I did a similar post last year with 'The Force Awakens' and 'Rogue One' and I think Rogue One edged over TFW on that one. I think both TFW and TLJ gave us our money's worth but on the whole I left the theater far more excited after TFW than I did with TLJ. I preferred how the characters were handled in TFWs and was left with massive anticipation for the next film. I didn't have that with TLJ. Play nice everyone. If you hated one over the other or if you loved/hated them both then great. All opinions are welcomed.
When it comes to Rogue one VS these two this my take on it. Rogue one is like a luxury Lobster made by the worlds finest chef. TFA and TLJ are like a single smart price prawn between them. If I had to pick one I'd say TFA.
The Force Awakens was a scene by scene copy of A New Hope. The Last Jedi was more clever with its copying. It copied from both The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi but with some scenes rearranged so that it couldn’t get caught. So the answer clearly is... Rogue One.
I give it to Last Jedi. Force Awakens is a tighter movie, and some of the characters add something new to the franchise, but it largely seems formulaic. Last Jedi tries to chart a new course. I think the overall organization of the film stinks: the overlong chase is comical, IMO. What I can't complain about are the performances. Johnson gave Mark Hamill some meaty material, and Hamill ran with it. Star Wars has employed some great actors, but seldom has challenged them. Hamill in LJ stands above all of them.
Last Jedi is by far a much more coherent movie than The Force Awakens, which not only is pretty much a remake of A New Hope, as previously mentioned, but is a complete narrative mess due to the frenzied schedule plus the subsequent re-shoots and the re-edits (I think Nyongo said she had to go in for four or five recording sessions over a few months as Maz's character kept getting rewritten, and Abrams was changing the whole thing around as late as November). Last Jedi isn't perfect but it was a much more satisfying experience than Force Awakens, in large part because the characters actually felt like fleshed-out, well, characters instead of ciphers.
The Force Awakens by a lot. I found The Last Jedi to be a C movie. Just brushing Snoke away like they did with nothing about him was poor at best. The things about Rey's parents also annoy and bother me quite a bit. The Casino stuff was a complete waste of time.
Tough one really, I've only seen TLJ once. Right now, I want to say TLJ, because it's so much more its own movie. Not just Star Wars. I'm not voting yet, gonna wait untill I've seen TLJ a few times.
I would love so much to say The Force Awakens because I used to really enjoy that film. However, IN MY OPINION, it now only serves as a prequel to The Last Jedi and as such is reduced to a steaming pile of shit by association. All hail Rian Johnson.
Despite my big problems with TFA, I can't vote for a Star Wars movie where the good guys are like Homer in the parade float for half the run-time. "He's very slowly getting away!" I may be bored by Star Wars a little right now. It's happened before.
All of the Disney Star Wars films have disappointed me on at least one front, but TLJ is the only one that actively distracted me with those disappointments and failings on my first viewing (well, zombie Tarkin distracted me but only while he was on screen). It has some very high highs, but the lows are abyssal. Maybe I'll learn to overlook them in time, but for now TFA wins on account of being charming enough to keep my eyes on the screen even as they're rolling out of my head.
Yeah, that's my one gripe with Last Jedi, far moreso than the Canto Bight stuff (which really didn't irk me at all). I get what Rian Johnson was going for, the fleeing ships' dwindling fuel reserves metaphorically representing the ticking lifespan of the Resistance (although Hux crowing about it every 15 minutes was kind of like, "Dude, we fucking get it"), but dramatically it doesn't work when you have a significant chunk of the film focused upon several characters having no agency whatsoever except to, as you said, very slowly get away from an incompetent force. Just a touch too contrived for my tastes. Still better than Abrams going full Riefenstahl with Hux's speech on Starkiller, though.