Saturday, December 16, 2017

Weekend movie night: Star Wars The Last Jedi

Disney. 

It's time for another movie review. For once I actually watched a movie, in theaters, right after it came out! Amazing right? And it was worth the trip, The Last Jedi is a good movie and one that I do not regret seeing at all. There will be spoilers in this review for both The Last Jedi and the Force Awakens but I will keep them after a line break. The initial part of this review is spoiler free. 

I am kinda surprised at the reaction the film is getting. The Last Jedi is critically acclaimed and is making a lot of money for Disney but there is a subset of fans that are furious with the film. Right now on Rotten Tomatoes critics have it at 93% "fresh" while the fan rankings is at a much more humble 57%. Other sites user rankings are better but it seems there is a vocal minority of fans who dislike this movie. 

What's my take on it? I think it's a good, but not great entry in the Star Wars saga. Here is where i put it in my personal rankings of all the films:

Return of the Jedi>A New Hope>Rouge One>Empire Strikes Back>The Last Jedi> Revenge of the Sith>The Force Awakens>The Phantom Menace>Attack of the Clones.

I put it right in the middle. It's not one of the best of the series but it certainly an improvement on the Force Awakens and it is better than any of the prequel trilogy. However, I don't think it's on the same level as the original trilogy and last year's Rouge One, which I really enjoyed. 

Before I get into spoilers, I will say that the movie had some high points and some flaws. All of the battles were impressive and I really enjoyed the Rey/Kylo Ren story line. The film was beautifully shot and well acted all around. The scenery alone was worth the price of admission. And there is a lightsaber battle that ranks among the best in the series. 

Still, there were some problems with this film. The most obvious is how long it was. And I feel like there was an entire storyline that could have been cut. At two hours and 33 minutes this film was pretty exhausting and it suffered from a few pacing issues in the middle. I also felt that the film wasted a few characters. I will go into that in more detail below. 

There was one thing that I was worried about and that was the Porgs. Those dumb puffin like things were rumored to be the new Ewoks or Jar Jar Binks on steroids. Thankfully, they weren't that bad and were only in a few scenes, some of which were pretty funny. The humor of the film was ok and the film seemed quite a bit more whimsical than the other two Disney helmed Star Wars movies, despite the darker tone of the film, even compared to last years Rogue One. 

Over all though I enjoyed the film. It had a few flaws and it probably could have been trimmed down a bit but it was by no means a bad movie. Indeed, I liked a lot of it and I hope that Disney can keep up this level of quality for the new Han Solo movie and Episode 9. I recommend seeing it if you like Star Wars or soft science fiction. 

SPOILERS BEGIN BELOW! DON'T READ FURTHER IF YOU DON'T WANT THE LAST JEDI OR THE FORCE AWAKENS SPOILED. 

On to specific complaints. I did not like the Finn/Rose subplot where they went to the casino planet, Canto Bight. The entire subplot could have been cut from the movie and not changed much of anything. All we get from it is a bit of development between Finn and Rose and the introduction of the little boy at the end of the movie that can use the force and the stuttering hacker, DJ that turns out to be a jerk. Other than that it doesn't add much to the film and slows the story down quite a bit. Had they simply had Finn and Rose sneak onto Snoke's destroyer it would have worked just as well and would have trimmed down the movie to a more digestible run time. 

 Indeed, I was reminded of Attack of the Clones, where Anakin and Padme screw around in Naboo for a long time accomplishing nothing. The pacing doesn't get anywhere near as bad as it does in Attack of the Clones but it does slow the story down considerably. This is by far my biggest complaint about the movie and it's what keeps it from being among the truly great Star Wars movies. It's not even that Finn and Rose aren't good characters, it's just that the entire Canto Bight subplot doesn't go anywhere. The rest of my criticisms are much more minor, but this is my biggest problem with the film by far. 

I do think that we wasted two pretty good villains in The Last Jedi. Both Snoke and Captain Phasma are killed off. Snoke was killed off in spectacular fashion and it was a very good scene but I kinda feel like we never got to know anything about him. We went into this film knowing that he was an extremely powerful force user and that he corrupted Ben Solo and after the film we know exactly as much. We still don't know if he was a Sith, a fallen Jedi or just some random dude and perhaps we will never know now. Plus, Andy Serkis was so over the top and evil in this film it almost ranks up their with Papa Palpatine himself, it seems like a waste to not have him in Episode 9.

Captain Phasma also seemed wasted. She actually got to do something this film but we really didn't get to understand her motivations or who she was. From what I understand she's got an extensive background in the expanded universe, but in both The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi, she's just the female stormtrooper in chrome armor. And her final battle doesn't last very long. 

One villain that doesn't get wasted is Ben Solo/Kylo Ren. Adam Driver put his all into this role and it really shows through. Solo goes from a whiny kid into a terrifying villain. He kills his master, almost kills his mother and kinda sort of kills Luke Skywalker. He carries the movie and I was very impressed. 

Speaking of Luke, I wasn't surprised that he was killed off. I was surprised in how he died though. I assumed that he would be killed in combat. Instead he essentially transcended after his duel with Ren, where he force projected himself across the galaxy. Still, I figured that he was going to die and I think his death was handled in a way that respected the character.

I do wonder how the next film is going to handle the death of Carrie Fisher. She was the last leadership left for the Resistance. The Republic was decapitated in the last movie, Han Solo and Luke Skywalker are dead and the rest of her command staff, including Admiral Akbar, are gone too. With all the potential leaders gone and Carrie Fisher no longer with us I wonder where they are going to go with the story. 

The film really foreshadowed her as being the Obi-Wan figure for Episode 9 but with Carrie Fisher tragically gone the character will likely die with her. That leaves who exactly? Chewie? C-3PO? That Nien Nunb guy that looks like a pancake face? Let's hope that Disney figures it out. 



Space battles have always been a favorite part of Star Wars and I think this one was a mixed bag. My main problem was the design of the B/SF-17 bombers that were in the opening scene. They were going a little to hard for the World War II bomber era and it kinda didn't make much sense for them to attack the way they did. This is space and these fighters only seem to operate on two dimensions. The bombing run paled in comparison to the Y-Wing attacking the Star Destroyers in Rouge One. 

That being said, the rest of the space battles more than made up for it. The dogfighting was great and the First Orders attacks on the rebel cruisers were handled in a good way. It also finally justified the use of space fighters by showing that they can get by shielding that the big capital ships can not. 

I also liked the sacrifice of the cruiser near the end of the film. Sending a 3 kilometer sized cruiser at the speed of light into an entire fleet was one of the more impressive things I have seen in a sci-fi film and it was very cool. My only complaint is that it probably should have been Admiral Akbar that made that sacrifice, not Laura Dern's new Admiral Holdo, but that's not a huge deal. I just think that Akbar's actual death wasn't as noted as it should have been considering his memetic value and the major role he played in Return of the Jedi. 

All in all though, I think this was a good movie. Not a great one. It has its flaws and its strengths but overall it's a decent entry into the series. Perhaps in the future I will change my mind. Indeed, my opinion of  The Force Awakens has changed over time with it just not holding up compared to the other ones. But I don't think I will ever call it a bad movie. And I also think that the people that are doing so are wrong. Despite it's flaws it's fine and I may even see it again soon. 

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