Some rambling thoughts on Star Wars: The Last Jedi
I avoided going online for a few days to avoid any spoilers for Star Wars: The Last Jedi (because not everyone on social media is thoughtful about such things), but was it worth it?
I saw a lot of good hype ahead of the movie's release, but I don't know if I totally agree with it. There is a lot of waiting around in this movie. Leia and Poe are stuck on a Resistance cruiser, Rey and Luke are bumming around Ahch-To, and Finn and his new best friend Rose wander around a casino planet that really doesn't add a lot to the story. No wonder this is the longest Star Wars movie so far. The pace isn't as frantic as, say, Justice League, so you have moments to breathe, but the movie could have trimmed a few scenes so you could get to the meaty stuff.
But I guess it all depends on what you want from a Star Wars movie. If you want a lot of action scenes with X-Wings and TIE Fighters and big lightsaber battles, then you're kind of left wanting. If you want excellent character beats, then The Last Jedi has that in spades.
Obviously, the most interesting stuff is with Luke and Rey. You really want to catch up with Luke after all of the build-up during The Force Awakens. I loved that the continuation of the last scene from The Force Awakens isn't this grandiose moment. Luke takes his old lightsaber and... tosses it over his shoulder. Then he just walks off. No lofty speeches; just a guy who wants to be left alone. Of course, that means that Luke and Rey spend most of their time away from the main action, which is kind of frustrating.
But they do delve into why Luke went into hiding on Ahch-To and you get some training sequences with Rey. Luke is just so damn tired of the Light and the Dark and having the fate of the galaxy on his shoulders. He makes an interesting point, though. Rey points out that there's the Light and the Dark side of the Force in everything and Luke wonders why the Jedi have to be the guardians of the Force. If the Force is part of everything, then everyone is free to use it. It's not a mystical band-aid that can fix everything, which is how Rey was sort of approaching it.
It's nice that you don't get a traditional training sequence with Rey and Luke. She's not running around Ahch-To, lifting rocks and X-Wings out of the water, though that mostly stems from the fact that Luke doesn't want to train anyone every again. Rey's also distracted by long distance Force mind calls from Kylo Ren. Rey's optimism and idealism are really on display in those scenes. At first, she hates Kylo so much for killing Han, but then she starts to sense how conflicted Kylo is and she reaches out to him. Through Rey, you can believe that Kylo might turn away from the Dark Side. It's a nice parallel with Luke's journey. He started on his path because he saw a message from a princess in trouble and he knew helping her was the right thing to do.
Oh man, they have R2 play Leia's holo message again at one point and it's such a great callback. It's not just a callback just for the sake of the callback. It also reminds Luke of who he was. He will always come to his sister's aid. I'm so glad that Luke and Leia (and by extension, Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher) were able to have one more scene together. While I wish that Luke can be a big part of Episode IX, his death does round out his story. He dies at peace knowing he was able to help in a time of need one last time.
Actually, that's the main theme of the movie, I think, which is summed up nicely by a line from Rose. You win a war by saving the things you love, not destroying the things you hate.
Anyway, the rest of the movie. Poe is used to being the hot shot pilot, so it's interesting that he spends the majority of the movie stuck on one of the Resistance freighters. His instinct is to fight, but he can't do that without his X-Wing. Poe could be a decent leader, but he focuses too much on winning and not saving lives. Since the Resistance is pretty disorganized by the end of the movie, I'm sure Poe will step up in Episode IX. As for Finn, his bit of the plot is kind of thin. He and Rose are pretty much chasing a MacGuffin in the form of an expert hacker. The scenes on Canto Bight could definitely be shorter. Though, Finn does get to face off against Phasma, so that was nice.
I'm not sure where they're going from here. The Resistance is in pieces, the First Order just lost their Supreme Leader, and Luke is dead. Leia is still around, but without Carrie Fisher, how do you go forward with her story? They make it clear that there are still people sympathetic to the Resistance and there are kids out there with the Force. Will Rey re-start the Jedi Order? What I really want to see is Rey and Finn and Poe in scenes together. It never occurred to me that Rey never met Poe in the last movie. If the three of them are the new main characters, they really need to interact more.
Ooh, there was one great piece of symbolism that nicely represented the future. Rey and Kylo have been fighting over Luke's lightsaber since The Force Awakens. It gets shattered at one point and Rey is left with the pieces. It's the end of the Skywalker legacy, quite literally too, since it turns out that Rey isn't a secret Skywalker. The focus of these films is moving past the Skywalker family now. Maybe Kylo will meet his end in Episode IX.
Random thoughts: I was surprised they killed Snoke. You keep thinking he's going to be the bad guy, like the Emperor, but then Kylo slices him in half. I guess it's Kylo who's actually the villain of the story. Rose... I was so happy there was finally a major Asian character in a Star Wars movie, but she's kind of played as this social inept mechanic. Ha ha, she can't talk to people. Ugh. But I guess she's used to keeping to the background, so she's kind of outside of her comfort zone. Porgs! People were all worried they were going to be the new Ewoks, but they're cute and they don't save the day. Mostly, they're just there to add humour. Speaking of humour, there was some wonderful jokes in the movie. My favourite is Rey's "reaching out with the Force" scene. My second favourite is Poe's phone call to General Hux. Poor Hux. He's just the lackey. The caretakers on Ahch-To really hate Rey, with her destroying sacred buildings and whatnot. So cool to see Yoda again. He was a proper puppet and not CGI! It's funny when Finn and Rose make it back to Crait. Instead of Poe asking if Finn is okay, he asks instead about BB-8. Then Poe proceeds to pet BB-8 like a big puppy dog. :-) The reveal that Rey is nobody was anti-climatic, but the best choice. If she was the secret daughter of Luke or Leia or Obi-Wan, then it's too much of a coincidence. Though, why did she have that Force vision in The Force Awakens when she touches Luke's lightsaber? She also dreamed about Ahch-To? Maybe she's more Force sensitive than Luke and Kylo?
At one point, Leia gets sucked out into the vacuum of space and I thought for sure that was how they were writing out her character. But then, she uses the Force to fly back into the safety of the ship. Huh? I never got the sense that Leia was that adept in the Force. Or maybe she got some training from Luke before Kylo was born? I also thought that maybe they could have swapped Leia with Laura Dern's character in the final space battle. Holdo sacrifices herself to save the transports. That easily could have been Leia's final gambit. But then, she wouldn't have had that great scene with Luke on Crait. I don't know; it's going to be hard to wrap up Leia's story. So great that the movie was dedicated to Carrie Fisher, though.
Luke's fight scene with Kylo was pretty cool, made cooler by the fact that he's not even there. I clued in that something wasn't right when Luke first shows up on Crait. He's had a haircut and a shave but what? The caretakers on Ahch-To also run a barber shop? Then there was the question of how Luke got to Crait since his X-Wing was shown to be sunk in the waters off Ahch-To. Then he had his old lightsaber, the blue one. When it turns out that he's just a Force projection, it all makes sense. That's some pretty bad ass Force skills.
Overall, The Last Jedi is a fine movie, but not the best Star Wars movie ever. But it was still fun to watch and that's definitely worth all of the anticipation.
I saw a lot of good hype ahead of the movie's release, but I don't know if I totally agree with it. There is a lot of waiting around in this movie. Leia and Poe are stuck on a Resistance cruiser, Rey and Luke are bumming around Ahch-To, and Finn and his new best friend Rose wander around a casino planet that really doesn't add a lot to the story. No wonder this is the longest Star Wars movie so far. The pace isn't as frantic as, say, Justice League, so you have moments to breathe, but the movie could have trimmed a few scenes so you could get to the meaty stuff.
But I guess it all depends on what you want from a Star Wars movie. If you want a lot of action scenes with X-Wings and TIE Fighters and big lightsaber battles, then you're kind of left wanting. If you want excellent character beats, then The Last Jedi has that in spades.
Obviously, the most interesting stuff is with Luke and Rey. You really want to catch up with Luke after all of the build-up during The Force Awakens. I loved that the continuation of the last scene from The Force Awakens isn't this grandiose moment. Luke takes his old lightsaber and... tosses it over his shoulder. Then he just walks off. No lofty speeches; just a guy who wants to be left alone. Of course, that means that Luke and Rey spend most of their time away from the main action, which is kind of frustrating.
But they do delve into why Luke went into hiding on Ahch-To and you get some training sequences with Rey. Luke is just so damn tired of the Light and the Dark and having the fate of the galaxy on his shoulders. He makes an interesting point, though. Rey points out that there's the Light and the Dark side of the Force in everything and Luke wonders why the Jedi have to be the guardians of the Force. If the Force is part of everything, then everyone is free to use it. It's not a mystical band-aid that can fix everything, which is how Rey was sort of approaching it.
It's nice that you don't get a traditional training sequence with Rey and Luke. She's not running around Ahch-To, lifting rocks and X-Wings out of the water, though that mostly stems from the fact that Luke doesn't want to train anyone every again. Rey's also distracted by long distance Force mind calls from Kylo Ren. Rey's optimism and idealism are really on display in those scenes. At first, she hates Kylo so much for killing Han, but then she starts to sense how conflicted Kylo is and she reaches out to him. Through Rey, you can believe that Kylo might turn away from the Dark Side. It's a nice parallel with Luke's journey. He started on his path because he saw a message from a princess in trouble and he knew helping her was the right thing to do.
Oh man, they have R2 play Leia's holo message again at one point and it's such a great callback. It's not just a callback just for the sake of the callback. It also reminds Luke of who he was. He will always come to his sister's aid. I'm so glad that Luke and Leia (and by extension, Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher) were able to have one more scene together. While I wish that Luke can be a big part of Episode IX, his death does round out his story. He dies at peace knowing he was able to help in a time of need one last time.
Actually, that's the main theme of the movie, I think, which is summed up nicely by a line from Rose. You win a war by saving the things you love, not destroying the things you hate.
Anyway, the rest of the movie. Poe is used to being the hot shot pilot, so it's interesting that he spends the majority of the movie stuck on one of the Resistance freighters. His instinct is to fight, but he can't do that without his X-Wing. Poe could be a decent leader, but he focuses too much on winning and not saving lives. Since the Resistance is pretty disorganized by the end of the movie, I'm sure Poe will step up in Episode IX. As for Finn, his bit of the plot is kind of thin. He and Rose are pretty much chasing a MacGuffin in the form of an expert hacker. The scenes on Canto Bight could definitely be shorter. Though, Finn does get to face off against Phasma, so that was nice.
I'm not sure where they're going from here. The Resistance is in pieces, the First Order just lost their Supreme Leader, and Luke is dead. Leia is still around, but without Carrie Fisher, how do you go forward with her story? They make it clear that there are still people sympathetic to the Resistance and there are kids out there with the Force. Will Rey re-start the Jedi Order? What I really want to see is Rey and Finn and Poe in scenes together. It never occurred to me that Rey never met Poe in the last movie. If the three of them are the new main characters, they really need to interact more.
Ooh, there was one great piece of symbolism that nicely represented the future. Rey and Kylo have been fighting over Luke's lightsaber since The Force Awakens. It gets shattered at one point and Rey is left with the pieces. It's the end of the Skywalker legacy, quite literally too, since it turns out that Rey isn't a secret Skywalker. The focus of these films is moving past the Skywalker family now. Maybe Kylo will meet his end in Episode IX.
Random thoughts: I was surprised they killed Snoke. You keep thinking he's going to be the bad guy, like the Emperor, but then Kylo slices him in half. I guess it's Kylo who's actually the villain of the story. Rose... I was so happy there was finally a major Asian character in a Star Wars movie, but she's kind of played as this social inept mechanic. Ha ha, she can't talk to people. Ugh. But I guess she's used to keeping to the background, so she's kind of outside of her comfort zone. Porgs! People were all worried they were going to be the new Ewoks, but they're cute and they don't save the day. Mostly, they're just there to add humour. Speaking of humour, there was some wonderful jokes in the movie. My favourite is Rey's "reaching out with the Force" scene. My second favourite is Poe's phone call to General Hux. Poor Hux. He's just the lackey. The caretakers on Ahch-To really hate Rey, with her destroying sacred buildings and whatnot. So cool to see Yoda again. He was a proper puppet and not CGI! It's funny when Finn and Rose make it back to Crait. Instead of Poe asking if Finn is okay, he asks instead about BB-8. Then Poe proceeds to pet BB-8 like a big puppy dog. :-) The reveal that Rey is nobody was anti-climatic, but the best choice. If she was the secret daughter of Luke or Leia or Obi-Wan, then it's too much of a coincidence. Though, why did she have that Force vision in The Force Awakens when she touches Luke's lightsaber? She also dreamed about Ahch-To? Maybe she's more Force sensitive than Luke and Kylo?
At one point, Leia gets sucked out into the vacuum of space and I thought for sure that was how they were writing out her character. But then, she uses the Force to fly back into the safety of the ship. Huh? I never got the sense that Leia was that adept in the Force. Or maybe she got some training from Luke before Kylo was born? I also thought that maybe they could have swapped Leia with Laura Dern's character in the final space battle. Holdo sacrifices herself to save the transports. That easily could have been Leia's final gambit. But then, she wouldn't have had that great scene with Luke on Crait. I don't know; it's going to be hard to wrap up Leia's story. So great that the movie was dedicated to Carrie Fisher, though.
Luke's fight scene with Kylo was pretty cool, made cooler by the fact that he's not even there. I clued in that something wasn't right when Luke first shows up on Crait. He's had a haircut and a shave but what? The caretakers on Ahch-To also run a barber shop? Then there was the question of how Luke got to Crait since his X-Wing was shown to be sunk in the waters off Ahch-To. Then he had his old lightsaber, the blue one. When it turns out that he's just a Force projection, it all makes sense. That's some pretty bad ass Force skills.
Overall, The Last Jedi is a fine movie, but not the best Star Wars movie ever. But it was still fun to watch and that's definitely worth all of the anticipation.