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No good movie is too long and no bad movie is short enough.
-Roger Ebert
The length of TLJ was the most common criticism by far, with 50% of RT Top Critic's citing it as a problem. Thus, this is the longest entry of this series, and possibly the last, unless I do a smaller part on niche issues. Previous parts cover Humor and Canto Bight.

The movie is overstuffed with plot, and by the time the visually intoxicating and eye-popping last showdown happens, it feels like a set piece that should have been saved for the next film. At a whopping two hours and 32 minutes, “The Last Jedi” overstays its welcome just a tad.

Katie Walsh, Tribune News Service - Fresh

Writer-director Rian Johnson steps into the franchise fray and does a creditable, if uninspired, job. At about 2-1/2 hours, it’s a long sit.

Peter Rainer,Christian Science Monitor - Fresh

Rian Johnson delivers a film that’s a bit too long at 2½ hours

Calvin Wilson, St. Louis Post-Dispatch - Fresh

Does the movie, like its predecessor, rely on familiar tropes a bit more than it should? Yes, I think it does. Is it, at a solid two-and-a-half hours, considerably longer than it needed to be? Yes, that too.

Christopher Orr, The Atlantic - Fresh

It’s simply too long at two hours and 36 minutes – and sometimes too damn much. The screen is so crowded with character and incident that you might need a scorecard to keep up.

Peter Travers, Rolling Stone - Fresh

The problem is that the narrative threads connecting them are lazily knitted and sometimes tangled or broken. The overall plot is underwhelming and there’s far too much padding, especially during the first hour. There’s a sense that Johnson is giving busy-work to certain characters while others are catching up. The Last Jedi is a great 105-minute movie stretched too thin.

James Berardinelli, ReelViews - Fresh

The midsection sags and, other than the heroes’ desperate attempts to survive, there’s no central story line to pull the various satellites of action in its wake. Some of the characters, like Captain Phasma, get frustratingly little screen time.You feel the 2½-hour length at points.

Ty Burr, Boston Globe - Fresh

The movie, though - at 152 minutes, easily the lengthiest in the series - drags in the middle, particularly when Rose and Finn go off on a complicated mission to disable an enemy tracking device. The subplot not only goes nowhere, it takes forever to do so, and makes me wonder if this new trilogy is going to have the same problem as the prequels - material for two terrific films stretched out over three.

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger - Fresh

The film’s paunchy middle section includes a trip to a casino that might better have ended up on the cutting-room floor. The unnecessary padding accounts for the 152-minute running time, a franchise record, which will test the patience (and bladders) of even the most devoted followers.

Peter Howell, Toronto Star - Fresh

Nor is its frankly excessive 152-minute running time. There is no excuse for a long, inessential stampede of runaway space horses that has zero value beyond the sheer "Ben-Hur" spectacle of the thing.

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune - Fresh

Johnson's many additions become too much of a good thing and The Last Jedi grows crowded, busy and long. Johnson's dialogue is flat and sounds stilted in the mouths of his younger actors, while their comic delivery can be so offhand that it dismisses the jokes.

Kate Taylor, Globe and Mail - Rotten

The film simply drags too much in the middle. Somewhere in the film’s 152-minute running time is an amazing 90-minute movie.

Chris Nashawaty, Entertainment Weekly - Fresh

Johnson at times overreaches trying to balance these separate storylines and myriad of characters into one cohesive unit. Lupita Nyong’o has nothing to do in her glorified cameo appearance, while the Del Toro section fails to reach its potential. The result is a bloated running time of about 2 ½ hours — that includes about seven different points in which I was sure the movie was going to end only to see it continue to plow ahead. You always want your Star Wars films to move at light speed, not drag in the middle.

Mara Reinstein, Us Weekly - Fresh

At other points in the 152-minute film, time should have been compressed, and wasn’t. The storytelling bogs down in a middle section having to do with finding a code-cracker who can gain access to an enemy destroyer. (A dubious character played by Benicio Del Toro isn’t sufficiently amusing.) Kylo’s inner conflicts, while central to the plot, leave him looking awfully mopey for long periods of time as he struggles to resolve them.

Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal - Fresh

With a running time of two and a half hours, “The Last Jedi” drags a bit in the second act. Ridley and Hamill are great together, but the Reluctant Jedi act plays on for at least one scene too many.

Richard Roeper, Chicago Sun-Times - Fresh

Johnson’s effort is ultimately a disappointment. If anything, it demonstrates just how effective supervising producer Kathleen Kennedy and the forces that oversee this now Disney-owned property are at molding their individual directors’ visions into supporting a unified corporate aesthetic — a process that chewed up and spat out helmers such as Colin Trevorrow, Gareth Edwards, Phil Lord and Christopher Miller. But Johnson was either strong enough or weak enough to adapt to such pressures, and the result is the longest and least essential chapter in the series.

Peter Debruge, Variety - Fresh

Unfortunately, The Last Jedi has almost as much Attack of the Clones as it does The Empire Strikes Back in that it’s overlong, under-edited and has at least one particularly long-winded CGI flurry of a sequence that harkens back to the darkest days of the franchise. There’s no whining about sand getting everywhere and the acting is really strong across the board (Hamill is particularly great back in Jedi robes, ham and all) but The Last Jedi could definitely have used a second editorial pass.

Matt Oakes, Silver Screen Riot - Fresh

At 2 1/2 hours, Star Wars: The Last Jedi could have been tightened-up in the editing room, cutting out that bloated middle section and removing things like Maz Kanata’s cameo and the cute slave kids which feel like they dropped in from a totally different movie. When it works, it really works but when it doesn’t, it feels like bad fan-fiction with a million dollar budget.

Niall Browne, Movies in Focus - Fresh

I can only wonder what The Last Jedi might have been with Finn and Poe taking a backseat (like how the latter was absent for three-quarters of The Force Awakens) so thirty minutes could be cut and the “important” stuff made tighter. Because there is a great film within what’s ultimately a good one.

Jared Mobarak, BuffaloVibe - Fresh

Whereas the first half is a sort of a convoluted mess just for the sake to pad out the runtime especially with an inconsistent tone, "The Last Jedi" becomes a dark and exciting sequel that becomes the film you've been looking for by the 75-minute mark.

Rendy Jones, Rendy Reviews, Fresh

the film is probably 10-15 minutes too long. Yes, Snoke (Andy Serkis) was not given near enough explanation and Phasma (Gwendoline Christie) was wasted.

Robert Daniels, 812filmreviews - Fresh

It's a two-and-a-half hour movie. It needs to be good in its own right, not just setting up for the next episode.

Tony Baker, Tony Baker Comedy - Rotten

Johnson ends up biting off more than he can chew. He's juggling too many storylines, and takes too long to move the narrative forward. Fatigue sets in about three-quarters of the way in. He doesn't heed the lesson of the chapter “Jedi” often resembles, “The Empire Strikes Back.” That film, still the best “Star Wars.,” ended with a whopper of a cliffhanger. Johnson resists the urge to leave most of his strands unresolved, and as a result his film begins to feel unwieldy when it should be picking up momentum. At two and a half hours, it could have used a trim of at least 15 minutes.

Ruben Rosario, MiamiArtZine - Fresh

but there are problems with the first half of "The Last Jedi." After an exciting initial space battle, to say that the mid-section of the movie drags would be an understatement. First, both prominent new characters Rose and DJ seemed shoe-horned in, and Rose especially doesn't seem to have a real place in this film nor does she add anything to be hopeful about in the future. And while both Rey and Poe fans will probably be pleased with where their characters go, Finn sort of takes a step back, as he is sent off on a side adventure that seems like second-tier Star Wars. It's a diversion that takes up a good portion of the film and really serves no purpose to the overall story...worse yet, it seems to contain some heavy-handed political messages not commonly found, at least not this blatantly, in the Star Wars universe. These are more than just quibbles too: Most fans will not be used to the slow, lumbering pace or the general unevenness of this film...especially coming on the heels of the action-packed pacing that JJ Abrams brought in Episode VII.

Tom Santilli, AXS.com - Fresh

Star Wars: The Last Jedi is also, at two hours and thirty-two minutes, the longest of the nine movies thus far, and deep into the second hour it can feel a little draining. There’s some stuff that feels extraneous (the whole Canto Bight sequence, which seems to exist to set up a new Lando-like character played by Benicio del Toro), and the cycle of attack and retreat — mostly retreat — gets a bit monotonous.

Rob Gonsalves, eFilmCritic.com - Fresh

At times it burns a tad too slow: two-thirds through its jam-packed 152 minutes, I felt the need for a 7th-inning stretch.

Michael Sragow, Film Comment Magazine - Fresh

Aunque este clímax habría funcionado bien como final, “The Last Jedi” no termina (desafortunadamente) después de esto. Es seguido por otros 40 minutos, con baches, en los que los héroes se reúnen y tienen que pelear una batalla final. Sin embargo, la película pierde un poco de su trazabilidad aquí, cuando los personajes, las fuerzas y las explosiones siempre aparecen exactamente donde se necesitan para la trama.

Ruben Peralta Rigaud, Cocalecas - Fresh

The movie’s main failing is that it tries to stuff too much plot into its over-long 2 hour and 30 minute run time. The result is an ending that feels endless and anti-climactic while several elements that could have been gob-smacking feel rushed and underdeveloped. It particularly does a disservice to Kylo Ren, as we’re never quite sure what his motivation is.

Megan Basham, WORLD - Fresh

I both loved it and strongly disliked it at the same time. I feel like there's a really great movie in there, all the pieces are there, everything is brilliant, but then there's a lot of extra fat that needed to be trimmed off or rearranged or omitted completely.

Steph Cozza, Aggressive Comix - Fresh

At two-and-a-half hours, with about nine separate cliffhanger endings, it’s a bit long

Bill O'Driscoll, Pittsburgh City Paper - Fresh

If you can accept the excess, the weird humour, the entirely inessential subplot, and the fact that it could stand to end a scene earlier, then the series will continue to thrive in a galaxy far, far away.

Alex Doenau, Trespass - Fresh

The script is flabby; every scene has purpose, but certain aspects feel overlong and jarring. Just like Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, it also suffers several endings too many.

Owen Richards, The Arts Desk - Fresh

At two and a half hours, this is the longest Star Wars picture to date, and I wondered if they’d tried to pack too much in.

Molly Laich, Missoula Independent - Fresh

I’m saying some of this movie seems a little half baked, and also overstuffed. If there’s any kind of movie I want to be over two and a half hours long, it’s a Star Wars movie. But, at that length, it needs to be a really good Star Wars movie, not a so-so one. The Last Jedi is so-so.

Bob Grimm, Reno News and Review - Fresh

The Last Jedi has a few good ideas but these are utterly lost amidst an over-long and utterly unsatisfying overall plot. Replete with poor dialogue, irritating tonal shifts and superfluous scenes, The Last Jedi adds very little to the saga except an overwhelming sense of disappointment not felt since the release of The Phantom Menace.

Richard Dove, International Business Times - Rotten

It is more than 150 minutes long. It has too many plot twists and too much fighting and too many characters.

Mark R. Leeper, Mark Leeper's Reviews - Fresh

Many have complained or commented on the length of The Last Jedi. It did start to feel long towards the end, yet I don’t think it was due to the actual time stamp of the film. Instead, I believe it is because of the drawn out plots within the film itself. Many parts of the story are over showcased destroying the strength and believably in the plot.

Stephanie Archer, Film Inquiry - Fresh

This film did not need to be 152 minutes and should have been closer to the 120 minute standard established by the earlier films. I hope one day we’ll see a fan cut that is actually closer to two hours.

Chris Gore, Film Threat - Fresh

The Last Jedi is still overstuffed, slightly too long, reliant on some vaguely-defined powers, and mostly consists of an endless chase towards a shifting MacGuffin.

Vincent Mancini, FilmDrunk - Fresh

The Last Jedi is 50 fucking minutes too long, and the most excruciatingly boring movie that has ever been released in this franchise. And this is a franchise that once opened up a movie by talking about controversial tax legislation.

Tim Brayton, Alternate Ending - Rotten

The Last Jedi has some issues. Pacing is the biggest one. This is the longest Star Wars film so far, and it feels like it. Johnson does his best to hustle from one location to the next, but the narrative has a tendency from time to time to drag.

Chris Evangelista, Slashfilm - Fresh

While Luke leads the Force thread, the battle between good and evil, the rest feels a bit standard issue action film lurching through one, or two, too many cycles of near peril. This is in part down to writer-director Rian Johnson and also down to patchy leads.

Aine O'Connor, Sunday Independent (Ireland) - Fresh

Writedirector Rian Johnson’s movie is underwhelming. Where it falters is a story that borrows heavily from others in the franchise like The Empire Strikes Back. That I can live with, but I can’t live with unnecessary length. This is an overdone 2 1/2 hour movie that would have been a terrific 90-minute extravaganza.
The first hour drags. The predictable second hour is just as tedious in more spots than not before Johnson finally moves you to the even more predictable slam bang action of the last half-hour.

Gary Wolcott, Tri-City Herald - Fresh

At 152 minutes, The Last Jedi is the longest of the nine Star Wars films to date — it’s also the only one where the length is felt. While all the scenes involving younglings should have been deep-sixed, the rest of the fatty tissue can be forgiven, since it simply meant Johnson wanted to make sure fans were saturated and satisfied. Yet there aren’t many vignettes that couldn’t have benefited from a judicious trim here or there.

Matt Brunson, Creative Loafing(Charlotte) - Fresh

At 2 hours and 32 minutes, the longest ever in the series, there are lots of highlights and probably a few too many endings

Pete Hammond, Deadline Hollywood Daily - Fresh

Despite the Rey-Luke drama, the first half of The Last Jedi is its most lumbering and uneven, never really clicking as it rambles through its multiple plotlines in a manner that feels simultaneously rushed and overlong.

James Kendrick, Q Network Film Desk - Fresh

However, there are moments towards the end of the film that feel as though they are just a tad unnecessary, that the race to the finale is going on just a little too long.

Irene Falvey, Film Ireland Magazine - Fresh

So what's necessary to know about the 40th anniversary "Star Wars" is that, at two and a half hours, it's at least a half-hour too long (maybe 45 minutes) and it's overfull of the usual digital battle sequences which so many of us have come to consider a wee bit old hat in the decades since "Star Wars" introduced us to a new thing back in 1977.

Jeff Simon, Buffalo News - Fresh

Johnson has sorted all of this material into an elaborate roundelay that feels endless (the movie is way too long at two and a half hours). Surely sections of the film could have been trimmed—maybe the Laura Dern scenes, which cry out for compression, or the training sequences with Luke and Rey (in which he says things like "Reach out with your feelings").

Kurt Loder, Reason Online - Fresh

The film is long, however, and begins to feel more than a little labored by the time the various epic showdowns finally take place.

Piers Marchant, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette - Rotten

A lot of “The Last Jedi” is engrossing and emotional—but there’s also the long runtime, uneven pacing, and slightly underdeveloped characters to deal with. “The Last Jedi” is often exceptional, but its desire to do too many things, tell too many stories, and continue expanding its own cast and narrative makes the film fundamentally imbalanced.

Roxana Hadadi, Chesapeake Family Magazine - Fresh

There is a great deal going on in The Last Jedi and the way it splits off the main characters into separate but intertwined stories makes for a long, over-plotted film that even starts to drag a little in the middle.

Allan Hunter, Daily Express (UK) - Fresh

A few of the goofier comic moments fail to land and true to the legacy of Lucas there’s a fair amount of eye-wincing dialogue. More importantly, the second act bows under the weight of too many narrative strands; Finn’s away mission comes off as a bit superfluous, as does Laura Dern’s Vice Admiral Holdo, and both Rose and the beloved Chewbacca (Joonas Suotamo) are sadly underwritten. In a trade-off that brings scope and complexity, Johnson has sacrificed narrative efficiency.

Christopher Machell, CineVue - Fresh

If “The Last Jedi” has a main flaw it’s that it’s too long at just over two-and-a-half hours. When the film is cross-cutting between the escape of the Resistance and the showdown with Snoke, one might assume this was the climax of the film. In fact, there’s much more to come.

Daniel M. Kimmel, New England Movies Weekly - Fresh

At 152 minutes, "Star Wars: The Last Jedi" is too long, and could have been trimmed by at least 10-15 minutes.

David Kaplan, Kaplan vs. Kaplan - Fresh

Despite being overlong and drenched in déjà vu (replete with conversations about one’s parents, whether or not one will ‘turn’, whether one is the last hope or the new hope, etcetera etcetera) I appreciated a lot of The Last Jedi, in the same way I appreciate re-reading a decent book – respecting the structure and craft of it, and feeling no sense of surprise.

Luke Buckmaster, The Daily Review/Crikey - Rotten

At 152 minutes, “The Last Jedi” is probably 20 minutes too long yet never fails to entertain.

Maria Sciullo, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette - Fresh

If some of these detours drag on a bit, hampering momentum and bulking up The Last Jedi’s not-entirely-necessary two-hour-and 32-minute runtime, well, at least the various locales are fun to look at.

Rebecca Pahle, Film Journal International - Fresh

a running time of 152 or so minutes that easily could have been tightened down quite a bit

Jim Judy, Screen It! - Fresh

While many complained – justifiably – that the previous entry, The Force Awakens, was nothing but a remake of 1977’s A New Hope, the same sort of narrative déjà vu is at play here, to a certain degree. Equally troublesome is Jedi’s bloated running time. Clocking in at 2 ½ hours, the movie seems longer than it actually is due to the fact we’re going over well-covered narrative territory.

Charles Koplinski, Illinois Times - Rotten

It’s too long by a good 30 minutes, feels like two films mashed together, has about five endings and it seems to be taking cues from the George R. R. Martin school of right-angled plot twists.

Patrick Kolan, Shotgun Cinema - Fresh

Overly long and consistently clunky, The Last Jedi ultimately proves a bit of a mixed bag. Too often the dialogue is exposition heavy and played for easy laughs.

Tom Glasson, Concrete Playground - Fresh

The Last Jedi is overlong, heavy-handed and fun if mostly uninspired.

James Verniere, Boston Herald - Fresh

At 151 minutes, the film is overlong and repetition sets in, not just for this film but for the series in general

Laura Clifford, Reeling Reviews - Fresh

The Last Jedi is the party that never wants to end. It keeps going and going – and going – until there is no corner of the house left to decorate. It pushes all the buttons. It is constantly in competition with itself (it comes with two huge ending sequences). It is also baggy in places, and that’s not something I’d expected.

Chris Wasser, The Herald (Ireland) - Fresh

At the same time, it does take a while for “Last Jedi” to get up to speed. Some of the humor feels a little distracting and the lengthy final product suggests a tighter execution might have felt more resonant.

Josh Terry, Deseret News (Salt Lake City) - Fresh

Or maybe it's just a case of "The Last Jedi" itself overstaying its welcome with a running time topping two and a half hours.

Greg Maki, Star-Democrat (Easton, MD) - Fresh

This is the longest Star Wars movie yet, clocking in at 150 minutes, and it has at least one ending too many, and a middle that sags a bit.

Rain Jokinen, MullingMovies.com - Fresh

We’ve seen this story before. Sure, “stuff” happens over the film’s 157-minutes but our main characters remain pretty much in the same place. You’d swear time stands still.

Dana Barbuto, The Patriot Ledger - Fresh

“The Last Jedi” is the longest of the “Star Wars” efforts (152 minutes) and feels it

Brian Orndorf, Blu-ray.com - Fresh

At 152 minutes, it’s also way too damn long. And Rian Johnson should not have been allowed to write and direct. The script is a problem — it has only two really great “moments” which isn’t enough for 152 minutes. But it also doesn’t feel quite right — the language, the iconography, the weirdly campy humor at the beginning — it doesn’t feel a part of the Star Wars universe.

Ray Greene, CineGods.com - Rotten

But the character moments and the explorations of moral ambiguity aren’t quite compelling enough to compensate for the slow pacing in the middle (one thing a Star Wars movie should never be is dull), and it takes too long to get to the most rousing action sequences.

Josh Bell, Las Vegas Weekly - Fresh

I don’t want to be too generous. I would cut 15 minutes out. There are editing choices that leave the film feeling choppy when it should feel smooth.

David Poland, Movie City News - Fresh

In truth, it takes a very long time to get from the film’s exhilarating start to that moving sign-off. Stars Wars: The Last Jedi lasts fully two-and-a-half hours, and there were moments towards the end when I felt like one of those poor Cubans listening to Fidel Castro at the height of his oratorical vigour: just as you’re planning your route to the exit, it lurches into yet another new lease of life.

Brian Viner, Daily Mail (UK) - Fresh

Editor Bob Ducsay moves the individual sequences along with dispatch; it isn’t his fault that at two-and-a-half hours the movie overstays its welcome. That’s the fault of Johnson’s decision to pile climax upon climax as if they were on sale at Screenplays-R-Us, apparently unwilling to jettison any of the ideas he’s had for propelling the story forward.

Frank Swietek, One Guy's Opinion - Fresh

Which leads into another problem I mentioned briefly earlier -- the pacing. Watching the first hour, I had the uncomfortable sense that maybe it needed trimming by about ten minutes or so, and that Rey's and Luke's story kept stalling and going in circles for a while. Then, the pacing in the last hour is so spot-on, it confirms all of those earlier feelings. Adding to the problem is the choice of starting point for the film. I realize kicking off with a more action-driven sequence has benefits, but it felt disorienting since we remember how the last film ended and probably want to pick up that thread first. It was an easy call, I feel, and the film's choice merely confirms my own sense that there was a better option.

Mark Hughes, Forbes - Fresh

The 2 hr and 30-minute runtime really hurt the film. I feel like there are just certain spots throughout the film where it just drags. It hard to pinpoint exactly when and where they occur on just one viewing but I was definitely bored at times.

Scott Menzel, We Live Entertainment - Fresh

“The Last Jedi” suffers from “The Lord of the Rings” syndrome — it seems like it might never end. It also poaches scenes, ideas and moments from “Harry Potter,” “The Hunger Games” and “Guardians of the Galaxy.”

David Frese, Kansas City Star - Fresh

At 152 minutes, “The Last Jedi” runs long, with a bit too much time spent on Ahch-To. And Hamill — who shares the weathered, lion-like look of modern-day Robert Plant — turns in a true love-it-or-hate-it portrayal of an aged Skywalker.

Ross Raihala, St. Paul Pioneer Press - Fresh

At over two-and-a-half hours, the film had me reconsidering if I really needed a Finn v. Phasma fight, or a five-act structure. So consider the urgency. A wordsmith in his own right, Johnson seems to be dumbing himself down here for the sake of the brand. He manages to pose some of the most complex ideas on morality and war this franchise has ever attempted, but is forced to breeze through and cap them off with trite buzzwords.

Conor O'Donnell, The Film Stage - Fresh

The film is overlong at two and a half hours, and you may well catch yourself thinking “this could probably have been cut.”

Jonathan Hatfull, SciFiNow - Fresh

Yes, it’s probably half an hour too long. There is a whole section that feels out of kilter and harks back to the CGI naffness of the prequels — and is also virtually pointless to the plot.

Jamie East, The Sun (UK) - Fresh

The middle section loses its shape and is subject to longueurs.

Ian Freer, Empire Magazine - Fresh

The Last Jedi is the longest Star wars movie, and it does feel like it. The third act is a beating drum of moments that each seem like they could be a satisfying climax.

Susana Polo, Polygon - Fresh

Where the film falters is in its pacing. Even jumping between three storylines, there’s a lack of momentum at times as no one is really going anywhere. The Resistance fleet is crawling away from the First Order; Rey is in a stalemate with Luke on Ahch-To; and obviously things aren’t a breeze on Canto Bight. And yet the dramatic tension of the first two storylines hold up intact. The fleet storyline plays like the excellent Battlestar Galactica episode “33” and everything is Ahch-To is great because Johnson is doing some fascinating things with the character dynamics between Rey, Luke, and Kylo Ren. But the Canto Bight stuff is a bit of a drag, and then you feel it in final act of the film where, despite some amazing moments, you can’t shake the feeling that The Last Jedi is probably a bit too long even if it’s difficult to know what to cut.

Matt Goldberg, Collider - Fresh

There's a lot going on - too much. The film could have used a hard edit to lose about 20 minutes or more. Resistance ships explode and the fleet's fuel running low, but it doesn't keep us on the edges of our seats. Poe, Rey and Finn- the new heroes we're supposed to fall in love with - are uncharismatic and bland.

Julie Washington, Cleveland Plain Dealer - Fresh

Star Wars: The Last Jedi is a long work of art that doesn't know when to quit

Scott Mendelson, Forbes - Fresh

If there's a problem, it's only that it's a little too long at two and a half hours (a first for the franchise), which might prove challenging for younger viewers. It turns out you can have too much of a good thing after all.

Matthew Turner, Hero Collector - Fresh

Tran is a rock-solid addition, but here, and elsewhere, one is reminded of the deftness of editing on both (yes, both) previous trilogies. Intercut sequences that moved swiftly in earlier films feel clumsy. Where once the passing of time was cannily implied yet compact on screen in, say, “Empire,” in “Last Jedi,” well ... you can fit a lot of movie into 152 minutes.

Joe Gross, Austin American-Statesman - Fresh

But The Last Jedi’s two-and-half-hour sprawl still includes an awful lot of clunky, derivative, and largely unnecessary incidents to wade through in order to get to its maverick last act. This is especially true when it comes to the plausibility-straining mission of stormtrooper turned Rebel Alliance fighter Finn and puckish series newcomer Rose Tico.

Sam C. Mac, Slant Magazine - Rotten

Some tighter editing would have relieved most of my mid-movie tension — as well as my bladder concerns as “The Last Jedi” stretches to an unnecessarily long 151 minutes. If not for that spectacular final act, it would be tempting to refer to it as “The Lasts and Lasts and Lasts Jedi.”

Christopher Lawrence, Las Vegas Review-Journal - Fresh

The Last Jedi is a whopping two-and-a-half hours, and it would have been much improved if an editor had taken a lightsaber to its less crucial sections.
To cut a long story short (and I wish Johnson had cut his own long story short): if you’re getting bored halfway through The Last Jedi, hang on in there. Just when you think it’s about to end, it really gets going.

Nicholas Barber, BBC.com - Fresh

For the first half of a punishingly long film, we repeatedly cut back to Star Wars Island where Rey is begging Luke to train her as a Jedi.

Donald Clarke Irish Times Rotten

There are times, however, when the wow factor and compelling character beats give way to the feeling that Johnson lost the run of himself with the film's duration, and that the longest adventure in Star Wars history really didn't need that distinction.

Harry Guerin, RTÉ (Ireland) - Fresh

Several characters remain underdeveloped, and appear as well dressed plot devices which contribute to an unevenness hard to justify in the 151 minutes running time.

Jon Lyus, HeyUGuys - Fresh

Even Johnson’s sense of fun and mischief can’t sustain the film for two-and-a-half hours; the warring gets boring. One scene is replayed three times with different interpretations but it’s hardly Rashomon and a movie this long can’t afford to dawdle. No one could mistake The Last Jedi for an outstanding contribution to cinema, or even to escapism, but it has its attractions.

Ryan Gilbey, New Statesman - Fresh
Indeed it does, Ryan. And that concludes part III. TL;DR:TLJ is TL.

I've machine translated an article from ResearchGate.net that is further research on the subject of Quadra Progression. I didn't change much of the translation here. It is a little rough at times, but the parts that really matter are basically clear enough to leave alone. When I note the presence of infographics, I'd recommend referring to the original link to see what the translation is referring to. The format of the source doesn't play well with machine translators so the content of the infographics I wasn't able to translate, but you can get the gist. It took much more effort than I was expecting to translate this article, but I think that it is worthwhile to see what the Socionics view of history is and how it compares and contrasts to Strauss-Howe. It is different, less neatly and clearly defined, but I think it adds some interesting dimensions, namely the differentiation between quadra epochs and quadra sub-phases. The article is too large to post here, so the second half will be in the comments. The following is the translation of the article.
LECTURES ON INTEGRATED SOCIONIC UDC 159.923.2
Bukalov AV FORECASTING SOCIAL POLITICAL PROCESSES
The application of the law of replacement of Bukalov-Gulenko quadras and the concepts of integral socionics analyzes the events of recent history in Russia, the United States, and Ukraine. The interaction of state leaders of different countries with national mentality is described. Various aspects of the world economic crisis are analyzed in connection with the integral type of the United States. Key words: socionics, intertype relations, ethnopsychology, integral type of ethnos, state management. There are a lot of components in this thread. I will try to dwell on some issues, in particular, I will consider in detail the law of removability of quadra [1]. Let's start from the beginning. Recall that we have socionics, that is, the theory of psycho-information structures, or the psyche - individual and societal. And any psyche processes 8 aspects of the information flow. The instrument for this is the type of information metabolism. There is a certain dynamics of processing information: information moves 4-tact, on two rings - the vital and the mental. We also know that there are 16 types of information metabolism, they form a society - a single integrated system. And within this system, types are interconnected by inter-type interactions-intertype relationships. And moreover, there are social order and control relations in the societal - from 1st quadra to 4th and back - from 4th quadra to 1st. That is, the direct transmission of information and control and return transmission.
As soon as there is a transmission of information from the quadra to the quad, the dynamics appears. From this follows what was later called the law of removability of the quadra. How did we find this? Considering an era, some phases of the development of society, the society as a whole.
First, we can begin an abstract consideration: there is a system that is described by a combination of 8 information aspects, and it has its own dynamics of processing information. It turns out that if we look closely at this system, then we can distinguish four phases in it – Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta - which replace each other. A certain period of development of society can be described by one of such phases. When the corresponding phase occurs, then on the wave of this phase, as they say on the crest of this wave, there are people with types belonging to the quadra corresponding to this phase. Thus, we can see that some social and political movement first arises, then it acquires some organizational forms, then these forms break down, then the socionics, mentology and personality psychology change, and finally the movement ceases, comes to a steady, steady state. This, for example, concerns political parties.
On the other hand, since the entire human civilization, in general, is also such an information system, and any culture can be so described, we can globally look at it. Classical history, historiography identifies certain phases of the development of society - primitive and savage, primitive communal relations, then class relations, then the development of capitalism, etc. And, according to historians, civilization begins with the emergence of cities and states. Actually, the beginning of writing, money, etc., is fixed by history as the beginning of civilization. This scheme is generally accepted, no one opposed it - neither in the West, nor even Marxists. This was the fundamental thesis: there is a state - the machinery of violence - and the class history of mankind begins. And before that there was prehistory.
The problem, however, is that states began to emerge not so long ago, historically, of course. The oldest, in Shumi, is the 4th millennium BC. E., And in other territories of the state appeared in 2,000 – 3,000 BCE. What was before then? Really before that there was prehistory?
It turns out that before that, well-known monuments of material and spiritual culture, say, the same Stonehenge in England, on the Salisbury Plain, were erected. And the pre-historic people who lived in communities, under the rule of the leaders, did not know writing, which did not have cities, it turned out, perfectly able to process stone and erect huge structures - wooden or stone, like Stonehenge. Moreover, they possessed the highest astronomical knowledge, I no longer speak of processing technology, the installation of multi-tonnages weighing tens of tons of stones, but that astronomical information, which is encrypted in the same megaliths, is so sophisticated ... It is now considered Proved that the rings of Stonehenge model the ten planets of the Solar System and many other astronomical objects and phenomena. Moreover, it turns out that in the place of Stonehenge even before the stone structure was wooden. And next to it there was one more -Woodhenge. Moreover, at this time, almost synchronously throughout the vast expanse of Eurasia, up to the Trans-Urals, similar structures were built, mostly of wood, of course. Again, the information that was encrypted in them is completely unique. The oldest such ring of megaliths was found in southern Egypt, one can say in Nubia, on the border with Libya, it dates back to the 6th millennium BCE. Of course, there were no states then.
If you take, for example, the temples of the island of Malta, and there are dozens of these temples, and, apparently, when the island sank under the water, many such temples disappeared under water - there are roads and stuff - it's again 4,000-3,000 BCE. A sophisticated technique of working with a stone, sophisticated solar coding, stellar. The orientation of all these structures, connected with equinox and other astronomical events ... Again, all this was created at a time when there was no written language, there was no state. Nevertheless, somebody organized these works, somebody did all this synchronously. That is, the society was undoubtedly sufficiently developed, but there was no civilization in the historical sense. There is a paradox ...
The existing historical paradigm in this sense cuts off a giant piece of human history. But this phase lasted, without exaggeration, for several thousand years. The first villages and even cities appeared very long ago: Jericho – 9,000 BCE., Chatal-Guyuk in Asia Minor, in the territory of modern Turkey - the 7th millennium BCE. Even the Sphinx, which stands on the Giza plateau near the pyramids, as geologists have shown, was hollowed out and made not simultaneously with the pyramids, not in the 3rd millennium BCE., But much earlier. It was created around at least 7,500 BCE. It turned out very simply. American geologists began to study it and found that the Sphinx is in a trench, where limestone was extracted, and deep furrows remained on the trench and the Sphinx. From what? They began to investigate: if sand had left them, then the furrows would be of the same species, and furrows with all others. Just the same as water does, more precisely - strong streams of rainwater. The problem is that throughout the well-known history of the Sphinx periodically swept the sand, it’s all the time, regularly dug up. There was a question: when did the rains and sand go? It turned out that the rains were between the seventh and fourth millennia BC. E. Those rains that could leave such traces ... And there was no sand, because this area was green, there grew grass ... People made the Sphinx 7,500 years BCE., A little later than Jericho was built. And next to it, right before the Sphinx, stands the Sphinx temple. This temple is made of that limestone that was taken out of the trench. Among the floors in this temple there are blocks of 50 tons. How do you raise 50 tons? The stones of Stonehenge are 10 tons, for example. And then they still wonder how they were raised. And how to raise 50 tons? Today, the whole world has two cranes that lift such a weight. In general, everything is very difficult to explain, but this temple has the same gates. And the most curious, which few people paid attention to, (but I was there in Egypt and specially photographed it) - this temple was so sacred for the ancient Egyptians, who in the third millennium BCE. They either erected or modernized the pyramids, making an internal granite cloak for this temple, they kept these furrows. And these are not slabs, but large, thick, massive blocks of red granite that cover the entire interior of the temple. So, the granite they blew up so that they closed the cavity (gully) in this temple. Granite is much harder than limestone and harder to process. But, apparently, it was so important and sacred for them that they did not even dare to rinse or rumble these gullies, but in their form, they drilled hard granite. So, these bogs have survived to our time.
What is this phase of history? You can argue a lot, put forward a variety of hypotheses, down to aliens. But in any case, since this process took place globally, that is, it was in Egypt, Eurasia, and other parts of the world, then, of course, there were some general characteristics of it.
When they began to understand the structure of societies, which, in particular, were associated with megaliths and other material remnants-the same Triplanskaya civilization, in the Balkans it is the culture of linear ceramics, and many others-it turned out that these societies existed for thousands years. They were governed by the leaders, they had a very developed religious and other ritual culture, but they did not have a state. What is this phase?
If from the point of view of socionics we look at the characteristics given by the modern historical paradigm, then the beginning of human civilization, that is, the presence of the state, writing, army, etc. - is that? These are typical manifestations of what we call the phase Beta. Then we can compare everything that we talked about a little bit earlier - and high knowledge and so on - and understand that it was a phase Alpha. And in phase Alpha, in fact, in contrast to phase Beta, organizational structures are very weak, but spiritual and other knowledge are very high, which are achieved intuitively.
Megaliths and other structures are surprising, in particular, "what high knowledge is encrypted in such a design." But if we look at a graph that was built by me long ago [3], we will see how the redistribution of free information in different squares is proceeding. In phase Alpha - a huge amount of free information, phase Beta - limiting information. Next, the next burst is the Gamma phase and, finally, some kind of stabilization - phase Delta. But at the same time there is an inverse process, let's say, materialization-Information. And it turns out that in phase Alpha it is weak, the largest peak reaches in the second phase, then a small dip in the Gamma phase, and finally a long phase of large-scale information materialization, that is, the phase of accumulation of material values-phase Delta, when ideas are little, but people live very well. This is how several countries in Western Europe, which have already reached this phase, live in it.
It is clear that then we can compare with the vast period of history, from about the seventh millennium BCE. Up to the second – third millennium BCE., The phase of Alpha. Almost five thousand years lasted phase Alpha. This is very long time. How many modern civilizations exist? From Christ's Nativity - only 2000 years. And the same Trypillian culture or related cultures in the Balkans existed for more than 5000 years. This is a completely different scale. Moreover, they existed without any major shocks - stably and calmly. Apparently, they tried to somehow live in harmony with nature and environment, all this was achieved through complex rituals, any action had some sacred meaning, etc. But these cultures were very stable: 4-5 thousand years is not a joke.
INFOGRAPHIC, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP:
Beta. The formation of a centralized, up to totalitarian, governance structure with the implementation of grandiose projects is accompanied by a sharp decrease in the circulation of free information in society-it is transformed into "construction projects of the century"
Delta. The stabilization phase: almost all free information is linked to the material, technological and other achievements of the society. The minimum number of fundamentally new ideas, conservatism.
Gamma. "Perestroika": the increase in freely circulating information is accompanied by the collapse of the administrative command system, its economic, social and production structures.
Alpha. The maximum of free information circulating in society, and the minimum of its implementation (materialization).
Circulation of free (ρ (I)) and materialized (ρ (E)) information in society.
Then, because of drought and other troubles, these cultures are slowly disappearing, dying, and new cultures are emerging, including in Eurasia, with Indo-Europeans, who at this time tamed the horse and began occupying these lands, practically without resistance. When they say that there were wars there, this does not correspond to archaeological data. There just happened a certain natural crisis, and the phase changed.
And the synchronism of this phase is amazing. Not only did Indo-Europeans simply occupy settlements, say, in the territory of Ukraine Tripolye and others. But if you take the same India, it was once thought that the fierce Aryans came with their flocks and horses to the territory of India and all began to destroy and destroy, including the civilization of Mohenjo-Daro. But later studies have shown that the Mohenjo-Daro civilization died of natural causes (droughts and floods) several hundred years before the arrival of the Aryan tribes. The fact that the arias in India were not conquerors and did not destroy the Dravidian tribes, but actually assimilated them, is even said by the structure of the Indian pantheon. There are also Shiva and other gods, many of them clearly Dravidian, South Indian. They were integrated, possibly together with religious and philosophical ideas, and thus Hinduism arose.
These protocivilizations, Alpha-cultures died under the influence of internal and natural causes. That is, they, as they say, just lived their own phase.
Since historians were inclined to see history as a process of continuous wars and conquests, they gave it some aggressive coloring. But in fact, not every culture can survive for several thousand years without much shock.
Knowing socionics, we can say that the historical paradigm should include not only the 2nd phase, but also the 1st, Alpha-phase ... That prehistory, in which people only learned farming, cattle breeding, etc.
It's another matter, that since these phases are very global, and now we see the development of capitalism, then, do we really have the third phase? Nothing like this. Since the world consists of states, the state according to Lenin is the "apparatus of violence", coercion, in fact, in the global sense, for the human civilization, there is a second phase. Only it lives its subphases: -Alpha subphase, Beta-subphase, Gamma-subphase. It can be assumed that now mankind is experiencing a certain Gamma-sub-phase, but within the framework of this global 2nd quadra. That is, such representations that "the state will wither and disappear", as the communists dreamed, are still very far from realization, the third phase has not yet come. Of course, some attempts are being made to unite with the destruction of interstate borders within the framework of the European Union and similar events. But nevertheless, if we think in phases of millennia, now we have a Gamma-subphase of the global Beta phase.
Socionics in a sense restores a whole historical layer in its rights. A significant part of the mythologies and other achievements of the second phase are based, of course, on the discoveries and knowledge of the Alpha-phase - those societies that were before them. Certainly, with the loss of part of understanding, some technologies, etc.
When we talk about the development of an ethnos, in the same way we can distinguish several sub-phases in its development. In general, the theme of the development of society or ethnos is well suited to analysis by the methods of socionics. For example, it was convincingly shown that all these phases described by Gumilev : the rise of passionarity, the ac- matic phase, the phase of the break, the obscuration phase, the decay phase, the memorial phase are very well modeled by the information Aspects. And, of course, if we move from such global issues to narrower ones, then, for example, we can analyze the world history of, say, the 20th century ... Let us recall the middle and the end of the 19th century, when a storm of technical and scientific discoveries began: Steam, the era of electricity, the discovery of X-rays, the novels of Jules Verne and other writers. A real hymn to human knowledge in its pure form. It seemed - a little bit more and humanity will enter the "golden age", all for it will make cars, all the unpleasant work, a person will live comfortably, his task will only be something new to do, discover, learn, etc. The whole end of the nineteenth - beginning of the twentieth century was saturated with such a feeling. A kind of Alpha-sensation: "Forward!", "Discoveries!", "Progress!". The discovery of the radioactivity of the atomic nucleus, the discovery of quantum mechanics, the discovery of the theory of relativity, is a continuous flow of development. It seemed, in just a little bit, humanity will enter into the "golden age". And suddenly - Bam! - The First World War begins. First, local conflicts, that is, the Anglo-Boer War, the Russo-Japanese War, other wars, but they are still far from Europe ... And suddenly, in the midst of archi- cy-armed Europe, there is a gigantic massacre.
What is the First World War? This is in fact the moment of transition from one phase to another, that is, when the old idea breaks down, the old structures ... And a new, imperialist order arises. As formulated by VI Ulyanov-Lenin: "imperialism as the highest stage of capitalism." There are new empires, new Unions, new formations, there are authoritarian and totalitarian states. Not only in Russia, instead of the Russian Empire, but everywhere: in Italy - the fascist state, in Hungary - the totalitarian regime, in some countries such authoritarian or semi-authoritarian regimes arise - one can recall Poland, that is, the government of Marshal Pilsudski. But not only almost all of Europe is governed by such regimes. Even in China, there are certain processes of militarization. In Japan, a new militaristic state is being formed. That is, globally the whole epoch, the whole world is turning, sliding into the 2nd phase - phase Beta. And wherever we look - everywhere we see a huge number of all kinds of authoritarian or frankly totalitarian regimes. They capture most of Europe. Let's just say that they struggled hard in England, although the sympathy for Nazism among the British establishment was very strong, it's enough to recall Lord Chamberlain (who, by the way, was a logical-sensory introvert ( LSI) and admired Hitler - ethical- Intuitive extrovert (EIE), considering that the Messiah) ... In France, there was an attempt ... And in the United States of America too. But, since Roosevelt was in charge there (SEE), this trend was stopped. However, it had roots: economic depression, a decline in production. And again, the recession was not only after the war of Germany, which was ruined by reparations, the Weimar world under humiliating conditions and so on. But in the seemingly prosperous America, the same thing happened - the crisis of 1929 ... The crisis is a crisis for them - they have a 20% drop in production. It was a gigantic catastrophe and depression of America and all those who were associated with it. Against the background of our 90's, we would say: "Ha! Is this called a crisis? Against the background of the fact that in the former Soviet Union, production fell by 80%, and nothing - survived! ".
The second phase: a whole conglomerate of Beta-regimes is created that are friendly to each other, they arrange some unions, but at the same time they do not mind (among themselves, again) divide the remaining territories. And in the end, the two largest regimes clashed. Japan occupied part of China, which was completely defenseless before it, and attacks the United States. Simultaneously Hitlerite Germany attacks the Soviet Union, which itself was preparing to attack, but did not have time. And the struggle of totalitarian regimes begins between themselves. We know how it ended. But the fact is that the 2nd phase lasted quite a long time. And if it was practically destroyed in the territory of Western Europe and Japan by means of military actions, in the Soviet Union, as in one of the victorious countries, it safely survived, despite all the reforms, until 1991. Before that, China experienced a similar transition. There, this phase ended with the death of Mao Tse Dong and Deng Xiao Ping, they began to "crawl" into the 3rd phase, that is, the γ-phase. If to take globally, then in the post-war period, the third square predominates, of course. And it's understandable why - because it's time. And the locomotive of all this was the United States of America, which, with the help of the Marshall Plan for Europe, with huge investments, breathed in the spirit of entrepreneurship, economic and financial management methods, individual initiative, personal success - the ideas of the Gamma-quadra - into consciousness and organization.
If taken globally, then in the post-war period, the third square predominates, of course. And it's understandable why - because it is their time. And the locomotive of all this was the United States of America, which, with the help of the Marshall Plan for Europe, with huge investments, breathed in the spirit of entrepreneurship, economic and financial management methods, individual initiative, personal success - the ideas of the Gamma-quadra - into consciousness and organization. Life in many countries of the world. The US not only restructured political regimes and, of course, economies in a number of countries in Europe and Asia, but also, due to their economic power, they actually made the dollar the world's reserve currency. After the Second World War, the dollar, not the gold security, began to play the role of world currency. This is a very serious moment. As a result, all countries began to copy or adapt to the economic template or criterion that was set by the United States of America.
The United States of America is described by an integral type of logical-intuitive extrovert (LIE, Entrepreneur). Let's look at model A of this type. On the 1st place There is a 4-dimensional business logic (Te), that is, "everything for business", "make money" 1. It is a country of capitalism, not of classical, but of little-restrained capitalism. Those laws and those institutions that exist in the United States provide every kind of encouragement for any business. Moreover, since logic is 4-dimensional, and the United States is an extravert structure, then, of course, the business and processes of the extrovert with business logic are business processes all over the world, that is, the entire globe. Dolbar is a continuation and an instrument of this 4-dimensional business logic. When the United States says in any developing country that "there must be a market economy in the country", they establish their own rules of the game. The problem is that, although by these rules everyone seems to be profitable to play - they encourage the benefits, but there is a downside - in this field, in these rules the United States automatically becomes the strongest. Because only this is their field of activity. If they had ethics in the first function, they would have ruled some ideological moments, but, as there is business logic, the circumstances develop exactly this way.
Further, this type is not only logical, but also intuitive. In the second place is the intuition of time (Ni), that is, the ability to predict the results of its financial, entrepreneurial actions. This intuition of time is also the intuition of risk: "whoever does not risk, he does not win." Therefore, this type is characterized by the desire to "flirt" with finances, with some other moments. And as a result, from time to time he "brings". And any speculative financial combinations lead to a financial crisis.
One economist described well what was happening in the United States of America: a person buys a house on credit, the house costs 100 thousand dollars. Further, since there is such a process where everyone buys something from each other, the house costs 200 thousand a year later, nominally. The owner is called from the bank, they say: "Look: you took a house on bail, it cost 100 thousand, and now it already costs 200. Do not want to take under these extra 100 thousand furniture, equipment, etc.?". - "Of course, I want". - "No questions". The price is still growing, the person still picks up ... That is, the fictitious price of a house, the fee for ensuring the standard of living increases several times. But for all this, a person collects loans: for entertainment, for new household appliances, etc. And then the banks become not that much, and they increase the interest on the loan. Only by 2-3%. But with this amount, a person is required to pay a month more than his salary, after deduction of taxes, after paying for utilities and so on. He says: "But I cannot." The bank has a reflex - it takes away the house. And it remains with nothing. Because when he takes away from everyone, it turns out that no one can pay. On the TV showed a village in Florida: thousands of houses are standing, thousands of houses, of which evicted residents who could not pay loans. The police are forced to somehow guard houses, because in them teenagers are disgraceful, tramps are populating them. And so, throughout America. This is speculation: "I thought that it costs 200, and put it here, and now it is already worth 300 ..." and again, and more ... And after several such speculations it turned out that such "money" by one estimate is 1.5 trillion, According to others - 10 trillion dollars "wound up". And what to do with it? Then it turns out that at one point, when people refuse to pay, and the house cannot be sold by the bank, and, in turn, has debts to other banks - what happens? It turns out a default, that is, a refusal to pay. And a chain reaction begins. It turns out that those assets that cost the imagination of financiers 5 trillion are not worth one trillion. And the dollar is the world's reserve currency. And the problems of the USA immediately become problems of the whole world. Extraverted approach. The introvert's problems are his problems. And the extrovert's problems are the problems of everyone around him. In this case, financial problems. And the whole world is beginning to shake, because 25% of the world's consumption is the United States of America. And GDP in the US is 11 trillion. This, of course, is a gigantic figure ...
And, as a result, the slightest instability in this giant economic organization, the slightest "sneeze" brings down the world economy. Like Gulliver sneezed among Lilliputians. There is an interesting paradox: everyone knows that the US economy is in crisis and the stock exchange is falling, and the dollar has risen sharply. What happened? Investors began to take money from everywhere, from all countries, to collect them and buy back very cheap American shares, which have now collapsed. In a word: "the stock market has reached the bottom, broke it and began to dig."
INFOGRAPHIC: Integral Types of Russia, Ukraine, USA (INFJ, INFP, ENTJ). Fragments of models of mentality of ethnoses of Russia, Ukraine and the USA.
The problem consists that the combination of business logic and intuition of time at this type sometimes gets speculative character. The fact is that even on a personal level, Jack London or the Entrepreneur has a propensity for a certain risk. And there is such a literary character - Ostap Bender, the "great combinator" - in his image one side of this quality is underlined. On the other hand, for some people of this type, there are, of course, not many of them, there is a great passion for games in casinos or on slot machines. Apparently, they feel a resonance with their business logic when they see how a mechanical device accidentally ejects something. Perhaps there is a psychological moment of identification: "this is a machine, I'm inside a car; He throws away by chance, so I can guess. " I know some people who came to the "one-armed bandits", could not stop ... One large entrepreneur could squander 20-30 thousand, and could not leave until he was pulled out by the collar of a comrade-SEE: he simply pulled out the rest ... Another person, an amateur to play, took in his firm money for settlements with the client and decided to "wrap" them at the same time - he went into the casino. And, of course, not only this money was squandered, but twice as much. Then he disappeared, leaving a note to his wife: "do not look for me, I have disappeared." These are all real cases ... It turns out that the intuition of time brings a person who usually realistically calculates some moments, because he is betting on an unlikely forecast, as in the case of games.
But in the case of the mortgage crisis in the US, we see that there was a banal risk-playing game, which ended in big problems. The uncontrolled movement of capital on world exchanges, which is in full compliance with the Gamma-phase, is now trying to introduce some limits, limit: stop trading, or simply close for a few days the exchanges or prohibit short operations ... That is, the states of the whole world began to actively intervene in this structure. Now voices are heard that it is necessary to refuse altogether from the entire system, including somehow from the dollar, although no one knows how to do it. We can say that now the world economy is like a strained string - it can withstand, and maybe burst. What does it mean to burst? This means that America will refuse to pay its obligations. And trillions of dollars from foreign countries are invested in these obligations. What will happen? It will be complete financial chaos. But even now in America, the state is trying to introduce regulatory mechanisms through the purchase of controlling stakes at low prices. The thing is unheard of: an American state that has always preached a free market has already bought up a third of its banking assets. In the UK, almost all banks went under state control. In France, in Holland - too. Thus, governments take out primarily controlling stakes and banks become state or semi-public. In Russia, a similar process is also taking place. States are beginning to actively regulate the market. And what is it? This is nothing more than a "slip" into the 4th quadra, when there is no free financial "binge", but there are frames and various restrictions. Not like in the 2nd quadra - "they just took and took away", "commissars came and ..." - but softly, not selected, but bought out for less money, and such parastatal management is introduced. The fourth square is also a square of aristocrats - there is its own hierarchy, there its limitations and prohibitions ...
Now it is done, of course, spontaneously, at the level of reflexes, just completely different states, even the United States, do not see any other way out. But, from the point of view of socionics, this is nothing more than a rejection of permissiveness inherent in the 3rd quadra in the financial sense and a transition to technologies and regulatory practices characteristic of the 4th quadra, that is, the transition from a bundle of business logic - intuition (Te-N) to a bundle of business logic - sensorics (Te-S), from financial speculation to production-secured ones. Already in this phase there will be less "blown" speculation, and there will be real, secured assets that will be sold on the stock exchange, quoted, etc. Now the stock market is so divorced from reality that the shares are worth 50-60 denominations. If you count, with the profit that is given there - usually 15-20% per year, how many dozens of years to get this profit? But, nevertheless, quotes were just like that. And now there is a sharp decline - at times - the cost of these shares. Apparently, after all the fluctuations of the shares will become closer to real security. Of course, all this can be accompanied by financial catastrophe, because if the dollar string breaks, then one end, of course, it will hit the States, and the other end - for all who are associated with dollar assets. The situation is very dangerous. But, on the other hand, the transition from the 3rd quadra to the 4th can be either catastrophic or smooth. Both scenarios are possible, and it is quite possible that this will happen through a local or serious catastrophe with finances. It is very difficult here for something to be predicted, now we see just these waves. Obama won, but it is unlikely his team will cope with this. Because he has a lot of populism, but to build a competent strategy to fight against this is, of course, difficult.
In any case, we see that the phase that dominated after the First World War - the third phase - is coming to an end. The harbinger of this was already the "crawling" of Europe into this phase, that is, the formation of the European Union, the abolition of borders, customs and so on. While this was more or less local, and now we see that this process corresponds to the crisis that has arisen. Each time, with each new wave, such a crisis becomes stronger. Such waves unfold on a large scale, this shaft is growing more and more. Therefore, let's say, the world dollar system cannot survive the next crisis. And after a while, a significant part of human civilization will "crawl" or "throw it" into the 4th phase. And then other processes will go on, when people will come to their senses after a stormy Gamma-phase.
Let's turn to the history of specific countries. I will now say two words about Russia, then - about Ukraine. If we look at the history of Russia in the 20th century, including, of course, the period of the existence of the USSR, what do we see? There was an Alpha-phase - very small in a country with a Beta mentality - this is the February revolution, the actual organizational manifestation of this Alpha phase, which quickly changed as a result of the October coup by the Beta phase, that is, the construction of such a clearly centralized, rigid state with an integral type of logic - Sensory introvert (LSI, Maxim). And further - this state lasted 73 years, and then collapsed. That is, upon transition to the Gamma-phase, it underwent de-construction. We can say that the transition "strongly shakes", the flutter is such that the USSR has developed into a number of states and republics, other countries have arisen, and Russia has emerged.
If we now consider Russia, and it is the successor of the USSR, then in its history it is easy to single out several sub-phases, already inside the Gamma-phase. However, in the Beta-phase it was also possible to clearly distinguish 4 sub-phases: Alpha-sub-phase - after the civil war, this is the NEP; Beta-subphase-elimination of all and all, and the emergence of the unified authority of Stalin, continued until 1953; Further attempts by N. Khrushchev to reorganize the state apparatus, to introduce some changes are the Gamma-sub-phase. Khrushchev was displaced, and the "era of developed socialism" or "decaying socialism" began, as he was still jokingly called when everything calmed down, when all began to live more or less securely, in comparison with previous years, that is, the Brezhnev era. In this phase, four subphases are very clearly distinguished, while the Beta-structure of the state and society was preserved.
And now, a new countdown begins. The epoch of Boris N. Yeltsin is obviously the Alpha-subphase in the Gamma-phase. That is, the Gamma-square won, as it was said: "take independence as you want", the economic collapse began, and then the reforms began, and the other, already uncontrolled features of the Gamma-phase became more and more apparent. We all remember it well. Yes, this is the Alpha-sub-phase of the Gamma phase.
And then Boris Nikolaevich understands that the country has reached a certain limit. He understands that new forces are needed, he is looking for successors. He has a kind of casting premiers - who remembers who was not there. And he chooses Vladimir Putin. And, he rests: "Why? To me and so it is good ", -" No, you will be ". And the Beta-sub-phase begins in the 3rd phase. What does this mean? That with the parade of sovereignties is over, rigid centralized management is introduced, governors are no longer elected, but are appointed, the country gets a new administrative division - to the presidential offices, to 6 such super-regions. The "vertical of power" is being built. Restrictions, vowels and, what is characteristic, secret, associated with the press, with freedom of speech, with attempts at sovereignty are introduced ... On the other hand, military power is increasing, that is, a manifestation of strong-willed sensorics (Se). Recall that in the Alpha-phase Yeltsin's Russia actually lost two wars to a small Chechnya. Now - no, the struggle is getting tougher, fighting is under way, the term "sweep" appears. There is, let us say, the pacification of the Caucasus, and with harsh force methods. At the same time, as is known, a number of oligarchs are repressed: B. Berezovsky, V. Gusinsky, M. Khodorkovsky and others. Thus, the state shows that it is the main player - both political and economic. But the ownership forms do not change at the same time. A significant part of the oligarchs, who are friendly with this power, remain with this power or cooperate with it - remember the billionaire R. Abramovich, who simultaneously became the governor of Chukotka, and the super-billionaire, etc. That is, the Gamma-phase continues, that interesting. That is, there is no nationalization, but at the same time the state apparatus is strengthened.