Marvel is Good
I'm surprised at how many people keep using "Marvel" as a derogatory term to describe the humor in this movie. Marvel makes arguably the most popular and acclaimed popcorn movies of our time. Why is it an insult to compare the humor to that? One can say a certain joke worked or didn't work, but I see no need to diss Marvel. They're awesome!
(Also, I'd say that Marvel's humor is heavily influenced by the OT: "Someone get this walking carpet out of my way," "Who's scruffy-looking?" and "When 900 years old you reach, look as good you will not" all sound like jokes that would fit right in for a Marvel movie.)
Luke's Lightsaber Throwing
Many have said that Luke threw his lightsaber away for the sake of a cheap gag. I don't. Luke's entire goal to restore the Jedi was a catastrophic failure. His nephew is a mass murderer thanks to him. He deliberately hid himself in a remote part of the galaxy because he wants nothing to do with that life anymore. Now, despite all that, someone shows up and hands him the very thing that he's been trying to get away from? What else would he do with it?
Granted, I simply expected him to say, "Go away" or "You shouldn't have come" (and I think he does eventually say that), but film is a visual medium, and that was an extremely visual rejection of his calling.
One can say that maybe the filmmakers should have given Luke a less miserable life after RotJ, but that problem was started in TFA. Rian Johnson was just following that idea through to its logical conclusion.
If Luke had thrown away the lightsaber and then said, "Just kidding," and picked it back up again with a smile, then I'd say it was a cheap gag.
Holdo the Phone (sorry, couldn't resist)
I think a great deal of the division over this movie comes from what people thought of Holdo. (I formerly called her the Purple Haired Lady, but I finally remember her name.) Apparently there was a line early on that said some information about the Resistance had leaked to the First Order. The people who noted that line thought that Holdo was a spy who leaked that information, and so they were riveted by Poe's attempts to stop her, and all the reversals in the end (Poe's plan fails, Holdo turns out to be a hero) were stunning.
I didn't catch that line or make note of it. I did note how Poe was established early on to be a hothead when it came to Leia's orders. I saw Holdo as a surrogate Leia, while Leia was hospitalized. I saw Poe treating Holdo the same way he treated Leia. So I fully expected that Poe was going to be proven wrong in the end, and all the Poe/Finn/Rose scenes were just dull as I was waiting for them to figure out that Holdo was right.
Mind you, that doesn't mean my way of viewing the movie was superior. If I had caught that line, I probably would have been right there with the first audience. That's probably what Johnson intended. But since I was with the group that didn't catch the line or grasp its importance (even from a red-herring perspective, which is a valid storytelling tool), those scenes were much less impactful.
Yoda Looks Weird
I'm soooo glad they used the puppet this time. But as pointed out on a
Star Wars podcast (where the hosts love all Star Wars movies), the hosts noted that he didn't look quite right at some times from some angles. I noticed that too, but I couldn't put my finger on why until they explained it: The lighting on Yoda was so specific and so well-done in the OT. If the lighting isn't just right, the puppet looks "off." That's why I kept veering between "Wow, that looks exactly like the same puppet!" to "Uh, what happened to it?"
Still, the puppet looks way better than the TPM puppet, and I'm so glad Frank Oz came back for the performing and for the voice.
The Theater Experience
Something that I wish was talked about more was the experience that people had in the theater. I know we all try our hardest to be objective, but a good (or bad) audience can make (or break) a movie.
I was originally supposed to see a morning matinee show in a packed theater (admittedly with front-row nosebleed seats), but I ended up having to cancel those tickets. I ended up seeing it at a different theater that still had matinee prices in the afternoon. There were only 10 other people in the theater besides my wife and me. No one laughed at any of the jokes besides me, and there was no building sense of tension like you can feel with an enthusiastic audience. One guy behind me fell asleep, and then snored loudly for about the
next 30 minutes. At first I thought it was funny, but eventually it went on long enough to be distracting.
I'm not saying that none of the problems had to do with the movie itself. But it would be very interesting to see the ratio of people who liked it that saw it with an excited crowd vs. the people who disliked it after seeing it with a bored crowd.