Not the Last Jedi

Well, I finally went to see "The Last Jedi" last evening... it was good, not great, but good.  I thought that the scenes with Mark Hamill were some of the best; as far as I'm concerned, he is the embodiment of Star Wars and The Force.  I also thought that the sequence leading up to the introduction of Benicio del Toro one of the weakest; they took out a bar scene and added a casino scene.  There was also some dumbass shit, like a scene involving Leia after an explosion on the bridge of her ship, which left me shaking my head in disbelief.  I didn't like the little birds (included for marketing purposes, no doubt) but I liked the ice dogs.  Oscar Isaac is no Harrison Ford, he lacks the charisma.  Daisy Ridley's good, but I kept wondering why John Boyega was even in this film.  And then there's Kylo Ren (Solo), played by Adam Driver, who really develops as the malignant villain, except for the shirtless scene where it looks as though they used CGI to give him a body builder's chest.  Some of the set pieces were simply stunning to look at (the fight in Snoke's chambers, and the fight on the planet with with white ices and ruby reds), the rest were pretty standard.  As I said, it was good, but not great, and was a decent setup for the final film in this trilogy... it is going to be a trilogy isn't it?

The Original

Oh, and I see that Darrell Issa has chosen not to run for re-election.  Remember when this asshole was one of the Republican Pitt Bulls?  Now, he's just another rat jumping ship.  In fact, I find it funny that nary a week goes by  without another Republican turncoat announcing he's going to retire.  These guys are scummy enough, but even they're smart enough to run from the Idiot Jerk in the White House.