Star Wars fans around the world crowded into sold-out theaters on December 9th to see the premiere of the long-anticipated movie Star Wars: The Last Jedi. The movie was panned by many fans as a whole new take on Star Wars, a reinvention of the world famous franchise. I personally had very high hopes for The Last Jedi. I hoped that The Last Jedi would be the innovative film that would allow Star Wars to survive and thrive in the modern world while also maintaining the iconic feel that the original series of films had always maintained. Sadly, as I watched the movie my excitement quickly turned to disappointment.

In just the first few minutes of the movie, I could tell that Star Wars: The Last Jedi, fails to match the charm and storytelling of the original movies. The well-written and properly timed humor of the original Star Wars movies has been traded in for simple kid-friendly jokes and awkward forced dialogue.

Not only does The Last Jedi fail to match the charm of the original movies in its writing, but it fails to match the pacing or visual style that made the original trilogy famous. Whereas other recent Star Wars films, such as The Force Awakens or Rogue One, felt like true Star Wars movies by maintaining the saga’s iconic style, The Last Jedi feels more like a campy and forgettable superhero movie.

Rogue One and The Force Awakens took notes from the original Star Wars movies and acknowledged their place in the Star Wars saga. The Last Jedi feels like it has been forced into place. It is awkward and hard to determine where it fits into the overall saga of this otherwise major blockbuster series.

The Last Jedi simply fails to innovate and define itself in a meaningful manner.

The Last Jedi instead attempts to define itself by overusing characters from the original movies. The movie feels like it is afraid to go too far from the previously defined status quo. The Last Jedi is so afraid to make changes that it hurts itself as a movie. Rather than introduce a cast of new and interesting characters, The Last Jedi plays it safe and makes the choice to rely on fan-favorite characters from previous films.

The few new characters that The Last Jedi chooses to introduce are more often than not annoying, poorly-written, generic and forgettable in almost every way. By permanently introducing a cast of two-dimensional and irritating characters, The Last Jedi will make it extremely difficult for any future director to make another convincing and legitimately entertaining Star Wars movie.

The characters that were introduced in The Force Awakens also failed to impress. These characters lack personality, goals or character flaws. As I watched, I couldn’t shake the thought that the Last Jedi feels empty.

The Last Jedi succeeds in confusing viewers by overfilling the movie with a dozen pointless storylines and scenes. Star Wars: The Last Jedi feels like an empty and uneventful movie because scenes of little or no importance are put right alongside a number of well-made and important scenes.

The Last Jedi is a collection of a few key and genuinely well-made scenes held together around an awkward and confusing movie, making the overall experience one of disappointment and confusion.

Overall, I was disappointed by this movie. The Last Jedi is a boring and confusing movie that desperately tries to keep your attention and fails at every turn. It is a sloppy and an overly-long movie that seems like it was written and directed by a corporate boardroom and not by an artist.

The failure of The Last Jedi has hurt the Star Wars franchise by turning a once iconic film series into what comes off as a cheap cash grab.

The Blue & Gold gives this movie the following Movie Score: 3.5 out of 10