scenes (both when they fought on the old Death Star and later on Exogol) that it just breaks my heart that the character got screwed and tossed aside.

As for my take on this movie as a whole and the trilogy – I think that Ruin Johnson screwed it up and they screwed it up by letting him do what he did. There would have been no scramble at the end. It could have been done seamlessly.

TLJ could have been where we start to find hints about Rey and her past and the Emperor. I have no problem bringing the Emperor back. People wanted something new, but if it was meant to be a closing of the Star Wars saga, you would almost have to bring him back. He started the whole thing in the first place, per Episode 1. But if they had Movie #2 start delving into that, it would have made more sense. Also, leaving Ben’s backstory to comic books or novels was wrong. Most people who watch the films, including myself, don’t follow that stuff. It should have been shown how Ben was tortured and abused, or some hint of it. That’s what made TLJ so empty. I had no idea why Luke was worried about Ben. They told, they didn’t show. I have no idea why Ben was Kylo Ren. They told, they didn’t show.

If they had done TLJ correctly, then this one would have melded in better. I liked most of the stuff they retconned it’s just that it did feel rushed because it was obviously retconned. The feeling of retcon would have been absent had they not screwed up TLJ.

So overall, I did like it. I like that Finn is Force sensitive. I like that it seemed that it was the Force that started awakening (ah ha!) people like Jannah and her fellow troopers. That’s another thing that could have been explored – the Force Awakens, perhaps because the Emperor was awake and planning and so the Force, without any Jedi around, was sending out messages to people to awaken to the evil that was coming. I think it would have worked out just fine.

I liked Poe even more as they gave him some character instead of just being someone the feminazis could beat up in TLJ. That annoyed me soooo much in TLJ.

I liked that Lando was there. When I thought Chewie died I went out of my mind (But then I remembered the old movie rule – no body, no death).

There should have been a moment between Chewie and Ben as well I think. I’m fine with Reylo, but that needed to be there.

I thought they used Leia okay but let’s face it there was no way to really use her very well.

But it seemed that everything was not planned out properly or was only in a kind of outline with no real details. JJ is not very good at planning apparently. That seems clear. And so the whole thing was screwed from the start without a path.

Ben really deserved a proper redemption and vindication. He may have been more easily tempted by the dark side given his heritage, but he was used and abused and he should have lived and been able to atone for anything he did do (he didn’t murder as many people as his grandfather).

There was so much potential even within the outline of a story that we do see. But JJ dropped the ball. Big time.