Star Wars: The Last Jedi
I'm not a die-hard Star Wars fan. The originals are forever combined with my earliest memories and I loved them dearly growing up, but I haven't seen them in a few years. The prequels were something I looked forward to as a child but now fully renounce. I thought Force Awakens was solid. I didn't like Rogue One. This is not going to be a die-hard Star Wars fan's opinion. This is the opinion of someone who judges each movie as an individual movie and is already sick and tired of all the new Star Wars movies coming out when it's only just begun.
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Making a Star Wars movie is like writing a spec script for a TV show. This is where a screenwriter writes an episode of a previously existing TV series to show that they can write in their own unique voice within the specific tone of that series. So when someone is making a new Star Wars film, it's important to both have their own unique perspective on it while still keeping it grounded in the previously established tone of the Star Wars saga. For anyone calling me hypocritical for saying I judge each film individually but I'm already bringing up other Star Wars movies which means I'll inevitably compare this film to the previous films in the franchise, you're right, because Star Wars: The Last Jedi didn't really have the tone of a Star Wars movie. But that's only because it couldn't pick a tone in the first place, and instead settled for comedy that doesn't work followed by tragedy.
Humor is a big focus of modern franchise films. Force Awakens took a slight risk by having moments of humor that felt more modern than the previous Star Wars films. It doesn't always work, but sometimes it did, and either way they used it selectively. Last Jedi took a risk by having a very broad approach to its comedy and it did not work out. Right at the start of the movie there's awkward modern humor with a classic "bad reception" bit, which is then followed immediately by tons of horrible death, which is then sandwiched with Finn having an awkward tube suit thing with water that's supposed to be funny. I can keep giving examples of this sandwich effect but it just kind of repeats like this for the rest of the movie. Regularly bumping between humor and darkness doesn't make for tonal consistency, it just creates consistent inconsistency. A film like Pulp Fiction can balance humor and darkness very well, but that's because it has the same voice throughout, which allows it to smoothly slide back and forth between those two feelings. In Last Jedi it feels like hard cuts between the comedy and the tragedy, almost as if two different people were taking turns writing it. Rian Johnson is the only credited writer, but a franchise film like Last Jedi will typically have several uncredited writers do punch-ups on the script, and Johnson himself has said that a lot of the jokes in the film were added by Carrie Fisher, who I'm sure wasn't the only one who added things. It felt like too many cooks in the kitchen but then the kitchen only credited one cook for the giant mess they all made.
This movie is two and a half hours long, and there's a real easy half-hour to cut, if not more. The easiest thing to cut is what everyone seems to agree on: Finn's casino side-quest. It's pointless, unnecessary to the plot, needlessly preachy, completely unfitting within the Star Wars universe, and undeniably prequels-esque. This is all true, but for me it felt like the entire second act needed to be funneled down into two simple stories with an occasional visit to the dark side. Star Wars films have very straightforward story lines that divide into two and then become one again. It's very basic storytelling, but simplicity is a huge part of the universal appeal of Star Wars. In Last Jedi the plot is divided into three or four stories which causes the bigger stories to be too small and the smaller stories to be too big. All the time devoted to Finn's casino adventure takes time away from Rey's story with Luke which causes it to feel rushed and unsatisfying. Give Rey's story the majority of screen time; she's the protagonist of the Force Awakens so she should continue to be so in the next two films. As for the Finn/Poe/Rose/Laura Dern story, they should all communicate clearly and be moving forward with the Resistance in some way. There's no point in Laura Dern not telling Poe her plan, and getting a hacker to make their ship go off-radar is a good plan that they should be telling Laura Dern about. Have them all work together, and have the planet the hacker is on not be a casino but instead be something creative that would actually make sense in the Star Wars universe. The third act is solid enough and feels like the train finally gets back on its tracks, but the train was off for so long that it doesn't have the same emotional weight that it could have had. The story needed to be more streamlined.
Tone and length are my main two issues with this movie, so I'll call this the "miscellaneous paragraph for some of my other qualms" before I get into positives. I'm not normally one to notice makeup, but there were scenes where Rey had natural make-up, which makes sense because she's on a desolate island with Luke and wouldn't feel the need to bring any, but then there are other times where she's wearing full-on lipstick and mascara like she's about to go have a fun night out at the casino planet. It stuck out like a sore thumb for me. As for costumes, everything is very normal and consistent except for Snoke's golden robes that make him look like Maury Ballstein from Zoolander. How was that the final choice? The montage of Luke doing stuff on his planet and Rey following him around didn't really work. Luke's routine on this planet isn't what's interesting about the story, what's interesting is Rey's desire to learn from him and his refusal to teach her. I can't remember where this example is from, but there's a very simple montage of someone sleeping outside someone else's house until the person in the house finally allows them to come inside after they feel they've passed the test. There are more effective and creative ways to show Rey's commitment and Luke's denial that don't involve what feels like a bizarre show-and-tell of silly alien creatures. And yes, Princess Leia flying in the air is completely absurd and creates some huge problems for the next film with Fisher's passing, but more importantly it felt like a weak move. Leia not only surviving that blast without a scratch but then showing she must have some kind of connection with the force changes her character completely. Leia and Han were always an interesting foil to Luke in the original trilogy because they were both regular people who became just as big of heroes as their force-having companion and didn't require any special powers to do so. Making Leia have the force was clearly a move they planned on going forward with in the next film, but because of her untimely passing they should have just edited around this and had that explosion be her final moment. Would it have been anticlimactic for her? Sure. But it would've been effective both for story and for future film plans.
Okay, let's talk about the good stuff.
Kylo Ren is great. The more conflicted he is, the more interesting he becomes, and boy is he conflicted in this one. The connection he and Rey have is easily the most fascinating element of the entire film because it gives them a dynamic unlike one we've ever seen in the Star Wars universe before. Sure, Luke and Vader are (spoilers) father and son and therefore have a connection of their own, but the connection between Kylo Ren and Rey has a distinct vulnerability to it, due largely to the unexpected sexual tension between them. It creates a far more complicated relationship, as they're two lonely lost souls who both want what's best for the world and come so close to being on the same page but don't quite make it and are forced to part yet again. This is the new heartbeat of the trilogy, and clearly the rabbit they need to follow into the hole of the next film.
I like the gutting of some of the mystery that Force Awakens set up because they're done in a fresh and satisfying way. Rey has a big surreal moment where she almost finds out who her parents are in a vision but it goes away. Kylo Ren is the one to finally reveal who her parents are, and it turns out they're no one special at all. That's far more interesting than finding out she's related to Obi-Wan Kenobi or something. Then they kill Snoke like he's nothing, which again is a great move because Kylo Ren is clearly the more interesting villain and it's better to have more time devoted to him than to divvy it up with Snoke. It also shows that Kylo Ren hates Luke Skywalker not simply for dogmatic reasons, but because Luke actually tried to kill him back in the day. This is another nice complication that doesn't feel muddled or confusing but instead creates more tension and conflict.
The new characters are all solid and interesting. Rose is charming and likable, Benicio Del Toro brings a new flavor to the stock hacker character, and Laura Dern is dope as always. The old characters are mostly good. Finn and Poe are still their fun selves, Leia is wise, Kylo Ren is better than ever, and Domnhall Gleeson's over-the-top performance as General Hux will never stop being massively entertaining to me. Rey didn't really get enough time to convey her personality, but the complications she's going through are still interesting. Luke is definitely different now, but this was inevitable with how he was setup in Force Awakens, as someone who went into hiding instead of being a hero. This is where Yoda comes in.
Yoda coming back was a brilliant idea on paper but there's an odd thing they did with him. It's cool that he's a puppet again and it's even cool that he's silly again, since there's no need for a dour Yoda in this movie, but he calls lightning down from the sky to set a tree on fire even though he's a ghost now. This sets up Luke fighting Kylo Ren as a force-projection of himself, which wasn't something that had been previously set up as possible and honestly doesn't feel necessary. He could've just come back because he still had the X-Wing (it's underwater, but that hasn't stopped him before) and he ended up dying regardless. Sorry, I'm getting negative in the positive section. Anyways, the porgs were like barely in it, which, you know, thank God.
I had a lot of complicated thoughts about this movie, but overall I guess I'm mainly just curious as to where they're going to go from here. Again, didn't hate it, but definitely didn't love it, and if I were forced to give a feeling to this movie, it would be slight dislike. I took a little time before reviewing this one, as I wanted to make sure I had all of my points at least somewhat fleshed out before presenting them, as Star Wars has a tendency to spark passionate arguments. I've seen a few different online reviews from trusted sources and they all vary on the like/dislike spectrum, but they all come to the same conclusion of it having both good and bad elements. Hopefully the next film will be more consistent, for better or for worse.
Update: That waiting montage was from Fight Club, a movie I've seen far too many times to just go and forget. Also, Captain Phasma pointlessly shows up again to pointlessly go away again.
Update Update: It's been brought to my attention by a couple different friends that Leia is established as force-sensitive in Return of the Jedi. Again, haven't seen it in years, and that still doesn't really justify her flying around in space.
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