Review of Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017) by Merlos T — 21 Jan 2018

Ladies and Gentlemen, this isn't a film, much less a Star Wars film. Whether you like Star Wars or not is irrelevant to your enjoyment of this movie; whether you identify with or care about the heavy-handed inclusion of the injected social narratives and the underpinnings of those people that are behind the film will determine whether you'll enjoy it. So much in this movie was changed from, or went against past messages in the older movies that it's unrecognizable as Star Wars. There's so much done wrong in The Last Jedi, even compared to The Farce Awakens, that to sum it all up succinctly in a single sentence is simply an impossibility; so, to that end, I'll just try to unpack all of this in as orderly of a fashion as I can.

Let's start with perhaps the least damaging **** up this train wreck of a movie managed to accomplish, and that's all of the nerdy stuff and technical aspects of the lore that were brutally ravaged. Shields worked entirely when they needed to or didn't need to in The Last Jedi whether they were the First Order's dreadnought's, Snokes' ship, or the rebel cruiser's; new technologies were invented from thin air to serve as plot contrivances; force powers did whatever the story called for with Rey's inexplicable proficiency and knowledge of the force being the most damning.

I'll stop here, as this list goes on... and on and on and on... but sadly, there is much more to address, and the technical and lore aspects of the film aren't even the worst victims of Kathleen Kennedy's and Rian Johnson's Frankenstein creation.

This film, to put it bluntly, simply, and succinctly, was just a vehicle for both social and political views, and was not meant to serve primarily as a Star Wars film. The whole movie's rife with these messages and examples, which aren't themselves fundamentally bad I hasten to add, but the way they're implemented ruins and distracts from the movie itself as they often purposefully come into direct conflict with past Star Wars themes. One example of this ham-fisted inclusion of modern social engineering is certain blatant narratives go out of their way to say all of the story, heroism, and characters from the original trilogy-and even the prequels-were morally and ethically wrong, or foolish, or misinformed. This movie even tries to undermine the thought of sacrificing yourself for a good cause when there's seemingly no other choice, which doesn't even make sense when considering that this film comes right after two movies that told stories about doing just that. Spoiler Warning: The instance I refer to is the character Rose's collision with Fin, seemingly to stop him from having a heroic moment; this is then presented as Rose correcting Fin from doing something regrettable and foolish. However, were it not for Luke's deus ex machina arrival moments afterward and his own subsequent sacrifice, the remaining resistance members would have perished and thus made Rose's words ring hollow.

Perhaps worst of all for Star Wars fans specifically, however, is what is being seen by all that cherish Lucas era Star Wars to be the absolute worst revival of an old character in cinema history. Luke Skywalker returns to us in the Last Jedi, but not as himself. In Mark Hamill's own words, it is better to call this new character Jake Skywalker or some other name, given the complete removal from Luke's original character and morality in the film. To put it simply Luke's identity has been assassinated thoroughly by The Last Jedi, Kathleen Kennedy, and Rian Johnson, and undermined to such an extent that it's clear that either Kathleen K, Rian, or Disney itself wished to see his legacy carry on just as they had portrayed his appearance in the Star Wars movie franchise: alone, apathetic, weak, uncaring, and disappointing.

It is so often the case with sequels that sometimes they are still enjoyable if you are not invested in the earlier films, but I cannot say in good conscious that this is the case with The Last Jedi, as even its cinema fundamentals are so poorly executed as to be laughable.

I end this review of Star Wars : The Last Jedi saying this: you shouldn't bother wasting your time, money, or even your ire on this film. The Last Jedi is simply hollow, and a sad, sad tragedy in the annals of cinema.