> Seriously, what was with his comment about Laura Dern's 'fangirl
> performance'? What does that even mean? Was it the fact that her character
> held a deep respect and loyalty to Leia which was very clearly articulated
> in the dialogue? I feel like CC hasn't watched the same film I have.

Agreed. What strikes me most about reviews critical of the movie is that people who hate it are basing their opinion on an assumption that things they need for the story to make sense aren't there, whereas those elements are in fact in the movie and the complaining viewer just didn't seem to notice or understand what was actually going on.

For instance, the notion that the star destroyers not being able to catch up to the Resistance cruisers at sub-light was "inexplicable," when the reason they couldn't was explicitly spelled out in the dialogue — the resistance cruisers were smaller and faster, and the First Order officers saw no need to expend fuel resources trying to catch up to them when they would either run out of fuel trying to escape at sub-light or run out of fuel making one last hyperspace jump, which was pointless since the First Order could track them.

Seriously, when people complain about "plot holes" or "pacing issues" I seriously have no idea what they're talking about — and whatever specific examples they're able to bring up I find I'm able to easily refute with a simple explanation.

At this point, I'm starting to think I saw not just a different movie than these people, but, given their efforts to claim the movie "broke Star Wars," that I have been watching a completely different franchise than them for 40 years.