First of all, I have been wanting to talk about this for a while now, and remember that this is only my opinion. Feel free to disagree in the comments, but make sure to respect everyone else's opinions, because they are all valid.
Anyways, to start off: The Force Awakens. I don't think TFA was so bad, but that is mostly because of the fact that it is very, very similar to A New Hope. I think JJ Abrams realised just how big of a hit ANH was when it first came to the big screens, and he thought he could reproduce it, and make some money along the way. But he didn't, really. Of course, he made plenty of money (with a budget of $450 million USD and the box office grossing over $2 billion USD), but for me, he certainly didn't succeed with the former statement. And while I am fully aware of the arc known as the Hero's Journey, I must point out the similarities between the two films.
Young orphaned protagonist living on desert planet
Protagonist meets a droid that gives them information that is vital to the actions of the current rebellion, relating to a wiser, older person that could help said current rebellion
Protagonist refuses to help, claiming they belong on the desert planet, but is eventually roped into helping the "rebellion" of the era (Resistance/Rebel Alliance).
Protagonist winds up on the Millennium Falcon with Han Solo and Chewbacca, but only after narrowly escaping a fight with a crime syndicate that Solo owes some money.
The group ends up with the rebellion, who are on their own in their fight against the tyrannical government.
One of the main characters is also captured and imprisoned on a massive, planet-destroying weapon that was built for the bad "government", which has already proved the massive damage it can cause by blowing up a planet.
Eventually, the rebellion decides to mount an assault on the massive super weapon, in which they succeed, however, the character that was a sort of mentor to the protagonist dies on this big planet-destroying weapon. But in the next movie of the trilogy, of course, the protagonist will be taught the ways of the Force from an older, wiser mentor.
An X-Wing pilot also manages to blow up the massive weapon by dropping a bomb down its weakest point, thus killing everyone on board.
So, you see how similar the two movies are. That doesn't make TFA necessarily bad, just pretty boring/repetitive to watch. Also, there is one big, massive plot hole here: the protagonist, Rey, who has never had any training with a lightsaber in her life (and picked up her lightsaber for practically the first time in her life), somehow manages to defeat Kylo Ren, the main villain of the movie, who has been trained basically his whole life to fight with a lightsaber. First, under arguably the most powerful Jedi ever, and now, a clone of literal Darth Sidious. Some of the plot holes that weren't explained in the movie made TFA much more painful to watch as well, however. For example, how did the First Order come into existence? Why would Luke Skywalker leave a map to his exact location if he wanted to stay in hiding anyway? But the point is, that is my take on The Force Awakens.
Now, we move on to The Last Jedi. Let's begin with how similar that is to the Empire Strikes Back. The only real similarity I noticed when watching it was that Crait scene was almost exactly the same as the Hoth scene. Our heroes prepare for bombardment against the First Order/Empire, and they dig trenches in the white ground below, filling them with soldiers. It turns out that the First Order/Empire attack the Resistance/Rebellion with AT-AT's, and the Resistance/Rebellion get absolutely wiped out, but a few manage to escape.
But now, onto the rest of the criticism. I believe this video highlights the use of bathos in the film very well, explaining where it went wrong in the opening fight scene, among others.
The fight scene in TLJ where Kylo Ren kills Snoke, turns back to the light side again for no reason, and then Rey and him defeat the Praetorian Guards, about had sense as much this as sentence. Why did he turn to the light side again? Was he just trying to usurp the throne and become Supreme Leader, and was it all a ruse? Did he sense the Force dyad already between Rey and him, and thought it was the best move? Not to mention Captain Phasma. Now, I didn't like her so much in the first place, but I personally think the best part about her was her backstory, it's really interesting actually.
Onto the Finn and Rose arc: In Canto Bight, though the whole scene was a total of 11 minutes, it still ended up becoming a painfully long arc between the two characters that served little point in the story of TLJ as a whole, and it ended with Rose literally dying. Though Finn did kiss her, adding some romantic tension, making you think that maybe Rose was going to survive somehow, she literally died less than 5 minutes later. In his arms. While the rest of the Resistance was getting their butts handed to them. Also, the convenience of the master hacker being right where they thought he was on a pretty big city is rather unrealistic, to say the least.
One of the higher points I found in TLJ was Luke's redemption arc: it allowed him to save the Resistance and be the hero one last time before he became a Force ghost. I thought that highlighted his prominence as the hero saving the galaxy in the previous trilogy, and made quite a lot of sense. Unlike Holdo's manoeuvre, which brings me to my last point in this critique: this scene made absolutely no sense.
What remains of the Resistance has discovered that the First Order is tracking them through hyperspace, something that the Resistance previously thought impossible. With this newfound knowledge, the Vice Admiral of the Resistance, Holdo, decides to sacrifice herself and take down the First Order flagship, a 60km long Star Destroyer, and its fleet with her (and the Resistance cruiser Raddus). She does this by attempting to travel through hyperspace, aimed directly at the First Order fleet. How she knows this would work, I could not say. Is she Force-sensitive? Did she see into the future? Among others, the film does not mention this. But, the Raddus ploughs through the fleet, tearing all its ships in two, allowing the Resistance extra time to get away, a very noble act. However, this does not explain why this manoeuvre was not used previously by beings that could see visions of the future, beings that were Force-sensitive, governments that were in power for thousands of years. It does not explain this, and not only would it have been very useful to know that one could destroy fleets in seconds, but also this knowledge would have ended wars such as the Clone Wars in just weeks, months at most. And if the faction was especially ingenious, they could have done this manoeuvre without a single casualty. All of this combines to make a rather large plot hole, if you ask me.
There is a lot more I would like to talk about, such as the character of Rey, Finn and Poe, as well as Leia's Force-sensitivity, but I don't think I manage all of that in one article.
And if you liked reading this, I'll be sure to post a critique on The Rise of Skywalker!
