Review of Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017) by Jetta A — 06 Jan 2018

I had multiple problems with this movie.

Firstly, the movie had a chance to do something great, like create a new version of the force, one where light and dark are blurred, or coexist, a true "balance in the force". But instead, they go back to the same old light vs dark narrative that's been in the all the other movies. They teased the audience with the prospect that Rey and Kylo might join together, but then take a giant dump on that idea. They could've gone into more lore of the universe, such as the opera scene in "Sith", but instead burn down the place where the Jedi books are kept. I was excited by the title "The Last Jedi", because I thought we would get something like a gray Jedi order, where people are taught to use both sides of the force and balance them, but instead, we get nothing new. They did little things that we weren't expecting, but when basically every youtuber and commenter wants something to happen, like Snoke being Plagieus, or Luke fighting in person, we don't get what we truly want. There's a reason people make and watch these videos: because that's what we want! Frickin Disney doesn't seem to get the message.

Secondly, the movie tries so hard to push its agenda on the audience, which is mostly leftist, SJW propoganda. I've heard a lot about the right wing people that tried to spam this site, and I can see why, because this movie did try very hard to push a mostly feminist agenda. One example is Rey. She isn't an interesting character. She has no struggle, internal or external, other than finding who her parents are, and even when she finds out they are nobodies, it really doesn't affect her. The four types of struggles are man vs himself, man vs nature, man vs society and man vs man, and the only one Rey really fights is versus herself, which she overcomes easily. She is a total Mary Sue, which makes her a boring, unrelatable character. The most interesting scenes are when she is with Kylo, who I think did a fantastic job in this film. Adam Driver and Mark Hamill were definitely the highlights of the movie, even if their arcs were trash, they did the best to create relatable, good characters. Their performances are the only star this film gets. The whole Canto Bight sequence tries so hard to push an anti-capitalist message, which is, in the words of sheev palpatine, "ironic", since Disney is one of the most greedy capitalist companies in the world. They could've created a star wars movie without the need for this message of anti-white supremacist SJW opinions. I don't support white supremacists, but there need not be such a strong message against them in a family movie. Why does everything need to be political anymore? You want to kneel for the national anthem in the nfl? Make a huge deal about it politically. A businessman gets elected who you don't agree with? Make a movie that will be seen by millions spreading your divisive message to further hurt this broken country. Star wars should unite, not divide.

Thirdly, let's talk about Luke Skywalker. What a horrible take on a character who already had his story arc. As Mark Hamill said, he's a Jedi, and Jedi don't go away for twenty years because they make one mistake. Yes, Obi-wan and Yoda went into hiding, but that was not out of grief so much as trying to protect themselves. Additionally, Luke's end sequence with the astral projection was totally anti-climactic. I don't care if he dies, but at least make him be there in person. He could give himself up Obi-wan style, but it would've been so much better if he faces down the whole army in person. The whole "How did luke get in here" sequence doesn't make any sense then because he didn't need to walk in to the cave, he just projected himself inside.

There are other problems with this film that I won't discuss, such as the physics, Leia flying (she and Finn both should've died, but they kill off all the interesting characters and keep the boring ones), rose was completely unnecessary etc. The above are my main problems, as well as the story just not being interesting, not setting up anything for 9 other than "Well, we'd better get more people to join us", etc. J.J., I wasn't a huge fan of the force awakens, but please redeem this load of rubbish and redeem the star wars universe from the non coherent story it has become. Your movie was leaps and bounds better than this one.