The kill count in TF tends to be too low (as a function of dead characters being less marketable). The movies' willingness to have characters engaged in a long-running existential struggle...actually kill each other is one of the things I give Bay credit for. I have always assumed that there are relatively small numbers of existing Cybertronians.In volume perhaps, but not in scope. Nearly every scene between opposing bots is brutally violent and often ends in the death of at least one bot. Not only is it offputting, it also doesn't really make sense if this war's been raging for millennia and there's not billions of bots being built constantly.
But, you were commenting on this movie well before you saw it....
Where do I even begin with this? Well, I'd have to say I enjoyed it more than The Last Jedi, but, as Dom said, that's a low bar to clear.
Damn, you hunt spoilers more aggressively than I do, which is sort of impressive.
I do like that they finally gave Snoke some backstory, although it also feels like a half-assed explanation.
Spoiler
I recall something about Johnson deciding to ignore the plan for Episode 8, which might be something of an explanation for why it was not properly set up. And, as we know, blank spots in the movie are opportunities for Disney to sell novels and comics.
...even get the man power to build and operate....
Spoiler
But, in this case, I am willing to cut Abrams some slack. The Emperor took control of a thriving republic, and held power for ~2 decades. He was a political and spiritual leader.
It is not hard to believe the Emperor would have a viable population on his hide-away planet. It is hard to reach. But, that does not mean it cannot sustain life. A relatively small seed population only needs to land once. Over the course of 50 years, that population could grow.
There is a throwaway line about this..... for reasons the movie also fails to explain ....
Spoiler
Spoiler
Don't even get me started. I have a background (admittedly dated) in digital forensics. And, that is not how shit works.
Spoiler
But, if the information exists on a device, it can be aquired. (Think of people hacking game systems. Even if they cannot unlock content, they can see that it exists.)
Even a basic forensic recovery tool (freeware, such as PhotoRec) can copy *everything* from a device. Something like FTK (which starts between cheap and free, and has a really ex$pen$ive but handy option) will not only copy everything, it will actually reconstruct the device's file system. Other stuff (such as various mobile foren$ic$ tools with co$t $omething will effectively create a duplicate of the device itself, right down to file partitions and apps.
I have personally used a combination of FTK and HXD to reconstruct apps across devices. (In fact, it is how I have duplicated Metasploit across several thumb-drives.
At worst, the heroes could have imaged 3P0's brain and then used a (possibly modified) copy of his translation protocol and the image of the dagger to get the needed information. (And, that assumes there were no black-market translator droids to begin with.)
The moral question could have been about violating the privacy of a droid. (SW has never been consistent about exactly what a droid's rights are worth.)
In fact...
Spoiler
If 3P0 scanned the Sith text from the dagger, he has that in his memory. Deleting 3P0's memory would delete the image of the dagger. Yes, it is possible to recover a deleted file (including an image). But, there is not reason to delete a file when it only needs to be copied.
And, then finally, after all that, the dramatic impact of the moment is diminished by R2 having a back up.
Up until that moment, I was willing to give them a pass on Chewbacca's death. Fights in SW tend to be too clean, In this case, it made sense for the heroes to be disoriented during a fight. And, Daisy Ridley sold the reaction *really* well. But, having a second fake-out....especially when it rests on such a dumb premise, undermines the movie.
I am just going to put most of this down to it being a poorly drafted and edited movie.yet another thing the movie does not explain.