Review of Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017) by Base C — 19 Jan 2018

I had to make another comment today after seeing a couple of things on the web the last couple of days. 1) Joseph Gordon Levitt writing a 2000 word essay on why The Last Jedi works. Like seriously, why am I being convinced to like this movie? Sorry JGL, that is your opinion, and this is mine, TLJ does not work, especially when it comes to Luke. I shouldn't have to watch the thing 3 times or be convinced by the media that I'm wrong. 2) Rian Johnson "putting all the haters" in their place by pulling out the book "The Jedi Path" and referencing a page where it explains that Jedi can do astral projection, or whatever. Look, that was never my criticism, and I love Star Wars but I'm not up on the EU and hard notions of what is 'canon' when it comes to details like this. In my mind during the EU days, if it didn't come from Lucas' mouth, it was not Star Wars and I mostly ignored that stuff anyways. My problem is that I feel like that was simply the wrong story beat to give the character....but his character was already ruined by that point in the movie so it doesn't really matter to me what is canon or not when we get there.

And, the constant 'gotchya!!' in this movie just pissed me off and left me with a headache. Cripes, I can't believe they are calling themselves geniuses and bold when all they did was subvert, subvert, subvert at every corner. That is not creative, it's just "you say black, I say white". I could've written that slop. Rian will get paid more than I will ever be paid in 10 lifetimes for writing something anyone in high school drama class could write. It is not clever nor is it brilliant to just do the opposite of what I expect..in every...single...plot thread! NOT CREATIVE AT ALL!! YOU DID NOT CREATE ANYTHING. Here's the thing, of course I want you to defy my expectations in some way, of course I want surprises and new things that I did not see coming and could not have possibly imagined (pun unintended) on my own. That would have left me yelling "that effing rocked!!!" all the way to the cinema multiple times. But what I want to see in a movie like this are things I am not expecting in a positive creative way. As I've suggested, I do not feel like mere subversion is particularly creative and in this case definitely not positive in most places.

And I just can't let slide the fact that I am getting an anti-capitalist "people with money are evil" message from, who? A megalithic multi media corporation worth many many billions of dollars who recently gobbled up just about every bit of current pop culture IP that exists to have complete and total control of. Wow. Facetious much? No more money will I spend on this incarnation of SW.

I will always cherish my Episodes 1 - VI, that will be the Star Wars experience for me and my future family (thank you George Lucas for your beautiful cinematic gifts that never gets old). It is clear the only voice I have left that will be taken seriously is in my wallet, and I will use it (or not use it in this case) loud and clear when Solo, Episode IX, and whatever else is released from Disney under the SW moniker hits the streets. This is not my Star Wars, to those who love it, enjoy.

Remember everyone, if you don't like this movie, you are wrong!

Peace!

Original 'review':

Quick update to my 'review'. Changed star rating to 1 1/2 because I saw a comment that 1/2 star ratings don't count. And on that note, 49%? Really? Do I have stupid stamped on my forehead? The media protection of this awfully constructed SW movie is absolutely glaring.

I am getting tired of being labeled a misogynist because I do not like this film. My favorite movie critic Roger Ebert had this to say about judging movies "A movie is not what it's about, it's about how it's about it". On that note, it's not the fact that Rey is female, I love that idea...that is taking SW in a new direction, lovely! The fact that she is the most powerful Jedi without any help or training? That's the "how it's about it" part that this movie fails horribly at.

At the end of the day, I could take all of that except my flavor of Star Wars does not mirror my world...this is where I go to 'escape'. Hard to escape when the galaxy far, far away is now only concerned with reminding me of what's going on in my own galaxy. This also, ages these films terribly.

And for the record, I do not agree whatsoever with the morons who did the "female free" cut of TLJ on the web. That is just a ridiculous, manbaby thing to do that just diminishes the honest arguments decent people have against this film, which go far beyond just the feminist messages.

Original Comments:

What I had hoped to see from this new trilogy is a passing of the torch. However the approach I am witnessing is not a passing of the torch, rather an extinguishing (more like violent drowning) of the old rickety un-edgy torch and lighting some new edgier torch and calling it Star Wars. Wildly disappointed, I have no interest in Episode IX at all, I am done, I do not care one iota what J.J. tries to do. Any attempt at 'redemption' of the subversive plot choices of this film would come across as more contrived than the lazy subversive contrivances here. What's J.J. going to do? Bring Snoke back from the dead? There is no way you could do that that wouldn't be completely ridiculous. Likewise, you killed Luke, so please just leave him dead. Of course bring him back as a force ghost for an appearance if you want, but you've already destroyed his final appearance and influence in the universe 'in the flesh', so don't try to redeem that choice by doing something completely ludicrious with Luke from beyond (ala Yoda summoning lighting). Not that I care because I simply do not want to see Episode IX at all. I'm just saying, if you tried to do those ridiculous things, it would not bring me back on account of said ridiculousness.

One more thing, I am pretty certain we were all to assume that Luke reached out to R2 at the end of "The Force Awakens" through the Force to allow him to complete the map and invite Rey to come to him. Any other explanation for R2 waking up then is extreme eye rolling deus ex machina / coincidence. And then comes TLJ, and tells us Luke has been cut off from the Force for ages, so it must be some other contrivance that awoke R2.....please.

I really liked Rian's work on Breaking Bad (where this subversive style fit much better) and Looper, but this feels like he just couldn't get out of his own rug-pulling way on this one. Pull a rug from under me once, it might be a genuinely thrilling cinematic surprise, pull every single rug in the house from under me, and I'm just left annoyed and insulted.

IMHO.