Review of Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017) by Stan J — 16 Oct 2018

Where to start with this movie? First, let me say I enjoyed TFA as a reasonable reboot, and really enjoyed Rogue One; I wish Episode 8 was anything other than what we actually got.

In general, I wish TLJ was not set right after TLJ (like, picking up exactly after TFA) - that really hurt the scope of what the movie could do. This dawned on me pretty quickly as I sat there in the cinema. This is my second review here, so I'm not going to go over all the bad aspects of this movie, rather I'd like to speculate how it could have been better, trying to keep as much of the movie as possible.

Let's keep the themes of the movie: destroying the past, and the consequences of failure. Let's keep the characters. But lets tweak the story and change the tone, and tweak the politics. Lets also round out the characters so that their actions are driven by motivations we can relate to.

This critique mainly focusses on the B story for the most part. The A story of Luke and Rey has its issues, but the Holdo-Poe-Finn-Rose story drives the movie along, and has the most issues.

Let me state thar I'm baffled that people ascribe an "SJW" element to this part of the movie because, well, almost all of the resistance leadership figures make terrible mistakes: Poe disobeys a direct order, resulting in an unnecessary battle and high casualties - and later instigates a mutiny. Holdo doesn't reveal her plan or explain why, so causes a command fiasco. Finn and Rose fail in their mission, then allow a complete untrustworthy stranger (DJ) to hear a crucial piece of information that DJ later tells the FO. This results in a massacre on the space transports, with the Resistance survivors retreating to a base with just one way in, and their call for help going unanswered (an overall political failure). They attack the FO ground forces with terrible losses, and the remaining survivors are so few in number that they can all comfortably fit on the Millennium Falcon. I don't see this as a "win for feminism", people.

So it's a disaster for the Resistance. Yet it doesn't feel like that. This is not due to the "politics", "diversity" or the actors involved. It's down to a confusing story which can't make its mind up over the tone it wants to portray.

First, dump all the WTF moments that took people out of the movie: Poe's mom joke, Luke goin' fishing, Luke milking a spacecow, Leia Poppins, topless Kylo. Keep Phasma for Episode 9 as she's just wasted here. Drop the almost-out-of-fuel shlock, instead have the Resistance fleet make jump after jump, with the FO in pursuit, with Resistance ships dropping one by one as their engines finally give out & fail to make the next jump in time. It would be more visually arresting at least.....

Lets fix the Holdo-can't-reveal-the plan problem: Holdo would reveal she isn't completely sure how the FO is tracking them - is it really some kind of tracking technology, or does they Resistance have an FO spy on board? The uncertainty means she has to have a small circle of trust, such are the stakes involved. When confronted by Poe, she reacts angrily, genuinely and forthrightly - condemning Poe's own decision to disobey orders, highlighting the lives lost, and the fact the bombers would be more useful now rather than earlier (not the cartoonish "flyboys" comment she actually makes). IE Poe can't be trusted to know the plan after his recent actions. Above all she needs to show the stress of command - its all on her now. Just a change in dialogue and tone would solve a lot here.

Also, you know, just let Admiral Ackbar do the hyperspace ramming - keep Holdo alive for Episode 9.

Rose and Finn need a better reason to go to the casino planet. It should be about eliciting help - either from some kind of political go-between on the planet or someone directly in power; at least we'd get some meaningful interaction with some of these alien characters. Let's keep DJ, not a "code breaker" but a so called go-between or power broker.

Also let's give a compelling reason for Rose and Finn to get to know each other: I suggest the slave kids. I found it unbelievable that Rose and Finn would end up in a situation where they are releasing space horses from captivity, but not the kids themselves. Let's have the kids would ask Finn and Rose to save them, rescue them from a horrible situation: this would cause a classic dilemma between the kid's needs and the needs of the mission. An added layer is that Rose came from this background and Finn was taken from a family he never knew - this adds more pathos to the dilemma. However this plays out, it would be at least be better character development for all concerned. It would be a show-don't-tell approach to that part of the SW universe. Instead of the heavy handled dialogue we are subjected to, it could play out on a more nuanced way. And drop the spacehorse rampage sequence - we don't care.

So Finn, Rose and DJ still get captured by the FO, and the escape plan gets betrayed by DJ. Note that in the movie, Rose and Finn really allow this to happen by letting DJ overhear the plan. Rose and Finn still manage to escape & get back to Crait on a FO ship.

Now, in the movie, what happens (or doesn't happen) next is a huge problem with Finn and Rose: no-one interrogates them as to how the plan went wrong and how the mission failed. In the movie, Finn and Rose screw up so bad that many lives get lost on the transports, but they face no consequences. I really was WTF here. Rose and Finn should really feel guilty and conflicted about what has occurred - that would provide a real motive for Finn to try to sacrifice himself and perhaps a more realistic motive for Rose to stop him. Drop the stupid line from Rose about "saving what we love" - instead use something along the lines that both are responsible for a tragic mistake, and both now have to stay alive to make up for it.

On Crait, make the fight a bit more desperate. People die in the movie but no-one seems to be actually wounded or hurt that I can see.

On the Millennium Falcon, the survivors seem like have they just come out of a broadway show; they should instead be traumatized survivors, there should be wounded people in the Falcons passageways. It should seem desperate, the resistance has barely survived.

And this is the emotional hole at the heart of the movie. Its hard to see what the resistance has lost, except for a lot of people we were never made to care about. No one important has died - Luke excepted and we know he'll come back as a Force Ghost anyway. Its hard to care about Episode IX based on this movie.