Review of Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017) by Megan B — 17 Dec 2017

I don't know where to start in expressing my sadness about what disney, kennedy and johnson have done to the Star Wars mythos, central themes, and core characters. They've squandered so much potential with what this film could've been. This trilogy and the prequels have essentially become opposite sides of the same coin. Having just watched The Last Jedi, I'm beginning to wonder if the PREQUELS ultimately had more going for them.

The Last Jedi and this whole disney trilogy it seems, feel like a warped episode of the 90s show Saved By The Bell: THE NEW CLASS...only here the doofus principle actually helps the new, less-likable clones murder the original characters that made the first show a success to begin with.

SPOILER ALERT - Luke Skywalker is killed off for no other reason than that disney wants to expand their cash cow beyond the Skywalker saga, and squeeze dollars from new demographics and markets.

Rose, one of the most flat and uninteresting characters in the franchise's history, is nevertheless meant to appeal to wide swaths of certain Asian moviegoers who, disney's Big Data has probably revealed, may consider Finn their favorite character. And the critics can't stop gushing over what a great, history-making character she is. The actress seems like a lovely human being, but I almost didn't remember the character's name when I started writing this.

The random force-kid, who the otherwise entirely pointless casino world subplot (it doesn't add anything to the movie, except maybe a few laughs) appears to have really centered around, is the literal illustration of disney priming the pump on future star wars product consumers.

Luke dies in the DUMBEST way possible. Why would a simple Jedi parlor trick kill him? I guess he was just old, and therefore disney hates him. They gave us the cinematic gem of watching Luke Skywalker pretty much die of exhaustion. It's like killing off one of the greatest international cinematic heroes of all time due to complications related to gout. They could've at least added some emotional heft to the end by having his projection directly and/or physically save Leia's life, so that his sacrifice actually had meaning, let alone made some sense in terms of the energy needed to pull it off. Or - OMG! - they could have just kept him around for the next film.

Don't look for answers in this movie. There aren't any. Not about Rey's bloodline, the Knights of Rey, or who Snoke is...I mean WAS lol.

The final moments of the film are sort of depressing. Any screenwriter who thinks a small handful of mostly flat characters we don't really care about (Leia and Chewie, maybe BB8 notwithstanding) in the Millennium Falcon, with Luke dead, Admiral Akbar Dead, Holdo dead, Han dead and oh yeah several thousand resistance fighters dead is somehow "everything we need" should probably have their head examined.

Star Wars: The last Jedi is not a good movie. It looks incredible and there are several funny slapstick moments that would be great in ANY movie. I also commend the actors on their performances - Mark Hamill and many others gave it their best and it shows. The music is perfect. But the story BARELY EXISTS. The film doesn't do justice to any of the core Star Wars themes or characters and it feels like the opposite of epic. The scope and scale are limited, and in the weirdest way possible, rian johnson has made a movie about space battles, aliens and magic that somehow feels FAKE.

This is Hollywood-gone-wild, moviemaking by big data and marketers at its worst. I never thought I'd say it, but I honestly don't even care about the next movie in this series at this point. I'm going to start pretending everything that's happened since disney got involved is just some weird spinoff that isn't part of the real canon. Sort of like the 2 Batmen or 3 Spidermen we got inside of 10 years. Which one is real? Doesn't matter, there's no actual canon in film anymore. Just keep buying those tickets.