Continuing the billion dollar Star Wars saga, Star Wars: Episode VIII: The Last Jedi was released Dec. 15  and has already kicked off with the second largest domestic opening weekend at the box office ever, $220 million. The Last Jedi did outstanding in its weekend debut, though the new movie could not quite catch up to its prior movie, released in 2015, The Force Awakens remains the box-office champion for a domestic opening ($247 million). The Last Jedi, which also posted the fifth-largest global opening box office of all-time at $450 million, may not be the biggest Star Wars movie ever, but the second movie in the franchise’s current trilogy is already well on its way to being crowned 2017’s box-office winner.

The movie begins maybe five or 10 minutes after “The Force Awakens” ended. Rey (Daisy Ridley) has found Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) on a remote rock of a planet, where he has lived like a hermit for long time. The last movie ended with the suggestion that Luke is the heavy artillery, the Jedi master who is about to get into the fight. But The Last Jedi” immediately takes a different direction. Luke isn’t interested, and he wants no part of any war. He may have seemed like a contemplative philosopher at the end of the last episode, but his actions during The Last Jedi make the audience think otherwise. Throughout the movie, The Resistance is trying to no longer allow The First Order to track where their location is through lightspeed. Along the way new characters are introduced such as Rose Tico (Kelly Marie Tran) and many battles are fought along the way. Both The Resistance and The First Order seem to be weak and empty by the end of the movie, but The Resistance has many civilians from planets such as Jakku who are ready to hop on board. The First Order is just about destroyed and powerless, something many fans have been waiting to see for a very long time.

Unlike any Star Wars movie before, Episode VIII features more humor than ever and even more jaw-dropping visuals and special effects. This film steps away from the usual scripts to bring us something new and entertaining. Director Rian Johnson seems to be pushing us to post-Skywalker era, to open up a path for the newest generations of heroes.

Unique to the recent movies, twists in the plot have made for shocked and surprised audiences. “The Last Jedi honors the saga’s rich legacy while adding some surprising twists and delivering all the emotion-rich action fans could hope for.”

There are flaws to this new installment of the franchise, now under Disney, fans are dissatisfied with the lack of character creativity, like Rose, a resistance janitor turned pilot after helping Finn( John Boyega) break into a First Order ship. nowadays Star Wars movies feature boring characters standing around giving cringe-worthy motivational speeches and crying. Apparently every single device, ship or Death Star created by the Empire operates in a way that, if you just happen to hit one vulnerable spot, the entire thing blows up. Their engineers have just never quite figured a way around that which makes the movie look a slight bit less real.

Overall I would rate Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi a 7.5 out of 10, Johnson does a nice job to move on from the past and open the window for the new generation, his visual effects were outstanding, this is a big reason the movie has succeeded. If you are a Star Wars fan, this is a must see movie.