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[Dorsidwarf]

I liked this film and was kinda gobsmacked to come here and see people frothing at the mouth about how Bad Bad Bad it was. I don't think it was good as the originals but it was way more fun than the prequels. My only real complaint was that  the secondary protagonists entire mission was utterly pointless and a waste of time, which narratively makes me go "well what was the point other than telling us that the rebellion/ resistance and empire/FO are being supplied by the same profiteers"

[Urist McScoopbeard]

Everything was utterly pointless and a waste of time, plot-wise. Seriously. 90% of what happens on screen literally has no effect on outcome of the story. The 10% that does (I.E. Rose, Luke, and Leia) is garbage writing. Luke using Astral Projection to delay Kylo, Leia dying and then deciding not to die, Rose saving Finn because of her obsessive hero worship which I guess doesn't matter anyways because Luke.

The plot of the movie does not exist.

I am gobsmacked that everyone seems to love the film, especially critics. I would expect them to rip this film apart, it being riddled so plot errors, bad editing, and just lame ideas at every turn. With the difference in my extremely negative response and what appears to be overwhelming support for the film, I went and rewatched Episode IV again last night to make sure I wasn't crazy and I just don't see what people think is good about the new film.

[Kot]

Critics loved it, half the audience also loves it, the other half hates it, although supposedly the relatively (split roughtly 50-50) low audience scores are blamed on "Alt-Right groups" attacking The Last Jedi for "including more women".

The fuck is this world we live in.

[Jopax]

I think the RLM guys said it best, the movie tried something new and different, and tried to subvert expectations with twists at every chance it got, the problem is that those twists are either dumb, predictable or very poorly executed.

Kylo being set up to branch off the entire story in a wildly new direction where he and Rey could've become this wierd light/dark power couple that went independent from everyone else was probably one of the most interesting things they could've done. But nope, he's just gonna become another kill 'em all just because villain.

Another thing is that the glaring plot holes and logical inconistencies could be overlooked if the movie was entertaining or the characters anything but twats or boring, sadly, when there's not much to occupy your attention you tend to notice giant holes in logic.

Like, Snoke, being powerful enough to force toss Hux around from a different part of the galaxy but not being able to notice a fucking lightsaber turning next to him. Or being able to link Rey and Kylo across the fucking galaxy but not being able to figure out where Rey is and that Luke is with her.

Also the whole balance in the force nonsense falls flat the moment you ask who's the counterpart to Snoke, can't be Luke because he cut himself off from the force. Leia? If so, why the fuck isn't she using god tier powers to fucking save people?

[hector13]

I think Snoke was lying about connecting Rey and Kylo, seeing as how he was dead and they were still doing it.

Also, he wasn’t expecting Kylo to turn, and he was also doing exactly what he expected him to be doing at that time too - namely looking as though he was about to kill Rey.

The force balance thing is also a prophecy from before isn’t it? The prequel trilogy? I don’t think it gets mentioned in this, beyond the light ascending with the dark. Luke does rise to meet the dark, after Rey comes to see him. Kinda.

Also also, Kylo was expecting Rey to join with him, seeing as that’s what he saw when they touched during the force vision-y things. Not sure what his plan is but I was wondering what was going to happen after their fight and the movie didn’t end there as I expected so I wasn’t paying too much attention heh.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

But she is. She is magically good at everything she does, everyone likes her and whatnot. Being a chosen one doesn't require a prophercy, just requires a writer to make one character objectively "best" character. Whole "Wound in The Force" theory be damned, that is still her being exceptional due to, for now, no apparent reason.

I don't know where this perception of Rey as a Mary Sue comes from. She's good at everything? No she's not, her one big accomplishment is partially self-training her Force powers...which she does by using the Dark Side. The side that's supposed to be quick and easy? Everybody likes her? Who are these people? Poe hardly interacts with her and Finn just about ditches her in TFA. Luke goes from thinking she's a stupid fangirl to a darkside dabbler timebomb. Leia is like, polite to her, I guess. The only character I remember explicitly liking her is Chewbacca, which gets her some side points with Han since they need some more crew who aren't in the habit of pissing off Wookies. 
 
Literally an entire scene is devoted to Kylo breaking down her belief that she's special and comes from some secret royalty or whatever, and that she should just seize her own fate with what she's got. Even her venture into the dark doesn't do much more than have it tell her she's not getting any answers.

Snoke is some complete noone. Nothing is really known about him, which was fine in the previous movie, as we all expected an explanation in this one. But then he just died. He is just random big evil with no connection to previous movies. It's as if there was suddenly new LoTR trilogy set after original one where there is crazy new powerful wizard named Snort and then he just dies.

You mean like exactly what happened in The Hobbit films? I don't think there's much explanation needed really. Much as Rey has no special parents, Snoke needs no special past. Fuck it. He's a Palpatine wannabe who forced (pun intended) his way to the top of an Empire splinter. What more do you need to know?

It's a war, people die, and the problem is what Poe does works. It's the "Pink Hair Sue Commander" that for no good reason didin't tell anyone her plan, which directly led to everything going badly. If you notice, when Poe is being told that they in fact have a plan, he thinks it will work. In his mind, all he did was trying to save everything because after Leia went down there was apparently no plan, and without one they would be dead.   

   
She doesn't tell Poe anything because he doesn't need to know, just like in a real military unit. He's a pilot and a properly disgraced one for usurping command of an operation and getting almost the entire force sans himself killed. That isn't how organized militants work, ever. And there is a good reason why, spies. Which is in fact what ends up almost getting them all killed, again, because of a plan that Poe authored. If I were Leia I wouldn't have stunned Poe, I'd have shot him as a traitor.

Poe thinks he knows better and is more important than everyone else. That he just has to be the special savior somehow, because he's good as a pilot. It's a good flaw for his character but it definitely does not make him right.

You mean New Republic stupidity? This is something that hurts me the most probably, believing that New Republic, and Mon Mothma and basically everyone except Leia believed in this crazy stupid idea of "disband our entire military, when Imperial Remnants see we did that they will disband their entire military too". This shit is the satirical propaganda that people apply to real life anti-gun movement, except New Republic took it seriously. Even during the longest time Old Republic didin't have an army, they had Jedi, they had Juicidal Force, they had goddamn Navy. New doesn't have anything, and First Order be damned, there were dozens of other political entites that would attack them for profit, Hutt Cartels and various pirates from the top of the head.

Consider where the New Republic is coming from. The galaxy has a generation under the thumb of an extremely militant and human supremacist Empire, one which crushed whole worlds and centralized all true power in the hands of one Sith Master, as far as he could make possible. The New Republic wants to avoid that as much as possible. They want to be all decentralized and with as few military forces as is reasonable, so that nobody can take control of them like Palpatine did the Clone Army. Most of the worlds in the New Republic are going to agree to this because if they're the primary power in the galaxy but no one element of the New Republic is individually powerful enough to take over, there can be peace.
 
The First Order throws this out of balance, yes. But that's mostly because they don't know that there's another Emperor wannabe or superweapon in the mix. Remember, the First Order basically coexisted with the New Republic for decades, and the other Imperial Remnants probably did the same. It was only with Snoke's ambition that they were able to turn back to planetbusting and active expansion. Still, how are you as the New Republic Senate, a genuine democratic body of several thousand worlds, going to convince people who just want to stop having their children march to war that an expeditionary war into the First Order, who have maybe done some piracy but have had piracy done on them by the Resistance, is a good idea?
 

The FTL suicide jump indeed looked cool, but it has heavy implication as to why nobody goddamn did that before (setting aside that to this point there were explanations in lore that this wouldn't work, but obviously they aren't canon anymore), considering it's apparently the single best way of tacking space combat due to sheer power, not to mention range. Why does nobody use warp torpedoes? Just gut an X-Wing from everything except engines and warp drive, replace the cockpit with remote guidance and lug that shit at enemy ships.

For all the same reasons that people don't generally use kamikaze tactics in real life. There are only a select few situations where it's a reasonable trade. You're gonna need mass for one, the Raddus was a capital ship. An X-Wing doing the same wouldn't leave much impact overall, even if you specially outfitted it with a hyperdrive (as we see from Poe needing to get back in the Raddus' hanger in the opening scene).

[Urist McScoopbeard]

But she is. She is magically good at everything she does, everyone likes her and whatnot. Being a chosen one doesn't require a prophercy, just requires a writer to make one character objectively "best" character. Whole "Wound in The Force" theory be damned, that is still her being exceptional due to, for now, no apparent reason.

I don't know where this perception of Rey as a Mary Sue comes from. She's good at everything? No she's not, her one big accomplishment is partially self-training her Force powers...which she does by using the Dark Side. The side that's supposed to be quick and easy? Everybody likes her? Who are these people? Poe hardly interacts with her and Finn just about ditches her in TFA. Luke goes from thinking she's a stupid fangirl to a darkside dabbler timebomb. Leia is like, polite to her, I guess. The only character I remember explicitly liking her is Chewbacca, which gets her some side points with Han since they need some more crew who aren't in the habit of pissing off Wookies. 
 
Literally an entire scene is devoted to Kylo breaking down her belief that she's special and comes from some secret royalty or whatever, and that she should just seize her own fate with what she's got. Even her venture into the dark doesn't do much more than have it tell her she's not getting any answers.

Snoke is some complete noone. Nothing is really known about him, which was fine in the previous movie, as we all expected an explanation in this one. But then he just died. He is just random big evil with no connection to previous movies. It's as if there was suddenly new LoTR trilogy set after original one where there is crazy new powerful wizard named Snort and then he just dies.

You mean like exactly what happened in The Hobbit films? I don't think there's much explanation needed really. Much as Rey has no special parents, Snoke needs no special past. Fuck it. He's a Palpatine wannabe who forced (pun intended) his way to the top of an Empire splinter. What more do you need to know?

It's a war, people die, and the problem is what Poe does works. It's the "Pink Hair Sue Commander" that for no good reason didin't tell anyone her plan, which directly led to everything going badly. If you notice, when Poe is being told that they in fact have a plan, he thinks it will work. In his mind, all he did was trying to save everything because after Leia went down there was apparently no plan, and without one they would be dead.   

   
She doesn't tell Poe anything because he doesn't need to know, just like in a real military unit. He's a pilot and a properly disgraced one for usurping command of an operation and getting almost the entire force sans himself killed. That isn't how organized militants work, ever. And there is a good reason why, spies. Which is in fact what ends up almost getting them all killed, again, because of a plan that Poe authored. If I were Leia I wouldn't have stunned Poe, I'd have shot him as a traitor.

Poe thinks he knows better and is more important than everyone else. That he just has to be the special savior somehow, because he's good as a pilot. It's a good flaw for his character but it definitely does not make him right.

You mean New Republic stupidity? This is something that hurts me the most probably, believing that New Republic, and Mon Mothma and basically everyone except Leia believed in this crazy stupid idea of "disband our entire military, when Imperial Remnants see we did that they will disband their entire military too". This shit is the satirical propaganda that people apply to real life anti-gun movement, except New Republic took it seriously. Even during the longest time Old Republic didin't have an army, they had Jedi, they had Juicidal Force, they had goddamn Navy. New doesn't have anything, and First Order be damned, there were dozens of other political entites that would attack them for profit, Hutt Cartels and various pirates from the top of the head.

Consider where the New Republic is coming from. The galaxy has a generation under the thumb of an extremely militant and human supremacist Empire, one which crushed whole worlds and centralized all true power in the hands of one Sith Master, as far as he could make possible. The New Republic wants to avoid that as much as possible. They want to be all decentralized and with as few military forces as is reasonable, so that nobody can take control of them like Palpatine did the Clone Army. Most of the worlds in the New Republic are going to agree to this because if they're the primary power in the galaxy but no one element of the New Republic is individually powerful enough to take over, there can be peace.
 
The First Order throws this out of balance, yes. But that's mostly because they don't know that there's another Emperor wannabe or superweapon in the mix. Remember, the First Order basically coexisted with the New Republic for decades, and the other Imperial Remnants probably did the same. It was only with Snoke's ambition that they were able to turn back to planetbusting and active expansion. Still, how are you as the New Republic Senate, a genuine democratic body of several thousand worlds, going to convince people who just want to stop having their children march to war that an expeditionary war into the First Order, who have maybe done some piracy but have had piracy done on them by the Resistance, is a good idea?
 

The FTL suicide jump indeed looked cool, but it has heavy implication as to why nobody goddamn did that before (setting aside that to this point there were explanations in lore that this wouldn't work, but obviously they aren't canon anymore), considering it's apparently the single best way of tacking space combat due to sheer power, not to mention range. Why does nobody use warp torpedoes? Just gut an X-Wing from everything except engines and warp drive, replace the cockpit with remote guidance and lug that shit at enemy ships.

For all the same reasons that people don't generally use kamikaze tactics in real life. There are only a select few situations where it's a reasonable trade. You're gonna need mass for one, the Raddus was a capital ship. An X-Wing doing the same wouldn't leave much impact overall, even if you specially outfitted it with a hyperdrive (as we see from Poe needing to get back in the Raddus' hanger in the opening scene).

1.) She flies, she fights, she shoots, everyone seems to like her--she has an aggressive amount of plot armor. When does she fail? Even when she gets captured, she finds a convenient way out. Leia and Han get ACTUALLY tortured. Luke gets his hand chopped off, he gets thrown into a rancor pit, his fucking adoptive parents are brutally murdered. Also, when does she use the dark side to train her force powers? The one thing they do right is having her force potential activated when the dark side is used against her, but she certainly does not use the dark side. Luke comes to like her and even after suspecting her of being dark is pretty functionally amiable. Chewie is Chewie. Leia is diplomatic. Even if not everyone LOVES her, no one really gives her a hard time. Even the villains.



2.) Ya, The Hobbits films sucked for multiple reasons dude. Including Azog not being a memorable villain--although he's actually better than Snoke. The Emperor had some character to him, he is the evil scheming guy pulling the strings, it's all his master plan to lure the rebel fleet to the second death star, and who actually physically hurts Luke with lightning. Snoke just kind of rambles once, pokes Rey with lightning, and gets killed. He's not a mastermind, he's not a great warrior, he's just... eh. How did this guy even come to organize the FO anyways? He seems weak af even though all these people follow him.

3.) I actually agree with you here. It's just that the purple haired lady is so... un-leader-ly. The logic of the situation makes sense, but she's just so unlikable. Also, Poe really wasn't so retarded in TFA--sure he was a gung-ho hotshot pilot, but he's not risky like in TLJ, there is logic to his suicide missions, and the story makes it clear that he has to undertake these things. Or even better, in the beginning, he's out on an intel run to Jakku with little believed risk. He's not being out of line or engaging in selfish heroism.

4.) Yo, literally after every successful rebellion ever--the succeeding government(s) had a reformed military to protect their new positions. It's an incredible copout to say that the fleet just doesn't exist any more. Even if it dispersed, it would still exist and could be reformed. While it's believable that the members of the New Republic would be for a decentralized military it's also precisely the situation that allowed Palpatine to come to power in the first place.

5.) Ya, I don't have a huge problem with the concept of the FTL suicide jump. It was a good moment and a good idea. Considering Kot's previous example, and even without it, it's probably reasonable to to assume most super weapons (i.e. The Death Stars) have shields strong enough to at least mitigate damage from any sort of suicide run, and combined with a fleet, make it an ineffective strategy.

*Also, X-Wings DO have hyperdrives. They are long-range multi-role fighter-bombers.

I think Snoke was lying about connecting Rey and Kylo, seeing as how he was dead and they were still doing it.

Also, he wasn’t expecting Kylo to turn, and he was also doing exactly what he expected him to be doing at that time too - namely looking as though he was about to kill Rey.

The force balance thing is also a prophecy from before isn’t it? The prequel trilogy? I don’t think it gets mentioned in this, beyond the light ascending with the dark. Luke does rise to meet the dark, after Rey comes to see him. Kinda.

Also also, Kylo was expecting Rey to join with him, seeing as that’s what he saw when they touched during the force vision-y things. Not sure what his plan is but I was wondering what was going to happen after their fight and the movie didn’t end there as I expected so I wasn’t paying too much attention heh.

Good fan theory is good, but why even have Snoke SAY he was controlling their minds--it's like, just confusing? and not in a good way. Though he was not expecting Kylo to turn, it presents a question as to HOW he was not able to detect it. It's just a whole lot questions that don't get satisfactorily answered.

"The Prophecy" refers to something that is mentioned in, but originates in-lore, outside of both the original and prequel trilogies and refers specifically to Anakin. Though similar themes are present in most Star Wars works.

I wish Rey HAD joined him. It would have been a way more interesting third movie.

[hector13]

I was under the impression X-Wings did come fitted with hyperdrives. This isn’t just over the EU, but Luke hikes it to Dagobah and Bespin sans capital ship in V, and I’m reasonably sure there’s a bunch that FTL their way to Endor prior to the assault on the Death Star in VI.

Perhaps Poe was going to the capital ship as a result of low fuel or whatever.

[Urist McScoopbeard]

I was under the impression X-Wings did come fitted with hyperdrives. This isn’t just over the EU, but Luke hikes it to Dagobah and Bespin sans capital ship in V, and I’m reasonably sure there’s a bunch that FTL their way to Endor prior to the assault on the Death Star in VI.

Perhaps Poe was going to the capital ship as a result of low fuel or whatever.

I think they were just keeping the fleet together, nothing can go wrong if the fighters are just sitting in the hangar instead of in use. Johnson had to realize this at some point however and is probably why the hangar bay got blown up. Otherwise, why not just put the most important people in x-wings and jump them out of there? It's something.

[Reelya]

Critics loved it, half the audience also loves it, the other half hates it, although supposedly the relatively (split roughtly 50-50) low audience scores are blamed on "Alt-Right groups" attacking The Last Jedi for "including more women".

The fuck is this world we live in.

It sounds like standard confirmation bias / cognitive dissonance. Basically, if you can label any naysayers as no-gooders who have ulterior motives for not liking something, you can bad-mouth them while making you feel smug for being on the other side. It's a handy way to avoid having to debate the actual points (or even having to think about them. Cognitive dissonance theory again).

Including more women is great - as long as they're fleshed out women who have both strengths and weaknesses. Including female Mary Sue protagonists and females who represent "nurturing / wisdom / distilled love & goodness" while men are either flawed heroes or the embodiment of evil,  is in fact sloppy writing. "Look we have more women, wise elder rebel Vice Admiral Holdo is a woman!" Yeah ... she is a woman, but is she just an archetype of the "wise mother" or is she a fleshed out person? Think about it: "Holdo was wrong and Poe turned out to be right" is a plotline they'd never go with, because it would be "sexist". As long as they're scared to cross that line, stories can't be as complex and unpredictable as they should be.

The problem with this current type of writing in action movies is that they're scared to make the women multi-dimensional people who have flaws. e.g. in Japanese media - shonen (boys media) has male protagonists who have flaws, and shoujo (girls media) has female protagonists who have flaws. The same with "chick flicks" - the women are flawed, complex people. Not perfect archetypes of infallible women's wise ways. The current shtick of every women protag in action films being "Ms. Perfect" because it's "empowering" is in fact well-intentioned but wrong-headed. It doesn't really fit with the media that girls and women tend to prefer to consume. Sure, it's going to appeal to some girls who want a cheap action hero thing similar to what the 1980s male action heroes were to boys, but ultimately, it's just as hollow and a false representation of what men and women are really like.

So you had some good character development for Luke - he's a flawed person. Poe - his plans don't always magically work out. Finn - he doesn't always get out of the scrapes by himself, he needs help. Snoke fucked up, Kylo Ren doesn't know what the fuck he's doing.

But ... while there are more female characters, if you look at their story arcs in this current movie, none of them showed a single actual flaw. They were 100% nurturing and self-sacrificing always-right people, who always acted 100% correctly to help others (not counting Phasma since she's a barely utilized cardboard trope. I'm pretty sure there's a male actor in the armor, so we'll never see Phasma's face). Yeah, there are more women, but it's just pandering rather than progressive if they're only allowed to be coded differently to how we code male characters. e.g. the problem with shoe-horning more women in is only when they're archetypes that are pandering to political correctness. e.g. why not make the code-breaker a woman? Because the code-breaker was a traitor so they couldn't fit a female character into that role, because it doesn't gel with the "wise and nurturing" cardboard Hollywood version of feminism.

[Mephansteras]

I'll point out that the plan wasn't Poe's, it was the plan that Finn and Rose came up with together. Yes, he lead it and got others to buy in to it, but it wasn't his plan to begin with.

[Reelya]

I was actually talking about the bombing mission at the start, which was pinned on Poe when it all went wrong. Some of the positive reviews point this out as part of Poe's character development, his plans don't always work out, and people die when it goes wrong. Along with the the later one, both were framed as a matriarchal woman opposing Poe's plans, then Poe carries it out, with terrible consequences. While there's nothing wrong with the plot points themselves, it's the semantics that's questionable: the wayward son and the wise mother trying to keep him out of trouble. It is the sort of thing that could sell itself as a "feminist" statement, but in the end, it's just still pandering to age-old cliches.

I mean consider that "foolish old father figure turns out to be proven wrong by the young, idealistic hero" is a common plot. However, if you substitute "mother" there, you'd have political dynamite. e.g. a youthful male proving the mother figure's admonitions wrong is clearly in the "no go zone" as far as plots are concerned.

[Putnam]

i feel like trying to read a feminist message into the failed bombing is stretching reaaaaally hard

[Reelya]

Only because people were making it a thing that if you didn't like the story you're an alt-right meninist. So ... those people are projecting a feminist narrative on top of the conversation, at which point it's appropriate to start discussing what's actually happening with the coding of gender in the piece.

I only mentioned the bombing mainly as Poe's plan backfiring (it's listed by fans of the movie as part of Poe's character development). However, gender is relevant in that the same trope is repeated throughout the movie, of Poe fucking up, but with mother-figures there telling him what he should have done and telling him off for not doing the right thing. Yeah, if it was once sure, but he's upbraided by the "wise mother-figures" repeatedly throughout the film, making it a thing. In terms of the human archetypes film writers love to build into this stuff (especially Star Wars, which was completely based on Joseph Campbell's mythology research, which itself was based on Jung's idea of archetypes), he's definitely coded as the "wayward son" of the "wise mother". It seems likely that Holdo merely exists in the script to be a place-holder for that character achetype while Leia is injured - e.g. she's a stand-in for Leia in terms of Poe's relationship with Leia (wayward son / wise mother like I said), and is conveniently killed off when she's no longer needed, e.g. once Leia's back in action.

Actually, I'm sort of wondering exactly why Holdo was written in there at all. Leia going into the coma didn't have a single plot-relevant outcome. It could have been omitted. Similarly, Holdo comes and goes at the convenient moments so as not to step on Leia's toes too much. Poe already had a rocky relationship with Leia earlier on, so it's not unlikely that the original script plan was for Poe to rebel against Leia after a build-up of conflict and tension, but then the script writers decided that was a step too far, so they added in a plot convenience where Leia's out of action for a little while when the mutiny happens, and a very similar archetype fills her role. In fact, the script would have been stronger if they omitted Holdo entirely and built up more fallout from a Poe vs Leia confrontation.

Hell, it could have been Leia instead of Holdo who died by launching herself into the enemy flagship. But then she wouldn't be around for Star Wars IX. However, given that Carrie Fisher died, I'm thinking that the missed the boat here too. Imagine how much better the new film would be if Holdo didn't exist, it was Leia who fought with Poe, and who dies by launching herself into the enemy cruiser to allow the rebels to escape, and they'd saved Luke's death scene for Part IX? But that's partly based on hindsight, I admit. Or, they could have killed off both Luke and Leia in this movie, completely out-doing Empire Strikes Back for darkness, then had Episode IX completely focused on the new cast.

[Kot]

I don't know where this perception of Rey as a Mary Sue comes from. She's good at everything?

She is great at use of force. She is great at lightsaber fighting (without training, no less). She is great at flying ships and repairing ships, even ones as unique as Millenium Falcon.

No she's not, her one big accomplishment is partially self-training her Force powers...which she does by using the Dark Side. The side that's supposed to be quick and easy? Everybody likes her? Who are these people? Poe hardly interacts with her and Finn just about ditches her in TFA. Luke goes from thinking she's a stupid fangirl to a darkside dabbler timebomb. Leia is like, polite to her, I guess. The only character I remember explicitly liking her is Chewbacca, which gets her some side points with Han since they need some more crew who aren't in the habit of pissing off Wookies. 

"WHERE'S REY". Then they all hug at the end and all. Han was mad at her but then he liked her. Luke disliked her but then agreed to help. This is especially visible due to what you mention - everyone barely knows her, but they just go with it.
I am not calling her a Mary Sue per se. It's nothing really that jarring, and many of those things were more-or less explained to the point I am willing to suspend my disbelief for her amazigness, but she is, ultimately, one of those "chosen ones" you see so much in books and movies.

Literally an entire scene is devoted to Kylo breaking down her belief that she's special and comes from some secret royalty or whatever, and that she should just seize her own fate with what she's got. Even her venture into the dark doesn't do much more than have it tell her she's not getting any answers.

Hm. I don't recall seeing it in that way, and at this point it's hard for me to check, but eh. If you want it, sure, but then I'd consider basically every force sensitive person to be "chosen one" in a way, especially when there is really not many of them left.

Snoke is some complete noone. Nothing is really known about him, which was fine in the previous movie, as we all expected an explanation in this one. But then he just died. He is just random big evil with no connection to previous movies. It's as if there was suddenly new LoTR trilogy set after original one where there is crazy new powerful wizard named Snort and then he just dies.

You mean like exactly what happened in The Hobbit films?[/quote]
Except Hobbit films are prequels, and also based on Tolkien book, and also mostly have logical references and create continuity. The main evil, which also gets a fuckton of buildup and whatnot, Smaug, isin't some "noone", it's the thing that was Bilbo's adventure and is referenced in LoTR movies. And if you mean Azog, hell, his character is at least partially canon in the books too, although not in the same way, IIRC, but at least he does things.
Snoke is hard to explain because he just comes out of ass. If you logically extend him into Star Wars past, he should have existed when Palpatine was rolling around, and that kinda undermines his position as being powerful in force or actually meaningful at all, since apparently he did nothing back then and was completly irrelevant. If he was replaced, by say, a holocron that would mean he is at least excused from not being able to really do things.
Also, you have to compare the amount of buildup Palpatine, Vader or even Kylo get, meanwhile Snoke somehow manages to disappoint even if the expectations weren't high in first place.

I don't think there's much explanation needed really. Much as Rey has no special parents, Snoke needs no special past. Fuck it. He's a Palpatine wannabe who forced (pun intended) his way to the top of an Empire splinter. What more do you need to know?

The main evil of the next Star Wars movie will be a Porg that sat on Snoke and now everyone is scared of him until he dies from a heart attack when someone acidentally shouts in pain when stubbing his toe on a drawer. What more do you need to know? That's probably the point, Snoke is Palpatine wannabe, but he carries no fucking weight with him.
Like, what do we know of Palpatine's past from original trilogy:
1) Has dissolved the Senate.
2) Probably was, together with Vader, responsible for destruction of Jedi and also death of Luke's father who then turns out to be Vader but w/e.
3) Something something Clone Wars.
If you include novelisations that even relased before the movies, we know the rest of him being elected the "president of Republic" and caused the transition from Republic to Empire and etc.
What we know of Snoke from the movies:
1) He came out of ass and seduced Kylo Ren and rest knights of Ren and now is wannabe-Emperor.

It's a war, people die, and the problem is what Poe does works. It's the "Pink Hair Sue Commander" that for no good reason didin't tell anyone her plan, which directly led to everything going badly. If you notice, when Poe is being told that they in fact have a plan, he thinks it will work. In his mind, all he did was trying to save everything because after Leia went down there was apparently no plan, and without one they would be dead.   

   
She doesn't tell Poe anything because he doesn't need to know, just like in a real military unit. He's a pilot and a properly disgraced one for usurping command of an operation and getting almost the entire force sans himself killed. That isn't how organized militants work, ever. And there is a good reason why, spies. Which is in fact what ends up almost getting them all killed, again, because of a plan that Poe authored. If I were Leia I wouldn't have stunned Poe, I'd have shot him as a traitor.

Sure. But as it is evidenced many times, to properly read a military unit it's commander must be trusted by his soldiers, and she is so unpopular that she gets literally ousted by people who do not believe in her and only Leia Ex Machina "saves" the situation, which leads me to believe she didin't only not tell Poe, but her plan was a complete mystery to everyone. Orders are orders, but when your commander, being an untested one in a desperate situation, orders you to do what you think amounts to running into machinegun fire with completly no explanation, knowing that your squad is the only one left, especially when there are alternatives that look much more sane, would you?
Sure, her plan would work, but she realized that the morale was low, she realizes that people are desperate and what she offers them is "we're basically going to commit mass suicide by giving ourselves to First Order on platter" without explaining that they would be cloaked or even where they are running to.
Military genius my ass.

Poe thinks he knows better and is more important than everyone else. That he just has to be the special savior somehow, because he's good as a pilot. It's a good flaw for his character but it definitely does not make him right.

Notice that Poe is completly content when Leia explains him the plan. Notice that the plan wasn't even his, but it was something he believed was better than basically accepting that they're dead and just giving in.

Consider where the New Republic is coming from. The galaxy has a generation under the thumb of an extremely militant and human supremacist Empire, one which crushed whole worlds and centralized all true power in the hands of one Sith Master, as far as he could make possible. The New Republic wants to avoid that as much as possible. They want to be all decentralized and with as few military forces as is reasonable,

*screeech*
That's the problem. Not "as is reasonable". They have literally NO military forces. It's all based on complete disarmnament idea Mon Mothma apparently suggested before Clone Wars were even a thing, because back then Old Republic had reasonable forces that kept the Galaxy clean, tidy and relatively safe.

so that nobody can take control of them like Palpatine did the Clone Army. Most of the worlds in the New Republic are going to agree to this because if they're the primary power in the galaxy but no one element of the New Republic is individually powerful enough to take over, there can be peace.

Clone Army was unique. They were pre-programmed to be taken control of, something that wouldn't have happened with regular people.
And you're forgetting something - New Republic agreed to this because they were primary power that has just made peace with Imperial Remnants which still had a sizeable army and without opposition was strong enough to take over, as evidenced by First Order.
Also Hutts, pirates, etc.

The First Order throws this out of balance, yes. But that's mostly because they don't know that there's another Emperor wannabe or superweapon in the mix. Remember, the First Order basically coexisted with the New Republic for decades, and the other Imperial Remnants probably did the same.

THEY HAD WARS. JAKKU WAS A BATTLE BETWEEN REMNANTS AND NEW REPUBLIC. This logic is the same as if Stalin disarmed entire Soviet Union because he coexisted with Nazi Germany for a while.

It was only with Snoke's ambition that they were able to turn back to planetbusting and active expansion. Still, how are you as the New Republic Senate, a genuine democratic body of several thousand worlds, going to convince people who just want to stop having their children march to war that an expeditionary war into the First Order, who have maybe done some piracy but have had piracy done on them by the Resistance, is a good idea?

Expeditionary war? Who says anything about expeditionary war? All I am asking of them is to not be completly retarded and disband their entire armed force whilist there are armed threats around the Galaxy, ESPECIALLY if Resistance is poking First Order with a stick and provoking them to go to war again.
 

For all the same reasons that people don't generally use kamikaze tactics in real life. There are only a select few situations where it's a reasonable trade. You're gonna need mass for one, the Raddus was a capital ship. An X-Wing doing the same wouldn't leave much impact overall, even if you specially outfitted it with a hyperdrive (as we see from Poe needing to get back in the Raddus' hanger in the opening scene).

X-Wings have hyperdrives. This is literally their most defining feature, and is the main difference between Imperial "mass cheap fighter spam" tactics and Rebel/Resistance "hit&run" tactics.

5.) Ya, I don't have a huge problem with the concept of the FTL suicide jump. It was a good moment and a good idea. Considering Kot's previous example, and even without it, it's probably reasonable to to assume most super weapons (i.e. The Death Stars) have shields strong enough to at least mitigate damage from any sort of suicide run, and combined with a fleet, make it an ineffective strategy.

And the Snoke's ship for some reason had none?
Fucking hell, and we thought the thermal exhaust port on Death Star or lack of railings was a fucking engineering oversight.