Here. Be. Spoilers.

[gelbes_gilatier]

I watched The Last Jedi on Saturday.

So here be spoilers. You have been warned. Proceed at your own discretion.

Comments

[immertreu]

For once, I'll have to disagree with you. Which is totally fine. I'm glad you liked the movie!! I did not. :(

I left the midnight premiere feeling confused and sad and annoyed. Then I went back to watch TLJ again and got even more confused and sad. And then I sold back the ticket I'd bought (in advance) for a third viewing because I just couldn't take it anymore.

I get that many people liked the jokes, the action, the different - some might say new - approach to Star Wars, but in the end, there was nothing left for me personally (!) that felt like Star Wars to me.

I enjoyed the space battles (although I thought the slomo chase was a stupid plot device). I laughed at some of the jokes (and cringed a few times, too - everybody's humor is different). I liked the porgs (I like the Ewoks, too). I liked seeing the old characters again and the newer ones we were introduced to in TFA (but I didn't care one bit for the new guys and girls - most of them are dead anyway).

I definitely didn't like the treatment of several characters in this saga that has been a huge part of my life for about 25 years, mainly Luke.

People change. People make mistakes. People go down paths we don't want to follow and we scream at them to stop. I'm fine with that even if it happens to my favorite character, but ONLY if it's explained in a way that makes sense to me. Yet even after having seen the movie two times, it still doesn't make sense to me that Luke would almost become a murderer and try to kill his nephew (!) in his sleep. Come on, we're talking about the man who turned back Darth Vader (who took his hand, tortured his friends/family, killed probably millions) to the light, who always believed in the good in people, who never backed down and would rather sacrifice himself than let down the people he loved. I just don't see it and that's because we weren't really shown what made Luke change, we were told. And that's a no-go for any storyteller. "Show, don't tell" is the first thing you learn when you write a story of any kind. They didn't show us what really happened to Luke and his family after ROTJ. And one little flashback scene can't explain what makes a character that has always been the embodiment of hope abandon his beliefs, his ideals, the very core of his existence. It just didn't work for me.

Luke's death left me cold. It was more like a "WTF, is he supposed to be dead?"- moment. Again, it's just my personal experience. The death scene did nothing for me. And neither did the final scene with the broom kid.

I know that they needed to get rid of all the old characters (the mentors) to make room for the new people, but the ruthless way it was done broke my heart.

There were many more aspects of the film I didn't like (the pacing, Leia's "super powers" - I thought Kanan's space walk was pretty unrealistic, too, but at least he was a mostly trained Jedi -, Finn/Rose, Snoke's death, that we didn't get any real answers to things that were teased in TFA). So if for you TLJ is about hope, for me it's only about failure and sadness and defeat. Because those were the only real emotions the movie evoked in me.

No matter how hard the characters tried, they always failed. And so it's up to the next generation to make things right. Again. Been there, done that.

P.S. I went into the movie knowing only the trailer and a few TV spots. I didn't know what Mark Hamill may have said about the treatment of his character or anything else. I hadn't read any reviews or watched any of the interviews with the cast and crew because I wanted to avoid spoilers and watch the movie unbiased.