Review of Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017) by Elen C — 22 Jun 2018

This movie was a mess. The most important part of every movie is plot and characters, and they were both done poorly. Our hero Luke was destroyed, Finn was forgettable, Poe was humiliated, Rose and Holdo were insufferable, Hux was a clown, and Kylo isn't a scary villain. The plot was boring and dragged on for far too long. Much of the writing made no sense, and provided the audience with no payoff. Also, many potential plot threads from TFA were wasted. Snoke was a powerful villain whose backstory could have been interesting...but he was killed in a cheap, unsatisfying way. Rey's parentage was hinted to be interesting, but never mind, her parents are nobodies. There seemed to be a story behind the lightsaber Rey found, something that called it to her...that wasn't brought up again. There was so much bulidup to Rey finding Luke, but he just tosses the light saber over his shoulder. I'm not sure what there is to look forward to in Episode IX- the characters all seem boring or unlikeable, and there are very few plot threads left worth caring about. The critics' consensus says this movie "honors the saga's rich legacy", which is a sad joke, as this movie does exactly the opposite.

There were a few scenes that stood out to me because they were so preposterous and out of place. First was Carrie Poppins...maybe that scene was supposed to be inspiring, but it came across as laughable (in a bad way). Also, the scene where Holdo belittles Poe... no idea why that scene was there, but it made me care less about Poe while hating Holdo. Finally, the scene at the end where Rose crashes into Finn, and her rationale for doing so, was the absolute worst part of the movie for me. What a great way to ruin a climactic part near the end of the movie.

The trailers for the movie tell a different story than the movie itself does. Captain Phasma is advertised, but barely has a part in the movie. Lightsaber duels were scarce in the movie, even though they were heavily advertised. It's like the makers of the film knew what audiences wanted, but intentionally did the opposite. It's like this is another of Rian Johnson's subversions, done for the sole purpose of surprising the audience.

I've kind of been all over the place in this review. There's just so much that went wrong in this movie, it's hard to lay it all out in a way that makes sense. I'm still baffled by the shoddy writing in this movie, as well as the incredible efforts of the mainstream media to defend this movie.