Star Wars: The Last Jedi - First Thoughts
Below are my first reactions to Star Wars The Last Jedi a day after I saw it in theaters. I posted this on Facebook that started a lot of discussion.
To be clear I didn't completely hate Star Wars The Last Jedi. But it suffers from poor writing. Below are spoiler heavy points that I think amount to a 3rd grader writing a movie script.
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SPOILERS BELOW
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1.) The slow chase scene of the First Order pursuing the Resistance is BORING! We are watching a Star Wars movie here not an episode of Star Trek Voyager. If I was the writer, I would make the Resistance fleet have enough fuel to make multiple jumps to lightspeed. Then have a cat and mouse chase between the Resistance and the First Order. We could have exciting and multiple star systems that the Resistance fleet could hide out. Sort of like the chase between the Millennium Falcon and the Imperial Fleet in Empire Strikes Back. But on a grander scale. We could see the fleet be picked off one by one in more of a dramatic way. We then could see Poe Dameron, Finn and Rose Tico shine better in defending the fleet.
2.) Finn’s character has NO point in this movie. Finn goes off on a wild goose chase because the movie needed something for him to do. (If they used my chase idea, Finn and Rose would be busy fight the First Order.)
In the past the rebellion had existed for generations simply because ships can pop from one place to the next in the blink of an eye. The Last Jedi introduces magical GPS tracking that essentially makes guerrilla-style warfare impossible. It’s the understandable why Finn and Rose fly off to a random planet modeled off of Monaco so they can disable the technology. This is something the movie does repeatedly, creating problems that didn’t exist before just so its characters can pull off blockbuster high jinks in pursuit of their solutions. Sadly, this entire plot is rendered pointless by the end as we learn Leia was retreating to an old Rebel base on the planet Crait. Alas, Fin, Rose and BB8 are caught and almost have their heads cut off by laser axes.
One of the best part of this movie is to see Finn’s character stop running. In the beginning Finn tries to escape the fleet in an escape pod and the end Finn is ready to sacrifice himself to save the Resistance.
3.) Poe Dameron is always wrong and then is rewarded for it. When Leia tells Poe to break off the attack on the First Order Dreadnaught, Poe ignores her. This leads to heavy losses for one victory. Poe is demoted because of this. When Poe is given no plan from Vice-Admiral Holdo (because COs don’t have to explain themselves to their subordinates), he concocts a plan for Finn and Rose to run off and find a codebreaker so as to infiltrate the First Order ship that’s chasing them. Then when his plan is almost ready to go into action, Poe finds out that Holdo is abandoning ship for the planet Crait. What does Poe do? He mutinies. One of the worst thing that can happen in an armies chain of command. But… the movie ends with Poe being rewarded as leader of the Resistance by Leia saying “don’t look at me, follow him”. (To your certain death?)
4.) Captain Phasma turns out to be completely pointless and dies.
5.) I have no problem that Leia might have powers from the Force. But we have never had a clue from her onscreen history. Yet we have the weird angel like (almost Twin Peaks-ish) scene
Where her powers of the Force pulls her back from the brink of death. She’s floating in outer space without any protection and freezing her skin off. In this moment it’s done in a cringeworthy sort of way that’s obnoxious and very strange.
6.) Snoke dies in a hurry. In “The Force Awakens” the big bad was Snoke. There was all this speculation on his character - who he is, where did he come from. Fuck it! Kill him we don’t need to know. Like Darth Maul, Snoke seemed like an awesome bad guy. A suitable opponent to Rey and crew. Instead we are left with whiny emo bad guy Kylo Ren. For as fearsome as Snoke seemed to be, despite being able to throw a human being across a huge room with a flick of his finger and read everyone’s thoughts, has apparently lost his peripheral vision and can’t see that a lightsaber sitting right next to him is moving on its own. Dumb and lazy writing.
7.) Porgs and Vultpex (the Crystalline Fox) are almost pointless and they are a marketing ploy by Disney to make stuffed animal toys for children. Cash grab.
8.) Kylo Ren still is a whiny bitch. Isn’t Star War supposed to be epic? Why is the bad guy an emo kid that hates his dad and looking for a daddy? Darth Vader gave no fucks. The ending scene in Rogue One depicts this. But Kylo Ren is no Vader. He is a fainting baby of a bad guy. That punches his bedroom walls when he feels bad. When Kylo “turns” it prompts a truly fantastic fight scene where both Rey and Kylo are fighting side by side and working together to defeat their foes. It looks and feels so perfect, but that goes out the window the moment the fighting stops and Kylo reveals that he’s really just as much of an angsty kid as he’s always been. Couldn’t we have seen Ren evolve in this movie? Nah - Instead of fearsome we are given pathetic.
9.) Luke Skywalker is a hermit that wants out of this universe. I have no problem that Luke is shakened by his experience with Kylo Ren (Ben Solo). I have no problem that Luke wants to hang up his lightsaber. But Luke knows that Kylo killed his good buddy Han, that his sister is in deadly trouble and the universe is about be handed to the bad guys. And he still won’t spring into action??? When Rey asks Luke to train her, she receives a 3 minute crash course in the Force. Then Luke gives up when Rey is interested in a Dark Side seaweed hole. Well duh, yes - because NO ONE HAS TRAINED HER. (Dumb Ass!)
We do have a great scene when Force projection Luke faces off with the First Order and Kylo Ren. It was super fun and worth watching. But then Luke dies… So I guess Luke gets his wish.
10.) Rey is still untrained. Rey has no mentor. Maybe in episode 9 she’ll get a trainer. But I guess the untrained Rey can just magically control her powers and not be easily led to the Dark Side. But considering that Kylo Ren is such a weak bad guy, I guess she will prevail.