Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi (2017)
Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi (2017)
Written and Directed by Rian Johnson
Based on the characters and concepts
Created by George Lucas
Rated PG-13
Warning: This review does contain spoilers. You have been warned.
Before I actually discuss today’s movie, I need to make something very clear. Apart from the original three films, my interest in the Star Wars franchise has continued to diminish as I have gotten older. Part of it has to do with the fact that I feel the franchise is far too overexposed, that each of the movies vary quite differently from one another in terms of overall quality (I personally feel that The Empire Strikes Back (1980) is the best thing the franchise has ever produced and nothing I have seen or read in the rest of the Star Wars universe has been able to surpass it in terms of thematic richness and visual splendor. Yes, the first and third films are good as well but I just don’t get as much joy watching those as I do the second film), and there is the fact that I lose interest in stories and fictional universes that go on for far too long especially when I feel that the original trilogy wrapped things up pretty well despite the flaws in Return of the Jedi (1983). As far as the prequels go, I don’t hate them but I can’t really defend them either. I view them as films that featured good ideas that were executed badly.
I suppose I am not exactly the biggest fan of a lot of the film and television franchises that have been popular in the past and even now. In fact, the only film series/trilogies that I thoroughly enjoy and am willing to watch repeatedly are The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit trilogies (2001-2003 and 2012-2014 respectively), The Dark Knight trilogy (2005-2012), The Cornetto Trilogy (2004-2013), The Planet of the Apes reboot trilogy (2011-2017), The Three Colors Trilogy (1993-1994), The Human Condition Trilogy (1959-1961) and a few others. OK, the latter two are not exactly popular with geeks but what I am trying to get at is I prefer my films and TV series to have a clear beginning, middle and end so that they don’t needlessly go on indefinitely where I begin to lose interest in where the plot and the characters are going and I find myself not caring about them anymore.
I admit I am very hard to please in that department but that doesn’t mean I will just choose to ignore a possible sequel or reboot. As long as they sound promising, I’m in. So when Disney bought the Star Wars franchise from George Lucas, I, along with legions of others, was curious to see where this would go. In 2015, we got Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens and…I’ve never been a fan of it. It was an occasionally fun but fan service heavy highlight reel of the original trilogy that left me thoroughly unsatisfied in the long run. So much so that I don’t plan to ever watch it again. But since that was just the first movie and the next film, Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi, which was written and directed by Rian Johnson (who impressed me with his previous works like Brick (2006) and Looper (2012)) I hoped that things could be turned around.
I had a lot of problems with Episode VII such as the lack of world building, lack of real development from lead characters like Finn and especially Rey who is far too overpowered and can’t seem to swing a lightsaber without defeating a more experienced force user or similar combatants (and to understand where she comes from would be nice too), to understand where some of the villains come from or even how the First Order got as strong as they have. I had hopes that some of these issues (I understood that not all of them) would be addressed in this film to one degree or another as well as give us more time with the remaining original characters, Luke and Leia in particular, and actually give them things to do in the story so they are not upstaged too much by the new characters (Harrison Ford got his wish and had Han Solo killed off…far too early to have any meaningful impact in my opinion).
So does this film do any of that? For the most part…no. The Last Jedi is a huge disappointment for me. A movie that is further evidence that the franchise under Disney is stuck on repeat despite new characters and some new scenarios. To avoid being called contrarian or just someone who has an axe to grind with Star Wars being owned by Disney now and to make sure I don’t come across as putting down those who do like this movie, I will calmly and carefully explain myself and to do so I need to go into some spoilers. Strap yourselves in ladies and gentlemen, this is going to be a long one.
We might as well start with Rey (Daisy Ridley). She pretty much remains unchanged from the first film. She is too overpowered, seems to pretty much train herself in the ways of the force (seriously judging from how this movie and episode VII play out she seems to be the one that should train Luke and we will get to him soon), apart from her encounter with Snoke (Andy Serkis), she’s never in any real danger at any point, and she doesn’t really earn anything she gets. She is just handed the Falcon, Chewie and R2-D2 tag along with her just because (both of them and C-3PO don’t really serve any purpose other than to be there for the fans), she becomes a Jedi in the space of seemingly a couple of days and only about 2 lessons from Luke, and she is used to recycle the whole thing about redeeming a dark force user (sound familiar?). Ridley’s acting isn’t bad but her character is not a good one because her growth feels unnatural and it makes it hard for me to root for her as she has it way too easy. Luke went through a lot of struggle and make mistakes but as he did so he grew and thus we want to know how his adventures will ultimately play out. I never for a single minute in any of the new movies cared about what was going to happen to her.
One of the things I didn’t like was they did all this build up as to who her parents are only to drop the revelation that she is a nobody and her parents sold her to buy drinks or something. Why bother doing this kind of build up if that is all that is going to come of it? Sure, Rey may have suppressed it in her mind and such to run from the truth or something but wouldn’t it have been better to have her already know that her parents were losers and give her added determination to make something of herself and change her circumstances (yeah, I know she was doing that part anyway…) so she doesn’t end up like them? I would have saved us a pointless sequence involving a mirror where she wants to see her parents and thus that dark hole (which is similar to that cave Luke goes into in episode V) would have given us some better character building moment for her…hopefully.
Finn (John Boyega) is roughly the same as well and he even gets called a resistance hero despite not doing that much in episode VII. On top of not having all that much to do in the film as a whole, he also doesn’t go through any major growth although he does get something of a love interest in Rose (Kelly Marie Tran) when they have to go to a casino on a planet in order to find a code breaker (Benicio Del Toro, a good actor but is sadly under used in this film as his character just comes and goes) to stop the first order from tracking them through hyperspace. I will admit that I didn’t really mind a lot of their scenes together but I wish a little more was done to establish them as friends or even possible romantic interests to each other (if that is what they were going for…). Their acting was just fine but between the two I liked Kelly Marie Tran the best.
Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) is a little better than he was episode VII as I feel that he was the only one of the new characters that had any kind of meaningful character growth when he tries to pull off a mutiny against Vice Admiral Holdo (Laura Dern and it’s great to see her in a movie, any movie even this one) who had to take over command when General Leia (Carrie Fisher) gets knocked out only to discover he really was in the wrong (but to be fair to Poe, Holdo would have saved herself a lot of trouble if she would have just told Poe what they were going to do and thus curtail any possible troubles like a mutiny). I liked that his overly impulsive flyboy ways were taken down a notch but I would have liked a bit more follow through with that to show that he might have learned some humility. Carrie Fisher was OK in the movie. Can’t really complain about her.
Now we have Kylo Ren (Adam Driver). Apart from the fact that I really do not feel that he exudes any real menace apart from wanting to kill every resistance member, I don’t understand his reasons for really wanting to really turn to the dark side. He wants to be like Darth Vader? He wants to kill the past? It is never made clear and thus it comes off like he joined the dark side because movie. At least in the prequels Anakin had a fear of losing people he loved (Padme in particular) and that made it easy for the Emperor to seduce him to the dark side. We never get any real explanation as to how Snoke got through to Kylo so easily. Adam Driver is a good actor and has been in plenty of films that I liked (Logan Lucky and Silence being among my favorites so far) but he just doesn’t really feel convincing here due to the fact that his character’s motivations aren’t made very clear.
Snoke was a complete waste. They introduce him in episode VII as this potentially threatening and interesting villain and he even gets a few moments to shine and actually show true menace only to have Kylo kill him by slicing him in half with Luke’s lightsaber. Yeah, Snoke dies and we don’t learn a thing about him. Where did he come from? How did he become so powerful in the force and how did he set up the first order to be a true threat to the galaxy? Answering these questions, like attempts at real world building in these films, feels like an afterthought. Much like the case with Rey, I really feel bad for those out there who came up with a lot of theories about him and where he came from.
Heck, as far as the villains altogether go, I could not take them seriously as they just become a joke in far too many scenes. The opening joke involving Poe Dameron and General Hux (Domnall Gleeson) pretty much set the tone as to how I should see them. None of the villains, not Snoke, Kylo Ren, Hux and especially Captain Phasma (who was just as insignificant in this film as she was in episode VII) showed any real dominance as they are either killed off unceremoniously, are made fools of, or act like a spoiled child. In fact, a vast majority of the villains in Disney films and TV shows (including Marvel films too) are seldom taken seriously and are presented in too much of a light fashion for them to be a true threat. So far, Bill Cypher from the superb Gravity Falls has really been the only great villain in Disney media so far. Yes, he said jokes and had a bit of humor to him but it was all dark humor and he actually showed his dominance and true menace. The reason the Empire in the original trilogy was such an imposing prescience was due to the fact they took themselves extremely seriously on top of relentlessly pursuing our heroes. Vader was imposing because he truly commanded everyone with surety and killed anyone who failed him. And he never cracked a joke like he did in Rogue One (or any other Star Wars film he was in) which would have been out of character for him.
And lastly we come to Luke Skywalker himself and I can now see why Mark Hamill told Rian Johnson that he disagreed with everything he wrote about Luke’s character in this film and why so many have a venomous reaction to him as he is portrayed here. This really is not the Luke Skywalker that fans grew up with in the films or even in the expanded universe (which to my knowledge was George Lucas approved) that Disney decided to discard much to the ire of many fans (granted I have never read the expanded universe but I have talked to others online that have and some of the good stuff they were talking about sounded better than what we got). The Luke we get in this film is a bitter, angry, unlikeable old man who would rather die on that island he is on, let the Jedi ways and teachings die out and let the galaxy fall into darkness rather than actually try to help anyone. The Luke Skywalker that went out of his way to try and redeem his father from the dark side is gone and instead we get one that thought about and was about to kill Kylo Ren in his sleep with a lightsaber to keep him from turning to the dark side which is completely out of character for him. Yes, he quickly changes his mind but the fact that he gave it serious consideration bothers me. I understand that he feels responsible for the fact that Kylo Ren turned to the dark side but where is that feeling that he had to not want to fight or kill his father and work hard to turn him to the light? Why in the world did he not try that first and with his nephew of all people?
Even when Yoda (Frank Oz) shows up to burn the tree that had the Jedi texts in it (Yoda even makes a stupid crack about them not being page turners…perhaps not but I still think they would be valuable and that destroying them (or at least looking like you destroyed them) is a stupid idea! And yes, I know Rey has the texts on the Falcon at the end) and to tell Luke that failure is part of life and such, it feels completely useless when he won’t be alive in the next film to even apply his lesson and correct his mistakes. Yes, Luke dies by using up so much of his force power projecting himself to the salt planet at the end to face Ren so the remaining resistance has time to escape. He dies and joins the force in I guess the same way that Obi Wan and Yoda did. I don’t understand this new trilogy’s need to kill of the old characters like this (well, OK Harrison Ford wanted Solo dead because I guess he hated the character that much and Carrie Fisher passed away last December so nobody’s at fault there). With some good writing they could have kept Luke around and have him do useful things…I don’t know what exactly as I am admittedly not a good creative writer.
But what I will say that now that Luke is gone, I’m not sure I will watch episode IX as I don’t really like the new characters all that much and don’t care about what happens to them now. I admit that I went to this movie to see Mark Hamill (who is good in this movie by the way) as Luke Skywalker and have it be glorious to some degree. I didn’t expect him to lay waste to the whole First Order or anything like that but what we got was pathetic. This may sound petty to some but given how mediocre and underwhelming episodes VII and VIII have been to me, I have no motivation to continue watching.
I mentioned earlier that world building in this new trilogy feels like an afterthought. I am not joking as these newer films seem to have an allergic reaction to explaining anything around what is going on. How did the first order get so powerful to become an actual threat to the new republic? Why didn’t the new republic take any real action to combat them? Did they turn a blind eye to their activities or even placate them somehow? Why did the new republic not give the resistance more support? Why was the resistance even called the resistance when they are clearly just a redressed rebel alliance? How exactly did the galaxy get to the point where episode VII starts? Was that Coruscant (the republic capital from the prequels) that got obliterated in episode VII? Well too bad! None of this is ever explained or even brought up by any of the characters. I’m not asking for the senate scenes from the prequels but it is possible to have good dialogue where characters explain to others and by extension the audience how things in the galaxy are going. It’s not impossible but the lack of world building, especially in an age where audiences are used to it in their movies, TV or video games, breaks immersion for me.
Now I know that some out there are probably thinking. “Daniel, the original trilogy didn’t really have world building either and those movies turned out good. You just want to complain!” Well you are right, they didn’t have a lot of world building but that was primarily due to the limited technology and other concerns. In the commentary track on episode IV, Lucas explained that since he couldn’t really do world building, he adopted what was done by Akira Kurosawa in Seven Samurai (1954) where the history and politics of what was going on in Japan around the time in which that story is set is in the background and the human story is at the forefront. Japanese audience may very well have gotten the historical context but to a lot of other audiences around the world wouldn’t get the historical context but would get involved in the human drama and that is why the film still worked despite some cultural barriers. That is the explanation that Lucas uses and it makes sense to me. He followed this principal for all three of the original films seemingly out of necessity. I don’t know if he had the prequels in mind or not when making the original trilogy but whatever ideas he did have while making the original had to be shelved very likely due to the limitations.
That was where the expanded universe came in. In books, comics, video games etc., the Star Wars universe was expanded past the original trilogy under Lucas’s approval from what I understand. It wasn’t until the technology caught up that he could make the prequels and that was where it expanded further in that area as well. Granted Lucas wasn’t completely successful in executing his ideas very well in the prequels but I give him credit for trying. The fact that Disney is not even bothering to expand their own version of the universe past the original trilogy just comes across as lazy and unambitious to me.
Disney bought the Star Wars franchise for roughly 4 billion dollars and was going to go ahead and make new Star Wars films. Now I was under the impression that new films meant they would really be new films and not a misnomer. Disney, you mean to tell me that you bought the whole franchise which has a very large and (from what I have been told from fans) rich lore in not just in the films but in the expanded universe and the best that you can come up with is slightly altered, rearranged and repackaged versions of the original trilogy? And to the deepest, hard core Star Wars fans and defenders of these “new” movies, when George Lucas in the prequels reused some of the shots, small details like having Anakin lose an arm in a similar way that Luke lost a hand or even having out of character moments like Yoda using a lightsaber in episodes II and III, you call it “franchise rape” but when this new trilogy reuses a ton of the same plot points, similar moments, lines of dialogue, some sequences from the original trilogy and resetting the original characters and conditions of the galaxy back to a default setting more or less you give all of that a pass because at least it’s better than the prequels? What double standard?
Now look, I’m not necessarily defending the prequels as they are not great films or anything like that but I like that Lucas was willing to try to expand and develop the galaxy and the lore even if he wasn’t really successful at executing a lot of them very well. But all that (sans the mediclorians) is preferable to what this franchise under Disney gives us which is virtually nothing. The Star Wars that Lucas tried to shape (it being about family troubles and redemption of the fallen father by the son) is more satisfying that what Disney is trying to shape.
There are other dumb moments in the film like Leia using the force to fly back into the resistance main ship Mary Poppins style after being sucked into the vacuum of space, a big chase sequence which involves Finn and Rose setting free some horse like creatures on the planet that has the casino which goes on too long and feels like filler, and too many other moments that are only there because of nostalgia. But there are some cool moments like Vice Admiral Holdo doing a kamikaze attack at lightspeed on the First Order fleet, Rey and Kylo fighting Snoke’s Pretorian guards was pretty good and the opening battle (apart from the stupid gag with Poe and Hux) was all right. Some of the humor was fine like Luke’s wise cracks to Rey and some moments with the Porgs gave me a bit of a chuckle but the rest was just lame and at times it felt like I was watching a weak Marvel movie with a Star Wars paint job.
Yes, of course the film looks amazing, has great sound design and has some impressive individual scenes but I expected that from Disney. I knew they would spare no expense in making these movies. I still like Rian Johnson. He still very talented and here’s hoping that if he is still permitted to go ahead with a completely new Star Wars trilogy he can really make something truly new so he doesn’t have to pander to fans who are too much in love with the original trilogy. But that new trilogy would have to be a substantial improvement over the recent string of mediocrity Disney is churning out otherwise I won't bother with that either. The Last Jedi is definitely Johnson's weakest film.
Is this the worst film I have seen all year? No, of course not. This is the same year that gave us Chips, Baywatch, Transformers: The Last Knight, The Dark Tower and other true stinkers from 2017. This is just a real disappointment even from me who is not the biggest fan of the franchise but does enjoy the stories of the films. Yes, the real sets and practical effects, which are what primarily suckered fans back into the new movies in the first place, are nice but if I am not willing to follow the characters regardless of being classic or new and if I don’t care about what’s at stake, the movie is therefore boring to me and I no longer wish to follow it. If anyone reading this likes the film, good for you. I wouldn’t dream of taking that joy away from you but I hope you can now understand why I had such a problem with these new movies without resorting to nitpicking as much as possible. Rogue One was Ok. It was flawed but at least I was entertained by that one.
I didn’t go into this one with sky high expectations and I wasn’t expecting this to be transcendent, cure incontinence, cause a major shift in social paradigms, or be better or be as good as The Empire Strikes Back (it isn’t) but I really wasn’t expecting the movie we got. This to me was just a missed opportunity to expand many aspects of the galaxy and lore or even answer some of my many question that annoyed me about episode VII. Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi is a meal consisting of bread and water with plain vanilla ice cream for dessert. It is to me every bit as lame as Blade Runner 2049 was exceptional.
Don't agree with me? Check out my sister's review for The Last Jedi. It's the exact opposite of mine.
