8 Better Reasons Star Wars Ep VIII Was Badly Written

I'm going to go see Episode 8 again with my family over Christmas, and I'm looking forward to the experience of seeing it with tempered expectations and buoyed by my friends' enthusiasm. When I first came out of the film expecting something incredible, I wasn't bitter, I just looked over at my wife and said 'meh.' Honestly, I would enjoy anything that has Jedi swinging light sabers. But in an effort to express what I felt was lackluster, I wrote this blog post. Since then it has been discussed at length and I needed to reorganize my thoughts based on the feedback. Some of my points were completely proven wrong, some were explored, but some just could not be explained away. Also a LOT of people were upset I didn't name Oscar Isaac as an actor. Was not expecting that.

Based on those experiences, here's a new, more informed list: 8 Better Reasons Star Wars Ep VII Was Badly Written

• The main crisis of the film is an 18 hour long spaceship chase at slow speed, during which time the empire never does anything effective to kill the rebels. They are flying with an armada and in this universe it takes ships a matter of instants to cross the galaxy. The entire remainder of their enemy sits in front of them. Presumably the Empire has an entire fleet that could warp speed to assist them. Why not warp some of the ships with you to the other side of the rebels and then turn them around? Scramble some mid size ships? Why can the rebels accelerate out of firing range from the empire's flagship but then only travel at a speed that maintains that exact distance? This isn't nitpicky, these are questions even a child would ask when you try to sell them on this premise. Even if Hux is the dumbest person in the entire galaxy, he's also traveling with the Supreme Leader so neither of them thought of this? Nope.
• Leia's survival is fraught with logical issues that are hard to dismiss, especially when they could so easily be resolved. Let's just say that at some point Luke did teach Leia to be able to force pull. Let's say he even trained her a bit. Let's say that her Skywalker blood made her super good at it with minimal training. There's still the fact that you lose consciousness in space after about 15 seconds, and she was just exploded with a rocket. To show the moisture of her skin crystallize and only then does she pull herself back in isn't plausible. Even if it were, am I the only one who noticed everyone open a door to *outer space* for her with no air lock? Everyone should have died/been sucked out immediately. The issue here is these problems are *easily solved.* Maybe a flashback of her being trained? Maybe not, Star Wars does few flashbacks. Maybe a voiceover of Luke training her? Maybe have her get in through an airlock? All of these very easy fixes would make this scene a lot less jarring.
• Maz, an expert in the criminal underground, tells Poe that there is absolutely only one person in the entire galaxy who could crack the security. Poe should not know Maz, since this movie started right after the last one and Finn met her for 5 minutes tops, but whatever. When they fail to secure this person, they are coincidentally placed in a jail cell with, I guess, the only other only person in the entire galaxy who has those exact same skills, who was sleeping off a bender in the exact same jail cell before they arrived? This happens during a fairly pointless jaunt to a casino planet. The evidence of poor writing here is in how *very easily* this scene could be modified to be better. Benicio del Toro could have grabbed the red flower pin off the gambler on their way out, 'I'll take this back,' and say he lost it gambling. He could have been the gambler himself, and the prison scene cut all together, with Benicio and the others escaping when they are noticed by casino security. More cohesion, less pointlessly mind stretching coincidences. Benicio of course goes on to 'rat out' the Rebels to the Empire, saying they're escaping in cloaked escape pods. Which he shouldn't know. And before you say 'Ah but he could have used his hacking skills to find that out.' Yes, he could have. But you'd need to show it. It's nonsensical to have people just assume it.
• Purple hair lady uses the hyperspace jump to kamikaze her large ship into the empire's largest ship, slicing it nearly in half. How? Let's say Kamikaze is a surprising and unexpected tactic due to the precious nature of large ships. (Still, momentum is mass times velocity so even the smallest ship that can hyperspeed would be capable of colossal damage if this tactic is possible.) How do ships normally hyperspeed without running into every star and asteroid? Presumably they automatically secure routes from point to point and avoid collisions. There's definitely not a big 'kamikaze' button on the ship and if purple hair is tech savvy enough to reprogram the ship to fly into things instead of around them in a moments' time, then she's savvy enough to turn on the autopilot before she does. Feels like a lazy excuse for a kamikaze. Any spoken explanation for why someone needs to be on there, rather than just saying they do, would have helped tremendously.
• Luke's use of the force to astral project to salt planet instead of traveling there is still weird from a writing perspective. Let's say that you want to take the movies in brand new directions, try exciting new things. I actually don't have that big of an issue with how magical it seems. It's not how I would do it, but fine. Still, why? You're going to confront your apprentice. Presumably you are aware of the strain required. From a writing perspective, death is the outcome either way. Why would Luke not travel to the planet? Why would Luke not confront him directly? I have to believe snarky Luke could annoy Kylo just as much in person as with a projection. Why would we not get a cool lightsaber battle here? Maybe seeing a body disappear would help Leia and the rest of the cast not casually shrug off the death of an entire trilogy's central character? 
• I *still* maintain that the film's title was a cheap marketing ploy and I suspect Abrams was behind it. Name the film 'The Last Jedi' so that somebody can say 'I won't be the last Jedi?' Come on. You can take a movie in new directions without abandoning all consistency. You kind of have to if you're going to be another entry in a series. Clones attack in Attack of the Clones. The Sith get revenge in Revenge of the Sith. Luke says he won't be the last Jedi in 'The Last Jedi?' Boo.
• We are supposed to believe that Luke instantly jumped to 'Better kill my nephew' even for a brief moment? I get that Rian Johnson has said this was just a momentary lapse to illustrate that even a Jedi master isn't free from the dark side. But this man's crowning achievement in his rise to Jedi master was when he refused to kill a supremely evil child-murdering dictatorial warlord because he thought he had a sliver of light in him! And now he's going to kill his own nephew being trained under him because he's turning to the dark side? That he would have the thought, maybe. That he would turn on his light saber? Luke's got to have him some trigger discipline. (It's worth noting Mark Hamill also disagreed with this direction, but went with it anyway.) Also, Luke, why are you standing over your disciples in the middle of the night investigating their minds with your lightsaber in your hand. Maybe do that in the day while you're all meditating. Weird.
• Supreme leader Snoke, an amazingly powerful Sith with all kinds of new Sithy tricks, was killed by being tricked by a man whose mind he could read. Now I get hubris, and I get that Kylo was veeery clever by turning both lightsabers at once and mirroring the situation so that vaguely reading his intentions could mess up. I get how he was also holding Rey in place at the time. But the man can connect minds over space. His power is portrayed as vast and unthinkable, then suddenly very limited. It's jarring. His complete lack of back story is also an issue. I understand that not much back story is needed, but we know way WAY more about the Emperor than we ever did about Snoke, who got maybe 2 minutes in the previous film and maybe 10 in this one. He was the big bad, and the problem with killing your big bad is that now Kylo is your big bad and... well he's an emo teen angst ripoff of Vader. He's a bad big bad, and now the dark side has no gravitas or fear whatsoever, which feels like bad writing. I mean, you completely abandoned 'The Knights of Ren' which had previously been established. I'm hopeful they'll be in IX because, sheesh, that's one weak antagonist. Conflicted, yes. Understandable, yes. But I feel no fear from him being around. Bad Sith.

Ultimately, a storyteller must blend logical consistency with emotional and thematic content. The logical consistency doesn't need to be the focus, but if it is absent then every victory feels cheap, since any solution could magically appear. In a world where space magic can solve *every* problem, then why would the audience be fearful of any problem?
Again, the film had many moments that I loved, and I get that some people don't care that much, but come on, this is Disney, Rian Johnson, and in an assistive role JJ Abrams. You guys can pull it together. You don't need to be lazy. Any of these problems could have been easily fixed for a much more cohesive film that didn't leave a significant portion of your audience confused. And you could have kept all the things people loved at the same time! You can diversify. You can do new things. You can introduce new themes. You can jettison old characters. But when you betray logic and established history in the name of cool scenes and the way you wish things were, then why call it episode VIII at all?