Star Wars: The Last Jedi

Star Wars as a brand is either dead or getting much better, depending on who you ask about this movie. The halls of the internet echo with the clamor of battle as entrenched armies lob verbal artillery at one another.

I'm going to try to discuss both the good and the bad in the film. Obviously, this will involve spoilers so if you haven't yet seen the movie you may want to wait before reading the rest of the review.




Expectations:
I did not know what to expect when I walked into the theater. People I knew and respected were on both sides of the "Hate it / Enjoyed it" divide. The trailer looked good and I was hoping for a lot of payoff from things set up in the previous film.

Action:
If there's one thing you can't say about the film, it's that it was light on action.

The film opens with a Star Wars style fleet battle to protect a Rebellion Resistance evacuation. There are laser blasts, space fighter dogfights, bombing runs, heroic sacrifices, and hectic droid repair work.

From there we have a jailbreak involving alien koala-horses, a mutiny and counter-mutiny, TWO  lightsaber battles, a Force powered showdown with Snoke, a desperate escape from First Order custody, the utter devastation of a First Order fleet, and Luke Skywalker taking a stroll out of the wreckage of the Resistance's last redoubt to stare down a line of heavy artillery by himself.

Music:
John Williams is a wizard and his music is magic. Anyone who doesn't know this by now hasn't been paying attention.

Costuming/Visuals:
I think one of the things that bothers people about this movie is the fact that it looks and feels like Star Wars. This means that if you hated what was done with the franchise, it MATTERS because this isn't some tertiary side property. It's Star Wars itself.

In terms of technical acumen, the CGI is well used and the sets look like something from the previous movies and games.

Obvious call backs were made to the original films with Luke taking on not only Obi-wan's status as a hermit, but his clothing and appearance as well.

There were some odd choices. Much hay has been made over the milking of the alien sea cows. Also, the porgs just made me think tribble-penguin hybrid and I do not envy Chewie trying to rid the Millennium Falcon of their infestation.

Also off putting is Snoke's golden bathrobe outfit, which felt very out of place among the rest of the aesthetic, but it really tells you a lot of what you need to know about him instantly which is a necessity for reasons we'll get into later.

Original Material:
Seeing one of the "normal" members of the Resistance go full fangirl on Finn because of his status as a hero differed pretty heavily from the respectful deference given to the heroes in the original trilogy.

Luke uses the Force in some heretofore unseen ways, which some people didn't like. There's nothing inherently against cannon for a Force user to communicate across great distances like that. In fact, it is an expansion of how Luke senses Leia and Han and Vader at Cloud City whilst on Dagobah.

Screenplay:
Rather than rehash the entire plot, I will endeavor to give my take on highlights and lowlights in the film.

The Good
-Poe Dameron gets to be the hotshot pilot. He takes on active defenses and a TIE fighter squadron nearly single handedly and earns his reputation as one the best pilots in the Resistance.

-Snoke speaks out loud all the objections people had to Kylo losing a fight to an untrained girl who had never before held a lightsaber. This actually addresses a legitimate fan complaint from the first film.

-Snoke also shows up as a true villain. He backhands Kylo in a calculated display of power, plays on Kylo's emotions in a display of ruthless intellect, curb stomps Rey, and leads the First Order to within a hair of wiping out the Resistance. I was worried he would still be a giant floating head, but Andy Serkis got another power role to play with.

-Rey LOSES something in this film. I say that it's good only because it will ultimately be good for her character. Now she has setbacks to overcome. Now she is not infallible. It humanizes her and gives viewers something to come back for in the next film.

-Finn got to have closure to his antagonism with Phasma in a fairly cool looking, if generic, fight. There is actual growth to his character in multiple scenes including this one. Definitely a step in the right direction.

-Kylo and Rey fighting back to back was a great scene. It was made all the better by the fight choreography which shows Kylo using skill and training to take on three opponents at once while Rey is more or less flailing about with speed and quick thinking. They're both necessary to victory, but it helped cement her dearth of knowledge.

-Luke Skywalker uses the Force to project himself across the galaxy, where he delays Kylo Ren and the First Order to give the Resistance survivors a chance at escape. It is at the same time noble, proactive, and COOL.

-Luke dying while gazing at the double suns setting. The circle is now complete.

The Bad
-Poe deserved a demotion for ignoring orders and placing his unit in unnecessary jeopardy. However, he did not deserve to be slapped and reprimanded publicly (undermining his position with his subordinates and peers) over completing an authorized objective AND he should have been reminded of Leia's ability and planning. This would have established more trust for what came later and loaded Chekov's Gun for the audience.

-Luke's character arc up until the last few minutes of the film. I just don't think the director and writers get him as a character. He is one of the most proactive characters in the original trilogy. Even seasoned by age and wisdom, he wouldn't do NOTHING while his sister, brother-in-law, and friends continue to fight for their lives. At least, he wouldn't do that for the reasons we're given.

Here's my opinion on the writers' reasons for it: they needed him out of the way. This makes sense. He's shown to be one of the most powerful Force users in the galaxy. If he's there, he can challenge Snoke and/or Kylo by himself. It leaves most characters with nothing to do.

But it should have been better handled. Maybe he was injured during Ben's betrayal at the temple. Maybe he was being hunted by Kylo and the turned students and had to shut himself off from the Froce and hide just to keep from being killed while he healed.

Just give us a good reason for him to lay low. I mean, even if he did want the Jedi disbanded (which is understandable given what he could rightly see as it's failure) he still left his sister to face the First Order and her own turn coat son alone? Throwing away his fathers' lightsaber and with it all the history and questions that Rey holding it brings up? That is not the character we've seen in Luke before.

-Unanswered questions. Who is Snoke? How did he come to power? How did he turn Kylo? How did Luke know about the ancient Jedi temple in the back end of nowhere? If the First Order knows Finn is alive and working with the Resistance, why haven't they changed the lock codes and installed extra security measures to counteract whatever intelligence he's given to the Rebels? How did a wimp like General Hux gain command of First Order forces? Who is Maz Kanata and why would did she have Luke's lightsaber?

I know some of these are answered in the books. Here's my problem with that: if the movie can't tell me the complete story, then the story isn't complete and needs to be reworked. You cannot count on fans of movies to also read books, watch TV shows, or play games to get answers to their questions. Some questions don't matter too much, but some, like how Snoke corrupted Kylo, are integral to the plot. Especially if that turning is what makes Luke act like he does.

-Vice Admiral Holdo could have avoided a whole subplot by taking her hot-shot pilot (that both she and Leia seem to be grooming for a future leadership role) aside and giving him a reason to trust her. I'm not saying Poe's mutiny is right, but at the point he's got a blaster at her head seems like a good time to take the wind out of his self-righteousness with a bit of information that would be difficult for the enemy to use in time.

Also, no mention of any suspected traitor despite the ability to track through lightspeed being "impossible". Why not use Poe's actions to sift out a traitor?

-Rose denying Finn's heroic sacrifice. This one did irk me. I understand her reason for saving him. She's fallen for him during their escapades. Sure, makes sense.

But you just hideously injured yourself and Finn, foiled the whole REASON for the attack in the skiffs (to bring down the big cannon to buy the Rebels time), and left the people you say you are trying to protect to die. That's right, as far as she knows, no help is coming. She's saved Finn for about thirty minutes at the expense of everyone else.

FAR better would have been to bump him out of the way and take the cannon out herself. Heroism on the small and big scales at the same time and it would give Finn a loss to overcome himself in the next film.

-Why should the Jedi be disbanded? Luke's decision seems very emotionally based, not rationally or philosophically. It seems like he's got nothing against Force users in general (since he'll train Rey enough to not hurt herself), but he is obviously against unmitigated use of the Dark Side. He reveres the Jedi texts enough that he can't bring himself to burn them. Even if he no longer agrees with their philosophy or religion, those writings are priceless works of art. He should be teaching people what's wrong with them (which seems to boil down to "too enmeshed in Republic politics"), not erasing them from history.

Force users will continue to be born. Someone will train them. Did he want their only alternative to be Kylo Ren? Seems like a Zoroastrian style worldview needs the Light Side teacher there as well.

This question was just not answered very well.

The Pointless
-Finn and Rose's whole escapade on the casino planet. It was a way to give Finn something to do that is important enough to mess up Holdo's secret plan, but  you could have accomplished the same thing with a traitor aboard the Resistance ship for them to track down or by making them have to Macguyver access to the tracking system aboard the First Order ship. (Mechanic twin powers, activate!) It ends up being a lot of filler with a lot of the CGI budget and a big waste of a Benicio Del Toro cameo on an anti-arms dealing rant.

-Maz's cameo. Mostly for the same reasons above. There's no need for her in the film that isn't contractual obligation.

-Luke's "Day in the Life of a Jedi Hermit" montage. Do we really need to see the milking? It's not a test of Rey's commitment, doesn't tell us anything about Luke's reasons or mindset for not joining the fight, nothing. Rey's line about seeing his daily routine could have been used for shorthand and that's that.

-Yoda showing up to rehash Luke's arguments for and against the Jedi. Luke is a Master Jedi himself. Yoda even says pupils are supposed to grow beyond their mentors. There's no reason for Yoda to have to show up and put him straight. He should choose that himself.

Summary:
This is quality production with the look and feel of Star Wars and some excellent space opera action. It suffers in that too much time is spent on non-essentials, leaving it feeling bloated. Add in the character motivation missteps and it loses a bit of it's shine, but I think the general direction for the character arcs is positive.

All in all, I don't think the film deserves the excoriating it is receiving in some quarters. Is it a perfect Star Wars story? No. But it is an enjoyable, big budget popcorn flick with a heart.