(Wow, this post ended up being entirely too long. Short version: you're wrong. The MCU is run much better than Disney Star Wars as far as having a pre established story arc and vision. After TLJ seemed to disregard all the movies preceding it and made weird character development calls, the SW universe seems rudderless and pointless to me.)


similar. Han is dead or gone. Luke is cut down and defeated. the Rebellion is hurting and in retreat etc. I had no problem with how Infinity War ended. It is a bit silly knowing that most if not all the deaths will be somehow reversed but that's comic books for you, at least it's being consistent with its source material.

I thought Thanos was a pretty good character. They had a lot of back story for him in this movie and have had him in several other MCU films and cut scenes, granted they were short scenes and hints here and there but anyone paying attention knew about Thanos going in and then learned a lot about his motivations and back story in Infinity War. I know that there has been some criticism about the MCU villains but I thought that Thanos was pretty good and that Infinity War was a pretty good culmination film and will be hopefully even better once it's all wrapped up with the second film. If nothing else, there was a plan in place and all the movies and character development before hand paid off in this movie. They at least had a plan. Maybe you didn't like the plan or how it paid off but most movie goers did.

Now lets look at Disney Star Wars badies.

Snoke was the big bad guy boss in TFA and was an imposing, all powerful mastermind, kinda like Thanos going into Infinity War . We didn't know much about him but I was intrigued and wanted to know more about him and how/why he was so powerful and how he set up the First Order etc.

Then there was Kylo Ren. He was a petulant emo kinda kid mad at his parents for some reason and brought to the dark side. He too was pretty powerful, he could stop laser blasts in mid air even! He was an interesting character and once he killed Han he was irredeemable, at least to most fans, for killing the beloved Han Solo. I was a bit confused by how he got beaten so easily by novice Rey both in the interrogation room and on the battle field but ok maybe they'll explain that later and Rey's power will make more sense but overall I kinda liked brooding, bratty Kylo and thought his character was interesting and had potential.

Then there was General Hux. He was a pretty scary and intense character giving a Hitler like speech and vying and calculating against Kylo for power and control. He was a devious and impassioned believer in the fascistic regime and that made him a bit scary to me, it's the true believers that you gotta watch out for.

And of course the most hyped and at the same time most under used villain in all of SW we had Captian Phasma. Cool name. Cool costume. Good actor. Then nothing really. She gives up easily and then gets thrown in a garbage shoot. Ok.

So overall the villains were pretty good in my opinion except Phasma. Let's see were the next film takes this all. I was actually excited to see more about Snoke and see the others developed more. Let's see what Rian Johnson did with them all:

Snoke: There was zero, nothing, zilch as far as character development and back story go. I kinda thought it was funny and interesting to catch people of guard like that but there is not anything there. What was the point of him? He was the only character that actually offered any threat to Rey or the resistance. Thanos was similar to Snoke going into TLJ in that they were both shadowy masterminds pulling the strings and giving orders etc. The big different is that in Infinity War Thanos pays off and is given motivation and back story and actually kicks some but.

Kylo: Stayed about the same. A petulant whiner that hates and kills his father figures. There were interesting bits about him maybe not being as down right evil as we thought and maybe being swayed my Rey to a more gray area, but nope, that didn't go anywhere. He's still a brooding bratty twerp that throws temper tantrums and kills his male superiors. Only now he is rudderless and clueless and I won't be able to take him serious as the mastermind or as a big threat because he doesn't know what he's doing and has lost to Rey in battle twice now. He is no threat going forward.

Hux: They turned this guy into a cartoon character. They treated him like a 3 stooges character with all the physical humor of throwing him around with the force and all but poking him in the eye. I think Rian Johnson just wanted to turn the most Nazi like character into a laughing stock to show how inept fascists are or something but it cheapened the character and took all his scariness and intrigue away. It would have been better to keep him seeming scary and conniving and him having a power struggle with Kylo especially after Snoke died, but they decided to use him as a punch line and a joke.

Phasma: At least she fought a bit in this movie. I guess they improved a bit from TFA by at least letting her fight. I'm still not sure why she's not dead after being trapped in a garbage shoot and then having the planet she was on implode, but I guess that's a minor quibble because it's assumed she escaped somehow.

And that was just the villains. I don't' like what they did with the heroes either. At least the MCU characters went down fighting and stayed true to their established characteristics. They turned luke into something weak and depressed and defeated when he was established as the strongestest, most optimistic and positive guy in the galaxy. I didn't like that. I know some liked it because Luke was seen as too powerful and they had to explain why he didn't just single handedly take care of everything. But I think what they did to Luke's character was lame. They already set up the big bad Snoke as a possible threat to Luke. Along with the whole First Order, Kylo and the Knights of Ren, who also disappeared btw, Snoke could have been a creditable threat to Luke but no, they get rid of of all those threats by killing off Snoke and destroying half or more of the First Order fleet and forgetting about the knights of ren altogether. There are several ways to combat Luke. If they wanted to have him in hiding to figure things out and distance himself from the Jedi order then fine, but have him come around and then come back with Rey ready to kick butt and avenge his sister (who should have been killed in TLJ after Carrie fisher died) and Han and set things up for a big show down in ep IX and let Luke take out Snoke or sacrifice himself to let Rey etc. At the very least have him actually train Rey so all her power at least almost makes sense.

So yeah, I don't think Disney Star Wars did a good job with all that. It seemed like JJ set up these characters and Johnson almost erased what they were or what their story arc was going to be. I guess people like being surprised about how different they were or how differently they were used against expectations. I can see that. It's often a good idea to go against the expected but I think it was done poorly here. I thought TFA was pretty ok but I have almost no interest in what happens going forward after TLJ. I think Disney Star Wars would have been much better served with someone in charge of the story arc and the direction of the legacy films or what ever they call the non spin off films.