Star Wars The Last Jedi Review
Probably the best line that sums up a movie and a franchise. Lots of people have sounded off, and in better ways than I, reviews of one of the most anticipated movies of the year. Basically The Last Jedi is a hot mess.
Notwithstanding that on first or second viewing you really do feel you are on a Disney ride, the up, downs and in betweens are fun. Let me be clear It is a fun movie, but it’s not a good story. Nothing about this story is earth shattering, no information is presented, no lessons are learned and no allegories can be made. It’s just there. It’s just a Disney movie. Well, to be honest, even Disney animated movies still have some “moral” Star Wars the Last Jedi basically has none.
The plot goes nowhere, scenes come and go and there is no cohesion to any of it. Where the Force Awakens is literally, and it is a literal, remake of A New Hope, The Last Jedi is an amalgamation of tropes and ideas from The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. (Salt planet that looks like Hoth with Rebels in trenches, trying to open a door by jury rigging it, training a Jedi knight in a hermitage, the “cave”, cute furry characters) It may not be a shot for shot remake of Empire, but it sure as hell wants to be. There are so many plots and sub plots in this story that simplicity was thrown out of the window to make it a merchandisers wet dream. All I have to say is “Porgs.”
At this point I’d just like to mention that Star Wars has become a mirror of how we view the 21st century. I will be writing a more detailed analysis of the divergence from the “Legends" stories (what worked, what didn’t) and the New Extended Disney Star Wars Universe.
There is a larger picture that one needs to step back and appreciate that George Lucas did not want to continue the saga, primarily because it would have led to “story fatigue” or in more specific terms “nuking the fridge” and “jumping the shark.” Vince Gilligan, one of the writers and then producers on the X-Files, sold a story concept to AMC where a show would be wrapped up in 5 seasons. Breaking Bad became so successful Gilligan was asked to try to extend it beyond five. He refused because he learnt his lesson from the X-Files when after season 7 the writers had basically run out of ideas. This is the Last Jedi. A story bereft of ideas. So instead of building on the mythos that was created, they chose to kill it.
And kill it they did. Yoda comes and burns down the tree, a symbolic gesture (in itself a huge plot inconsistency, for if Yoda can summon force lightning as a ghost, why the hell do we still have Kylo Ren, et al? But I digress) that represents the "disney-ification” of Star Wars: “Jedi texts, not real page turners they were” is a slap at Lucas for giving us the “prequels”, fair enough, but they are there, they are important. All of Star Wars’ rich back stories are important, whether you like it or not.
In the end what Rian Johnson et al are trying to say is, all that stuff that went before, yeah, forget that shit we going somewhere else. Well as Padme told Anakin, yeah well, where you guys are going we can’t follow. Not if the story is going to be a muddled, confused amalgamation of tropes and dead end plot lines that was the Last Jedi. In fact Disney hasn’t actually brought anything new to the table, what Disney has done is restarted the franchise from the beginning, the story is basically right back where it started: ". . . small band of rebels struggling to restore freedom to the galaxy. . .”
When people came out of The Phantom Menace, everyone wanted to like it, we desperately wanted to, but in the end it is what it is, its flawed and has terrible moments but Its there, its a Star Wars movie, its “canon” and so is The Last Jedi. . . so on to the next one.
The next one is “Solo” in May, and here’s what I think is going to happen: The old stand alone stories are for the “old” fogeys holding onto their “dead religions” and the new movies are for my kids who don’t care. Ok fair enough. I can dig that. However, I won’t be supporting Rian Johnson if he is supposed to do more Star Wars movies in the future Sorry Rian, you just can’t tell a story well. . .Â
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