You're right I totally misspoke on the Finn & Rose side plot being pointless. It did show a lot of things that needed showing, and oh! The kids. The kids were great. But it was VERY badly executed and was one of the things that threw off the pacing of the movie.

In other movie pacing opinions, I am so over big long fight scenes, of any type.

I didn't mean to argue with you specifically, Jilli. It's a very common opinion I've seen expressed, and like I said, I've been trying to figure out how I felt about it.

I feel like when Finn says "it was worth it" and when Rose says "now it was worth it" they are both right, even if it ultimately does not help the Resistance escape the First Order. So, not pointless.

Also, I know it was a long movie and I have seen numerous comments about pacing problems, but I did not check my phone once to see how much time we had left so I can't buy into any of that.

I didn't mean to argue with you specifically, Jilli.

Don't worry, I didn't feel argued with! It was a point that didn't occur to me originally, and I wanted to acknowledge that.

Right about the point where Luke astrally projected (with a haircut and beard trim) to fight Kylo, I leaned over to Tim and whispered "Jesus, this is long!" I'm usually not aware of movies' length, but TLJ was too long for me.

Hey, if I could astral project, I'd make myself look young and skinny too.

In a movie with Oscar Isaac and John Boyega, WHY did we get Adam Driver shirtless?

I think that was a deliberate dig at Marvel. Especially with the "Put a cowl on" line.

Finally saw The Last Jedi. My son loved it. I thought it was good. Probably better than TFA but it hasn't displaced my love of the OT.

It did feel a little long, but not horribly so. At no point did I feel like "Why are we wasting time on this?"

I am a bit miffed at them killing off the original cast one movie at a time. Though Luke's send-off was pretty badass and him flat-out threatening to haunt Kylo if he struck him down was fantastic.

I also agree that Poe spent the whole movie being a giant fuck-up without really being called on it, other than Leia demoting him at the beginning.

Well, Vice Admiral Holdo called him out as well, and Leia actually stun-blasted him during his mutiny. But it never felt like the narrative was presenting him as being in the wrong, at least until the very end when the Resistance had been whittled down to a medium-sized dinner party's worth of people. He was more the loose cannon cowboy cop who's usually proven correct to have chafed under the police chief's by-the-book restrictions.

I disagree about Poe not being called on it. Leia demotes him, Holdo dismisses him, then he spends the next 18 hours avoiding her so he won't get caught, then Leia stuns him so he can't do any more damage. And yeah, we've all been trained to expect that guy to save the day (and he's one of our POV characters and he thinks he's right all the time), but I don't think the narrative is ever really on his side.