So I finally saw the film today. Not much more I can add that people haven’t already said. I sort of have mixed feelings about it.
I enjoyed it overall. It certainly made the ST more palatable, and felt the most SW-esque of the trilogy. It felt like it was indeed a continuation of TFA where they resumed the relationships and plots that were set-up in it, but the two films were held together by scotch tape, as someone else described it. It still had a void where you could tell there should be another film in between to make it more fleshed out, but TLJ squashed that, consequently killing the ST imo as being a coherent story. I liked all the moments of fan service, particularly Chewie finally getting his medal and Luke finally lifting the X-Wing out of the water. You almost wanted to see another Yoda Force ghost cameo in that scene, where Luke looks over at him and he nods in approval.
However, as I suspected, it also felt a bit chaotic due to them having to make up so much ground for what I felt was lost in TLJ. I share Wor-Gar’s sentiments in that it started out quite enjoyable in the first act, then the second act just seemed to sort of drag on and on as they were skipping from world to world looking for the way finder, then it picked up again in the third act for the climactic scene. The space battle was a bit weak, and even though I still think Palps went out like a cackling idiot who’s obsessed with Force lightning, I can kind of understand why he kept firing it due to his arrogance and certainty that his power and the power of the Sith would overpower and conquer that of the Jedi. I always felt his statement to Yoda in RotS was a bit ironic (“Your arrogance blinds you, Master Yoda.”), because I’ve always felt the arrogant one, is him. So while I still feel his death (again) was a bit inane, at the same time, I also feel it was in line with his arrogance.
Overall, an enjoyable film, but flawed with many questions about silly plot points, many of which have already been stated here, so no sense in re-listing them again. Definitely imo the best of the ST though.
Sure seemed a lot of people died in this trilogy expending their life energy via performing some feat through the Force.