Review of Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017) by Ilya K — 27 Dec 2017

I saw this film a week after its release, tried to see it the weekend of the release, but demand was entirely too great. Much controversy swirled around it, I read all the spoilers, and I worried about the direction of this film. It would be very easy to dismiss an opinion based on prior fan status, so I will confess I have watched these films since A New Hope came out at theaters.

Mark Hamill did one of the most fantastic turns of his entire career, and he sealed this character's place in history. Where Carrie Fisher had a horrible delivery that rang of her mother Debbie Reynolds's era of acting, director Rian Johnson gets from her one of the most naturalistic, well-acted performances ever, which stands as a testament of her lifetime's work as, by far, her finest performance ever. It's the newcomers, with the exception of Adam Driver, who come off as ridiculous and over-acting. In this film, there is a clear divide: Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher and Adam Driver are the standouts in acting performance.

Insofar as story: while not giving anything away, there are heavy-handed moments which break strict storytelling convention, and most of them revolve around the newcomers. Mark Hamill has been very public about his displeasure with Rian Johnson's depiction and understanding of Luke Skywalker, but I don't think anyone disagreeing with this direction understands that Buddhist monks turn out the same way, because there has been a life dedicated to studying something so much larger than life, and, after a certain point the relevance of being constrained to this mortal coil is so frustrating and useless when compared to the grandeur of the beyond, of being a part of all things. If anything, this is amazing on Rian Johnson's part, and Luke Skywalker is beyond amazing, a ultra-powerful badass transcended beyond mortal constraints.

Some of the developments of this, the second in a trilogy, make this the low-point in the trilogy, specifically by design, and I don't think audience members have considered that, either, considering that some of the developments of this story will necessarily have to be up-turned in the next film to give a big, amazing finish.

This was an amazing, bold, fresh direction that zigged when conventional notion wanted it to zag, but pulled it off with deft skill, amazing performances, and a good, solid story. Star Wars has been through some strange developments. It started as a story of people -- honest, true people -- thrust into unusual circumstances in wonderful, exotic locales, while the next trilogy was lost in the mire of spectacle and special effects in a sterile grab for merchandising without the heart of the original three; this trilogy has the lived in look and feel with glimmers of the old, honest, true people is amazing circumstances, but in this modern age, you'll never get that heart again. This came the closest. After a special effects mindf**k that just looked more dirty, grungy and lived in (The Force Awakens), this human element may create momentum into the next film to humanize it more while building to a magnificent comeback of a climax for the trilogy.