Review of Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017) by Daniel%20 S — 26 Jan 2018

Setting aside the blatant political stuff this movie seems to be a commercial for;.

I think the criticism of the criticism, that it's just a bunch of fanboys that are unhappy they didn't get what they wanted is unwarranted. They received a beautifully made Star Wars film with many references to past movies. Many of the original cast members have returned to reprise their roles. The issues go beyond that, they consist of continuity problems and plot holes that are just too glaring to be overlooked;.

The force Awakens set up the story by asking several questions, who are Rey's parents?; what happened to Luke?; who is Snoke?; what part will the Knights of Ren play? And it left us with Snoke requesting Kylo be brought to him to finish his training while Rey appears before Luke to start her training. The Last jedi answers these questions with none of that matters and neither Kylo or Rey will receive any substantive training. Not only that, but there's no customary year or two gaps between these two Episodes. Last Jedi rewinds back a bit into the Force Awakens and changes the Rey handing Luke the Saber scene. While the Resistance and First Order have suddenly found themselves in an entirely different situation.

Lets look at the position the Resistance has found itself in, to get away from the First Order they hyperspaced to the middle of nowhere and they are low on fuel. Maybe it would of made more sense to hyperspace close to somewhere they could of refueled? (Since they didn't know they would be followed.) Now they find out that they can be tracked through hyperspace and they end up on the end of Hux's string. A string Hux decides to hang on to while he slowly follows them waiting for them to run out of fuel instead of just hyper spacing closer and finishing the job.

Now we come to General Holdo's ultra-secret (plot contrivance) plan; to fly along on the end of Hux's string and secretly send the transports to an old rebel base, since they are tracking the larger ship and the transports will go unnoticed. (More on this a little later.) She keeps this plan a secret from everyone even when point blank asked if she even had a plan, which leads to Po concocting his own plan to sneak into Snoke's ship and turn off the tracker. When Holdo finds out that Po's team was conducting this little excursion she is outraged (apparently, she doesn't like people holding back important vital information.).

When Finn and Rose are betrayed by the 'code breaker' inside Snoke's ship, not only does he sell them off he seems to relay Holdo's plan to Hux, which Hux quickly acts on by targeting the unnoticed transports. So where did the 'code breaker' hear Holdo's plan? Since at this point in the story apparently only Holdo and Leia knew of it and Leia was unconscious. Speaking of which, Leia gets blasted out into the cold void of space and not only survives but uses the force to fly back to the mother ship. This is one of several previously unseen force powers we are introduced to in this movie. We get Astral projection, and mind texting, force ghosts calling lightning from the sky, but no real lightsaber battles. (Lucas had planned at one point to have Vader do a force controlled spacewalk, but his helmet/suit would have kept him alive in space.).

We do get to see Luke's astral projection appear to reconnect with Leia and confront Kylo and have a pseudo fight with Kylo to only die afterward. Which begs the question, why not just have Luke heed Leia's call for help and come to Crait and be struck down ala Kenobi? Then you wouldn't need to create a new force power for no apparent reason.

When it comes to Characters, this film misses the core principles of what made the original movies popular with fans. Technically episodes I through VI are a bildungsroman on Anakin Skywalker and his fall and ultimate redemption. Then to a lesser degree, the story of Luke and Leia and their journey as extensions of his story. These stories are about struggle, failure and learning. Striving to overcome insurmountable odds and at times with great loss. We get none of that with Rey or Kylo. Rey has no real struggle, she seems to need no training and can just do whatever happens to be needed at the time with little or no effort. Often, she is called a 'Mary Sue,' but that may be a misleading moniker as that often just refers to a strong leading female role. The real criticism might be better termed as 'god moder,' meaning a character in fiction who for no apparent reason is just better at everything than everyone else with no struggle or need to learn, this can be male or female.

Luke is framed in such a manner that contextually he betrays every aspect of his character. He wouldn't leave his aunt and uncle when Ben wanted him to follow him to Alderan, even though it was everything he wanted. He forced Han to assist him in saving the Princess because it was the right thing to do. He took part in a 'suicide mission' on the Death Star because they needed him, even influencing Han to change his perspective and ultimately help the Rebel cause. He kept his promise to Yoda and returned to complete his training (yes, he actually had to be trained) after leaving to rescue his friends. He walked into Jabba's palace alone to rescue his friend Han. And he stood before the Emperor threw down his lightsaber and told him that he had failed because he wouldn't strike down the evilest man in the Galaxy because he still sensed good in him. Now we are to believe this same character gave up on everything, including his friends because he sensed evil in his young nephew and almost murdered him in his sleep. He doesn't want to be found, but left a map to his whereabouts just in case.

Rose and the Code Breaker didn't need to exist at all and only served to continue the plot contrivance derived from Holdo's secret plan. The entire Canto Blight sequence, the insertion into Snoke's ship and their capture and escape could be cut from the film and it wouldn't change a thing. If Leia hadn't been rendered unconscious, Holdo wouldn't need to exist. If they just needed someone to kamikaze into Snoke's ship they could have used Admiral Ackbar since they killed him off anyway. R2-D2, C3PO and Chewbacca are completely underutilized. Po and Finn are both made to look foolish.

The stars/heroes of the movie are Rey, Leia, Rose and Holdo.

A lot of fans are left with not caring what happens in Episode IX, but based on the precedents the Last Jedi has established I can assume we will see an astral projected Rey defeat Kylo and the First Order using an army of unstoppable force Ghosts just lightning frying everything in their path.