Luke: Dude forgave his father and tried to foster the glimmer of light side in him AFTER his father killed Luke's mentor, Obi Wan, committed genocide on a planetary scale that was so horrific it sent ripples through the force thanks to billions dying, attempted to kill Luke himself, was actively killing Luke's friends and sister, and murdered Luke's adopted parents (The only family he ever knew.).....But Luke forgave all of that and saw the good in his father, and was willing to risk his own life and the fate of the rebellion, and then lives of all of his friends by throwing away his light saber and COUNTING on the good in his father, the sliver of good that not even the Emperor, a far more experienced force user, could sense because it had been buried for so long under horrible atrocities and pain.
But the dude senses some dark side growing in a fucking child, the child of his best friend and sister, and tries to snuff him in the night? What the fuck? A twist just to have a twist, a twist that went against everything the character was and stood for. Literally just someone saying "well, everyone expects Ben Solo to have fallen to the dark side like Vader...What if we had Luke PUSH him to the dark side! DUN DUN DUN! No one will expect that!" (Without questioning the reason why no one would expect that).
Rey: So Rey's ability to speak all languages, fly a space ship she's never sat in, use the force well with zero training ect...All of that is just part of her, and came from no where. She had no lineage, or past that explains this. She's just a nobody that has ended up being super powerful, and knowledgeable. It's not that I have an issue with a nobody becoming super powerful, in fact I'd find that fucking refreshing...I love the idea of someone coming from nowhere, without some great sense of purpose or "destiny", and rising up--it's a story that is not done enough. I like the little guy literally becoming the hero.
However, in order for that story to work well, a character has to start weak, and have flaws which their time on their "hero's journey" iron out, and change. Rey starts off a super hero, which really changes the story from a "Hero's journey" to gain some new qualities for her, into a story about discovery (Why am I like this). Except this movie was just like "nope, still Hero's journey, except we're starting at the destination!". It doesn't work, at all. It's dog shit. This character feels like bad fan fiction, a literal Mary Sue, except no "comes from royalty and is a princess" background in order to toss a twist in there.
Leia: lol....
Kylo: Potentially the only interesting character left that isn't totally idiotic...except for the fact that he is idiotic, literally. Why fight Rey? Why not just fucking talk to each other. Ugh.
It's too bad, because the underlying themes about how human perception is coloring the "force" with light/dark, and the force is simply something that exists, and how religion/ideology can pervert things and has caused all this damage? Could have been a great theme. I mean, it radically departs from the simplistic fantasy serial themes of the original, with dark knights and paladins ect--with very clear good vs bad guys. But I get the desire to want more complexity, and I think that's fine. In fact, despite the shit above, I enjoyed this aspect. I liked Rey's insights into how she sees the force changing how it is. Realizing she is a part of it, rather than it being part of her, and thus the implications that individuals bring both light and dark to things, and all the old Jedi crap was just simplistic teachings of people who were fumbling for meaning...I get it.
But that was covered by the gigantic mess they made of character and motivation. This was such a sloppy conversion from a simplistic fantasy, into a more complex drama (Or at least the back ground needed for it--by peeling away the concept of the force pushing light and dark to allow for characters to be responsible.)...And that's what I'd have to say about this, sloppy and unsatisfying. They took a sledge hammer to reforge the themes in the movie and didn't care of they smashed the reasoning and internal logic of nearly every character that might have gotten in their way. Like most movies that miss the mark--the reason it does is because the character motivations are in service to the story, rather than the story being a byproduct of the character motivations. It genuinely felt like some producer had a bunch of scenes and themes he wants, and to hell with how they got there.
This is going to be a movie I think that gets worse with time as people digest it. Right now, I can see a lot of people loving it because the themes behind the story are "empowering" and it genuinely shakes up the lore of the universe in ways that feel very new and exciting. It's also beautiful, if you pulled out the story, the movie is just gorgeous visually--if you don't think about it, its one of those movies that's just enjoyable to watch. But much like the prequels, its going to be one of those movies where as you think about the twists, and the "why"--it will slowly start to turn sour, I think. I could be wrong and it could get better with time, but I for sure thing this is going to go the other way for most people.