I spent a very large portion of the movie wondering where on earth they were going with it, and I'm still trying to decide if that's a strength or a weakness. I was surprised very often solely as a product as having no idea what to expect in the first place. It does a good job of keeping up the hopelessness, every single sequence seems utterly inescapable.
A lot of stuff seemed strangely...contemporary? The way Ren says "Yeah me neither" when Ray says she doesn't want to talk. Luke's "brush off the shoulder" thing. Poe's trolling on the radio at the beginning. I didn't necessarily dislike it, but it was surprising.
Tets, I love the calling Finn's adventure "Casino Night Zone"
You're probably right that it was too long, but I was interested as it was happening. And I like Rose. As X said, it seemed to play into the defying your expectations thing. Obviously it also gave Finn something to do and time to develop Rose. But the fact that not only was their-and-Poe's plan a failure, it actively made absolutely everything worse.
When Snoke berated Ren, it's like he was reading directly off internet forums, with the "beaten by a girl who had never held a lightsaber before"
There was actually a lot of that - characters acknowledging things the audience would. Like when Poe wants to find another way out of the bunker, "Hell, how did
he get in?"
The scene where the admiral lady lightspeed-jumps into the imperial fleet was absolutely
GORGEOUS. I did have two questions though, firstly I was surprised no one's done that before in moments of desperation, but two,
why didn't she do it sooner?! But still, breathtaking shot.
Leia actually using the Force outside of vaguely feeling things was cool, and surprising. The fact that she was SO far away from the ship sort of...well...I want to say "strains credibility," but she was flying through space, so I guess that's moot. When I thought they had killed her there I thought, "I see, well I guess them saying she had finished filming all her scenes was a lower hurdle than I anticipated."
I also really thought they were going to kill Finn there, so, got me. One particularly eye-rolly scene was where that dude tastes the dirt to say, "Salt." Like, "See it's not Hoth, promise! It's totally not snow, see?!"
I'm glad Luke got to do something badass - very glad, in fact. And I was really really hoping they woudn't kill him, because that seems like the obvious thing to do, and so far the movie hadn't done anything obvious. And they faked me out twice thinking he'd get out of it. But alas...if it had to happen, I'm glad it happened the way it did, in such a way that no bad guys got any satisfaction or accomplishment or whatever. But still, harrumph.
I mostly liked that the movie wasn't afraid to use levity in otherwise very tense scenes, "Do you think you got him?" after shooting everything at Luke, for instance, and the opening sequence. Finn got some really lame lines, ("chrome dome?"), but I did genuinely laugh at, "They really hate that ship!" hahah.
I don't know how Ren is going to have enough respect for anyone in the military to follow him, considering how royally he screwed up.
Other little things - I liked how Luke stopped himself from hitting the ground when Rey knocked him over. I also liked the way they dispatached that last red dude, with the lightsaber instantaneously through his head. And I do think it's a good move that these movies have a dark side guy struggling with his evilness, instead of a good guy struggling with his goodness.
I suspect the fandom will still be disappointed in Phasma's role. Surprising that she actually came right out and verbalized the villain cliche - We can't just shoot them, let's waste time first, haha.