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The Last Jedi: A Spoiler-Filled Discussion
In 1977 my life changed. I was seven years old, and fascinated with dinosaurs. Then one day my parents took me to see a new movie that had just come out about a galaxy far, far away. I left the theater that day and started reading all about space and astronomy. And I was hooked. I even ended up getting a degree in space physics (which I haven’t really used, but that’s another story). It’s not an overstatement to say that Star Wars, which lead to a love of science fiction and then science, was a major factor in my life.
Yesterday afternoon I got to see The Last Jedi. As they say, I have thoughts. Feel free to share your own. All this is before reading any other reviews or discussions, so it may be that all the ground here has been covered elsewhere. And if the title of this didn’t make it clear, what follows is one giant spoiler of everything in the movie. Don’t read on unless you really want to know.
Overall, I enjoyed it. It wasn’t perfect, and there are definitely some parts I wish they had done differently, but I think it’s a better movie than The Force Awakens. I know some people found it unpredictable and said that the whole movie was an exercise in doing the unexpected. I disagree with that assessment. I found parts of it were extremely predictable. For example, when Rey handed Luke the lightsaber at the beginning of the movie, I just knew that Luke would look at it and throw it over his shoulder. Which is exactly what he did. Let’s look at the story by character or plotline.
Rey:
I liked what they did with Rey in this movie. I’m particularly glad they didn’t try and make her Luke’s abandoned daughter. I know a lot of people were insisting she had to be a Skywalker, but I didn’t like what that would say about Luke. I thought that particular scene with Rey and Kylo Ren was powerful, with Rey admitting that her parents were drifters who had abandoned her and Kylo saying “You have no place in this story. You’re nobody … But not to me.” At that moment I could almost believe that there was a path to redemption for Kylo Ren. (More on him in a bit.) One bit that I thought was confusing was how Rey ended up on the Millennium Falcon at the end of the movie. She and Kylo Ren were fighting for the lightsaber on Snoke’s ship, the lightsaber blew up and knocked them both out. Clearly, she awakened first, but how she got from there to the Falcon isn’t explained. That aside, Rey is the character who shows the most growth in the movie.
Luke:
First, Mark Hamill has definitely improved as an actor from the first trilogy. But that’s not a high bar to cross. His crazy eyes in the flashback scene where he’s tempted to kill Ben Solo are a bit over the top. As for Luke’s story here, he doesn’t do much productive. He doesn’t teach Rey anything she hasn’t already figured out, and once Yoda comes back to talk some sense into him it’s too late. She’s taken off to confront Kylo Ren. His scene where he’s “fighting” Kylo Ren out in the desert is the best part of his story. They made it really obvious that he wasn’t really there though, focusing on how everyone else was leaving blood-red footprints except him. What I don’t get here is why he dies after the fight. Are we supposed to think that projecting his image over all that distance is so draining that it killed him? And why show us the X-wing sunk in the water next to the island if he never uses it? Talk about Chekov’s gun not getting fired.
Kylo Ren (Ben Solo):
Emo Kylo was by far my least favorite character in The Force Awakens, and it’s not just because I wanted to be Han Solo as a kid. Kylo is better in this movie, but not by much. In the scene where Snoke is telling him to kill Rey, I was completely unsurprised that he turned on Snoke instead. Sith lords always die when they’re betrayed by their apprentice. Now that Luke is dead (and with Carrie Fisher’s death in real life), Kylo Ren is the only Skywalker left in the story. So I suppose that means the whole next movie will be his redemption. How they’ll square that with the idea that the Force requires balance and there will always be dark to balance the light is going to be interesting. I’m… less than enthused. The Skywalker story is the biggest part of Star Wars, and the only Skywalker left is an unlikable brat with very few positive qualities.
Poe:
This part of the movie, along with the Finn/Rose storyline, was the weakest part. Why did Leia and Admiral Holdo keep secret the plan to abandon the cruiser and sneak over to the abandoned base? And when did they come up with the plan? If they didn’t know they were being tracked through hyperspace, why did they come out so far away from the planet? The plan only makes sense if they did know, and it still doesn’t explain why they kept it secret from him. Unless they were afraid they had a spy aboard who would reveal the truth to the First Order, there’s no point in not explaining the plan. And if there is a spy, they’re still screwed as soon as they land and the spy reveals the hidden base. The whole point seems to be to let Poe’s character grow from hotshot pilot to true leader, but it fails miserably. It drives him to mutiny and they just smile and pat him on the head for it. Poe is best as he starts. The smart-ass pilot taunting the First Order by “holding for General Hux” and then blowing their dreadnought’s cannons away.
Finn and Rose:
I liked Rose, but everything they did with these two was a waste of time. If the Resistance can’t broadcast their distress signal to the allies from the ship, how are Finn and crew supposed to be able to contact Maz Kanata (in the middle of her “union dispute,” which totally cracked me up)? And the idea that they can sneak off the ship, find this code breaker, end up with some other master thief codebreaker instead, and then get back in time to sneak onto Snoke’s ship to disable the hyperspace tracker that they just figured out must exist and therefore they know everything about it is stupid. As is the idea that the codebreaker somehow betrayed them. They were caught red-handed. Did he somehow betray them before they even got on the ship? And how did he know to suggest the “decloaking scan” that caught the Resistance ships sneaking to the abandoned base? And if they have a “decloaking scan,” why isn’t it standard practice to continuously run it to detect cloaked ships? This whole plot line just falls apart if you spend any of time thinking about it. One good part out of this part of the movie is that they got rid of the stupid Captain Phasma. She was a complete waste of screen time and won’t be missed.
Princess Leia (General Solo):
As cool as it is to see Carrie Fisher in the role this one last time, I was underwhelmed by her character. She’s passive, letting events control her and not taking any action to change what’s happening. The scene with her surviving being blown into space and using the Force to fly back to the ship was one exception. Beyond that, we see the rest of the galaxy ignore her personal distress code, clearly indicating that no one else thinks she’s all that important anymore.
Vice Admiral Holdo:
What is the point of this character? Other than to let Laura Dern have a role? She’s just there to act as a foil for Poe, and I already commented how that whole plotline made no sense. And then there’s this:
I can’t endorse this enough. That would have been perfect. What a wasted opportunity.
After all this, you may be questioning my assertion that I liked the movie. After all, I’ve torn apart every storyline except Rey’s. But that one story is enough. Rey going from a girl just looking for her place in the galaxy to one ready to take on her role as the next Jedi is what matters. And even though the rest of the movie disintegrates upon inspection, it’s still enjoyable if you don’t spend time thinking too much about it. Just let it be Star Wars and have fun.
Published in Entertainment
Great. Now I know I’m missing nothing.
My biggest fear about Rey from the Force Awakens was that she would turnout to be a Skywalker. I felt like that is what they were going for and I thought it was lame, and argued against it both here and to anyone who would listen to me. The fact that they made her a nobody (which is what I wanted) made me glad and caught be off guard, because I don’t expect them to make those kind of good story telling decisions. Not that you could not have a good story with her being a Skywalker. I am a firm believer that you can make anything work if done right, but having every one be a Skywalker is an unnecessary limitation to place on your story. I’m glad they did not fall for it.
As to how she got on the Millenium Falcon I believe when Ren wake up he mentions she took an escape pod, so I assume the Falcon picked her up off screen. Easy to miss.
You make me wish I’d seen half these movies. Maybe I’ll binge-watch them all.
Half is about right, maybe 2/3. The prequels can be safely skipped.
I hadn’t noticed that. But I did appreciate that this was the first time that some one used the force cleverly. As to his death? Well my interpretation of it is not that he died of exhaustion, but rather like a Buddhist achieving enlightenment he was able to let go and become one with the Force. I assume ghost Luke will be a staple in the next movie. I also agree about the X-Wing. I totally thought he would fly out of the sun to shoot that cannon or something, but you can’t have everything.
You’re bound for disappointment. ?
I scrolled past everything really fast so I wouldn’t see the spoilers, but I plan to participate later this week!
My second biggest fear in Force Awakens was that they would redeem Kylo Ren. Boo to that. I wanted him to get more evil with each movie. So far they are going the way I want them with this. I hope they don’t ruin it. I know they are already working on the next triology. I could accept the second trilogy having a Kylo Ren redemption plot, but only after he is defeated in the third movie. The problem with him being redeemed now is that there is no other villain left. I guess you could have a very powerful redemption story as the third movie, but I don’t think you have the time to do it justice. No the Third movie will be the big confrontation where he is brought low. It will start with him doing something really evil, and at then end he is stopped. If they spare his life then he will get a redemption plot line in other movies. If not, he will just be dead.
Poe, Fynn, Rose….
I love Fynn. I love Fynn and Rey together. That to me was the best part of Force Awakens. I loved these characters and they had great chemistry on screen. I felt their relationship was real and charming. The fact they they were not together in this movie was lame. Rose…well if she is alive is lame and will just serve as a third wheel. No. Fynn and Rey is a great team up, Fynn, Rey, and Rose love triangle is a disaster in the making. Poe is fun but unnecessary.
A fear I had going into this movie, but one I was braced to accept was that given Carrie Fisher’s untimely demise they would have to kill off her character in this movie. Which seemed crass, but potentially necessary to the great story. I am glad they didn’t do it. I think her characters passivity though is probably due to her death and the inability to get other scenes from her. I don’t know how they write her out of the script though. It will probably be done of screen. Maybe the third movie begins with a funeral scene…that though might be too on the nose.
The problem with the franchise is that they seem to think that petulant and whiny equals evil. Was Palpatine/Darth Sidious a bit better? Certainly. At least in the prequels. He was a fairly cardboard cutout figure in the original trilogy.
Let’s look at the rest:
Darth Vader? In the original series, he was pretty cool. In the prequels? Petulant brat.
Darth Maul? Evil out of nowhere. Cardboard cutout villain.
Count Duku? Ditto.
Kylo Ren? Petulant, just like Grandpa.
Jabba the Hutt was more believable than these characters. He was just
a mana sociopathic alien doing business.Ii don’t even know who the purple haired lady was either as an actress or character? Was she in other Star War’s movies? She was a terrible commander, who had a perfectly good and reasonable plan that she did nothing to communicate to her officers. In a time of emergency clearly outlining a plan with a goal is the right thing to do. It gives people confidence that their situation isn’t hopeless. Her plan was not bad, it was no worse than Poe’s. Heck the two aren’t even mutually exclusive. I hope Poe learns to communicate better with his underlings.
And yes having it be Admiral Ackbar would have been sweet. But I assume Ackbar is part of the lazy and unresponsive Republican Navy, which at this very moment should be gathering itself from the remaining sectors to mount a counter attack against the First Order. Or did the New Republic not have a military? I still don’t understand the geopolitics of Star Wars. Because no one seems to act like a rational political actor. There seem to be no governments of any sort. Even if you assume the galaxy is like a bunch of Greek City states, seeing 5 of them getting blown up by the remnants of the Persian Empire might cause the others to consolidate into some sort of league or alliance. I can only assume that on Corascant they still don’t realize the Clone War, Rebellion, and First order have happened.
Someday a real government will arise and put some order is that galaxy.
In some ways, this movie is a deconstruction of Star Wars. Everyone assumed going into the movie that she was a relative of someone and the whole point is that just because you aren’t a Skywalker don’t mean you aren’t important.
I was thinking of something similar when Luke says that the Force does not belong to the Jedi.
And I was thinking that Ren killing Snoke with so little being revealed also falls into the category.
It’s about breaking patterns in the storytelling, at least in a few ways.
Ah, yes, and Snookie-Ookie Ookums. Was anything ever revealed about him? Or is he just one more “Evil out of nowhere, cardboard cutout” villain?
The biggest problem with the movie was the implausibility of the central theme of the Rebel cruiser barely outrunning the First Order dreadnought.
I mean, if the cruiser is faster, it pulls out of range almost immediately. We’d have to believe that the two ships have exactly the same top sublight speed, and that the Star Destroyers also have the exact same top sublight speed.
But even worse, the First Order has not just a dreadnought, but all of those Star Destroyers as well, all capable of light speed. So why don’t they just do a quick light speed jump to surround the Rebel cruiser, and destroy it at leisure? I know, I know, movie over if they behave with the tactical sense of a decent 9-year-old gamer. But that’s the problem.
I admit, the first movie (A New Hope, Episode IV) had a glaring error in the middle of the plot, when Leia ran directly to the main Rebel base from the Death Star, knowing that the Falcon was being tracked. So why didn’t she divert to another location and switch ships a time or two, before continuing to Yavin?
It might have been better if they’d followed the Battlestar Galactica idea, from the reboot episode “33” (the first episode after the pilot). The fleet kept doing lightspeed jumps, and the Cylons kept showing up exactly 33 minutes later. It was completely exhausting to everybody to be relentlessly pursued in this way. Of course, it wouldn’t work as well for the First Order, as stormtroopers are not actually robots.
Oh, and Supreme Leader Snoke looked ridiculous, something like a cross between Gollum and Freddy Krueger and Hugh Hefner.
Ackbar was on the bridge when the TIE fighters blew it up (after Kylo Ren hesitated). Since he didn’t have the Force with him like Leia did, he’s dead.
Since we’re venting and revealing spoilers here, I’ll add my 2 cents.
The Bad: What is with Lea doing the Superman float back to the ship after being blasted into space? So an aged Lea walks slowly and does a lot of grandmotherly advising, then is able to defy death and the cold of space? With no specialized Jedi training or anything of the sort mind you. My wife actually said out loud “Puhleeze” and rolled her eyes so hard I think I heard them in a darkened theater. Lea’s character was largely wasted I thought, but Carrie Fisher at this point in her life might not have had Oscar-worthy acting left in her, I appreciate that she did the film, it was nice seeing her hand things off to a new generation.
Lara Dern’s character was also a complete waste, I almost clapped when she died I hated her command ability so much. I feel like she was written in after Dern’s agent said she wanted to be in a Star Wars movie to give her grand-kids jollies.
Poe – A cardboard ripoff of a young Han Solo, but his actions scenes were good.
Battle Tactics – Somebody care to explain to me how they have giant space cruisers and dreadnaught ships, hyper-drive, laser weapons, etc… But somehow they’re dependent on bombers seemingly from WWII? Complete with gravity bombs that fall in the weightlessness of space from the bomber to their target? Think about that one.
Throne room – If, as noted elsewhere, it’s the natural order of things for a Sith apprentice to kill and take the place of his master, why in the world would Supreme Leader Snoke allow Kylo Ren into his throne room armed? Maybe it could be explained away by Snoke believing in his own power, but why even risk something like that?
The Empire/First Order – Must they all be generic Nazi-like bad guys? It’s difficult to believe a guy as incompetent as General Hux could have risen so far. I don’t believe I’d trust the guy to walk my dog.
The Good: Rey – Her character was flushed out nicely and the acting was wonderful, Daisy Ridley continues to shine in this role. She brings both courage and vulnerability to this character.
Kylo Ren – Adam Driver’s acting has improved, a lot. Comparing this Kylo Ren with he of Force Awakens is night and day, it was nice to see such improvement.
Yoda – It was smile-inducing to not only see him again but also to have him rendered with puppetry not CGI. It was a nod to how we were introduced to Yoda as kids, the director “gets” that and wanted to separate himself from the Yoda we saw in the Lucas prequel trilogy.
Luke – Mark Hamil has reached a stage in his life where he can growl his way through scenes, the Director recognized that and used it.
I thought the Rey/Kylo plot was the strongest, and the Finn/Rose plot the weakest. There were some scenes on the casino planet that reminded me of the worst parts of the prequels.
I still hold to the theory that her biological parentage is irrelevant because she’s the reincarnation of Anakin Skywalker.
This is… not the craziest theory I’ve heard. After all, we haven’t seen Anakin’s Force ghost in the new movies. I certainly like it better than midichlorians (or whatever).
I was wondering: why send Yoda’s ghost to talk to Luke? Why not Obi Wan or Anakin? Or even Mace Windu or Qui Gon or any of the other great Jedi’s of legend and history?
Because Yoda is much more popular and can sell more merchandise. Oh, wait, you mean in-universe. Probably because Yoda was Luke’s Jedi Master. Obi-Wan may have started his training, but he died before he could teach Luke more than the basics.
Agreed. These parts also definitely had an SJW taint to them. Not exactly explicit, but it was underlying those scenes and the characters’ reactions. It was nice, but too little, to show how those evil arms dealers sold arms to the rebels or resistance or whatever too.
Was it an industry-wide holiday or something? No one was actually working? Nah, richy rich fat cats never work they just manipulate and steal and murder. They don’t employ people either. Arrrgh! Why even bring it up?
If the arms makers are all in one place and there is no broader power guaranteeing free trade, what is protecting them from being wiped out? Or forced to simply sell to only one side or the other? Hell, why keep the fat cats when the Empire or whatever can just coerce the work to proceed anyway?
What modern US battle fleet doesn’t deploy air cover prior to engaging the enemy or have smaller ships with air defense? The battle tactics of Star Wars have always been laughable, the physics even worse.
I always found the Napoleonic Squares of the prequels extra odd. A company of Marines would have destroyed a whole legion of clone troopers.
Why not all three: Yoda, Obi Wan, and Vader ahem Anakin? Right you are Nick, but a good writer could have it make sense in the movie in universe too.
Also the actors that played both Obi Wan and Anakin are dead. At least the ones Luke new. Having Ewen McGregor show up would have been a disaster.
Yes, but that shouldn’t be much of an obstacle since they’re supposed to be apparition like anyway.
And why was Yoda older looking than I remember him? Ghosts continue aging in the after life?
Calamari thaws pretty well. Just stick him in some hot water.
Agreed, same with Mace Windu. I like the choice and I LOVED that it was puppetry and not rendered in CGI.
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