Initial Reaction to The Last Jedi

I watched The Last Jedi on Tuesday, and since then I’ve been looking closely at what the fans have been saying about this film. I’m surprised to hear about all the criticism this film is taking. It only seems fair then to start this review off by looking at what the general criticisms have been and my take on them, and then we’ll move on to the rest of the review. And for anyone who hasn’t seen the film, most of what I’ll talk about can be gathered from the trailers, and I’ll save any spoilers for the end and mark them off clearly, so you can read on without a nervous eye. With that said, although the trailers don’t ruin the film, I was glad I avoided them before watching the film (and the first thing I did after watching was go back and watch the trailers to see if I did in fact make the right decision).

Fan Criticisms:

·         Rian Johnson ruined the character of Luke Skywalker!!!

What’s been getting publicized is Mark Hamill’s comments about his character, the director’s vision, and the film itself. And it’s interesting because his comments actually kind of relate to how I felt while watching the movie. Hamill reportedly told Johnson (the writer and director) that he fundamentally disagreed with him on his character, but he would go along with his vision to the best of his abilities because that’s his job. Under speculation is how a jedi master from The Return of the Jedi became a cynical hermit that was on the breach of murder. Now then, everything from that previous statement is blown out of proportion and not well thought out. After 2 years of waiting what Luke will do when Rey extends her arm out to offer his lightsaber, his reply I find to be both awesome for the film, and a great way to almost undermine J. J. Abrams. Before anyone gets too upset, I’ll be coming back to the transition of Jonhson from Abrams’ The Force Awakens. But after this quick exchange, Luke exclaims that the jedi must end. If you leave it at that, well, that does sound kinda cynical and cranky; and at that point, all we still know is that Ben Solo turned evil sometime while training under Luke. I feel like fans became toddlers once their beacon of light hero suddenly has a conflicting outlook, and the toddlers tuned out the rest of the movie afterward. If you actually watch the film, I think the character motivations are explained and work well, and it presents interesting themes that result in new territory for this historic saga.

Mark Hamill later regretted his public disagreements because his goal was to make a great movie, and he believes Johnson achieved that and more. And I think he might have said that he was wrong. I was hesitant at the beginning of the movie, but this new Luke Skywalker is a deep, unique character that is played wonderfully by Hamill’s talents. We could have taken The Force Awakens approach and just ripped off like Ben Kenobi from A New Hope and have Luke be that, but this film shows that even he in his wiser years still has stuff to learn. I mean, Luke is the best part about this film. He’s awesome, Hamill’s awesome, and I’m about to start fanboying so let’s move on.

·         We still didn’t get the background stories we wanted from the big characters.

Most of the question marks apply to Supreme Leader Snoke. Who the old bloke is, where he was during the first 6 movies, the scar on his forehead, how he turned and trained Solo into Kylo Ren, yada yada. Everyone knows The Force Awakens is a copy of A New Hope, so it seemed reasonable enough to receive an Empire Strikes Back treatment from The Last Jedi. To me what we receive instead is a combination of elements from episodes 5 and 6, and even parts from the prequels, and it’s blended together and poured over a new dish entirely. This film does a great job of limiting the times it hearkens back to the previous films, and it builds on what exists so nicely. Snoke was such a boring character in 7, and with the help of the magical Andy Serkis, I think the character is worked into the story in a surprising way. It won’t answer fans’ questions about him, but who cares because I think it worked well from a narrative standpoint.

Other questions are how Maz got Luke’s lightsaber in the first place and who Rey’s parents are. For the former Maz only has a limited role in this film, and I find that to be the better. She doesn’t fit into the story all that much, so I’m fine with it. Plus, there’s like a visual novelization that explains how she got the lightsaber. Remember, The Last Jedi is 2 and a half hours long. I’m fine if we don’t get scenes of pure exposition regarding the new characters brought in from 7. Staying true to my word, all I’ll say is I’m happy with Rey’s background. I don’t want to say I knew it, but I think my primary guess is what she ends up figuring out, and it again unveils strong themes for the characters to work with.

·         Not enough Captain Phasma again!

Phasma has little more to do than have a short but relatively cool fight with Finn. It gives both of them something cool to do, but that’s basically it. I do understand how after the promise to give her a larger role went sorta unfulfilled, but I’m under more of the impression of eh, who cares. My issue with Phasma is how she managed to escape a planet that was about to explode when she was thrown into a trash compactor. She had a cool costume, but what else in the film would you want from her?

·         The humor just didn’t feel right.

I wasn’t bawling out from cracking up during this film, but there were some good jokes. Maybe it was a different kind of humor, almost to a lesser degree the kind found in the later Harry Potter films, but I wouldn’t call it an issue. Not all jokes hit their mark, and I can agree that some were placed in a couple strange moments, but I feel the ones that did work stand out more than the ones that didn’t.

And now that we’ve addressed most of what is already being talked about, time for more of my own take. I wrote my final persuasive essay for my ENGL 336 class on some themes and and issues I had with The Force Awakens, and I received an A on the paper. Just like his Star Trek films, The Force Awakens looks nice from the onset, but it doesn’t hold up under scrutiny. And Abrams loves those light flares on the camera too much. That boy really does love his flares… Anyways, there are 2 points to this. One that people will probably like, and one that they won’t. I felt that Rian Johnson took all the right measures in disregarding some of the ideas Abrams presented in the new trilogy. From the opening with Luke to the character arcs to the story progression in general, it’s a much different take. Johnson took the existing world and expanded both in scope and in technology in a great way in my view. And the second point is that since The Last Jedi is the first sequel to take place immediately after the events of its predecessor, I still would recommend watching The Force Awakens before seeing The Last Jedi in theaters (where it’s meant to be watched).

With the possible exception of Finn, I enjoy the direction all the characters took. I can’t praise Luke enough because he’s awesome in this film, and Kylo Ren exemplifies the ways Johnson takes this universe to surprising grounds, and I think it works. For as long as the film is, we don’t get that many scenes of Rey training and honing her abilities. It’s one of my criticisms, but she’s still an enjoyable character besides that. I think they went too much of a “princess power” image for Leia (I’m talking about the scene near the beginning that just looks weird), but it’s still nice to see Carrie Fisher’s final role. And to my knowledge she is getting the Heath Ledger treatment for episode 9; her family gave the studio the rights to use her likeness, but I think they’ll just avoid it altogether.

As for the new characters, they come with some of the highs and lows. I enjoyed the porgs, and those that didn’t are just part of the toddler group of fans. I loved Benicio del Toro, and he’s a godsend for this franchise. But my least favorite part of the entire film is Rose. She’s annoying, boring, and I was hoping for her death in the climax.

Unlike Maz’s cantina hideout temple whatever, the casino in this film is awesome. It highlights the great ways the universe expanded, John Williams has fun with it, and I believe Mark Hamill even does some CGI work for one of the creatures in it. I was hoping for some pod-racing, and even if those fathier horse creature things look pretty fake, they’re still fun. And the casino works well for both the cinematography that is some of the best, and the costumes that are also some of the best. Like what stuck out in my mind were the updated palace guards that surround Snoke. Those guys are cool. And I haven’t talked about Luke enough, so I need to mention that his costumes are awesome as well. The subtle switches made to Rey work well too.

Much of the tension of the film is supposed to be created by the necessity of Poe, Finn, and Rose to work out their own plan without Laura Dern and her purple hair finding out, and they must accomplish it under I believe 16 hours. I actually liked Laura’s character, but she did make things unnecessarily difficult. And people give Finn and Rose’s mission flak, but I think it serves well in both expansion and in tying in with the central themes. I must say, however, that I find the 16 hours pretty arbitrary with how long I feel the mission would actually take. I guess a time under a day creates more tension, but with many of the personal complaints I have, it’s whatever and not all that big a deal.

I had some small editing qualms with the opening sequence, and the film also suffered slightly with tonal issues in the first third of the film, but all things considered, I personally only have small gripes with the film. It’s 150 minutes long, and it will have you engaged the entire time. The climax is just awesome, and that’s where John Williams shines the most. Finn didn’t really have too much a place in this film, but I liked all the existing characters more this time around; they finally felt like their own characters with their own motivations instead of just copies of characters from A New Hope. This might be best seen by the new force connection stuff with Ren and Rey. I’m really shocked with all the backlash the film is dealing with, but I highly recommend anyone that hasn’t seen it to go watch in theaters. I’m saying it’s worth it, so obviously that’s all that matters. May the Force be with you and all that jazz, and to close out, here’s a great spoiler free clip of Kylo Ren: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyzUG2nyf5k

And now I have thoughts on super major spoilers! Please don’t read on if you haven’t seen it and plan to, but if you have, feel free to comment if you have a different take on something or flat out disagree with me

To get it off my chest, I wish so badly that Rose had died when she “saved” Finn. I was first fine with Finn sacrificing himself, and then I was even fine with Rose stopping him because it meant her death; alas, we come to realize that she only majorly injured herself. Which, if you’re a major character not named Snoke (who got Darth Mauled—although Darth Maul technically lived but anyways), then you’ll probably have a death scare, but don’t fret! We know there’s an episode 9 and we’re still marketing to kids, so no major characters are allowed to die. Leia almost died at the beginning, but then she Supermanned her way to safety. Finn and Rose were about to be executed before BB-8 even stepped in. It was a nice save, I guess, but there something justttt a bit off seeing BB-8 drive that. Heck, for a brief moment, we think Luke is going to go full-out Obi-Wan in the climax only to have great illusion reveal only to actually die like peacefully at the end. But his whole Matrix dodges were cool, and you gotta love Hamill when he shrugs off the AT-AT blasts. Still not sure how I feel about Luke becoming one with the Force at the end, but as long as he comes back as a ghost in 9, I guess it’s fine.

The first shot of Yoda looked really ugly, but I’m not sure if it was just the angle or what, but he looked fine afterward. And boy was it great to see him. One of my favorite things that really convinced me about Johnson writing the right Luke was showing that he still had stuff he could learn from Master Yoda. The whole build something new mentality—which flows nicely through Ren as well—was a cool idea to see especially when Yoda brings the lightning down on the temple. But I did in fact notice when Finn grabs a blanket for Rose that it appears the ancient texts made their way onto the Falcon.

The 16-hour conflict deadline didn’t help Rey’s character in seeing her training pay off. That’s just not enough time from her on Jakku to save the resistance by lifting the rocks out of the way. Remember, 8 takes place immediately after 7, so she literally didn’t have any time in between movies to train. But I guess she can be the most powerful jedi we’ve ever seen or something.

If Abrams remains on as director for 9, I’m betting he brings Captain Phasma back. I’m really happy with where Johnson took all of the characters initially handed to Abrams, so hopefully they’ll remain more in the vision that Johnson took them when Abrams does 9. But at least for now Johnson still gets his own trilogy to handle. All this stupid fan backlash worries that future for me, but we’ll see. I didn’t want to say in the review above, but I felt it was so perfect the way Johnson told audiences that this would be a different Star Wars from Abrams when Luke tosses the lightsaber behind him at the beginning. I guess fans did not appreciate that “cynical” move, but I loved it.

I don’t want to say I predicted it, but I had a feeling Rey wasn’t related to any previous character. And the whole comes from nothing background works well too. So I’m happy with the parents reveal; I guess it is worth mentioning that Ren could be lying, but he seemed pretty believable to me. And Rey traveling down into the cave was a nice throwback to 5 when Luke strikes down Vader to reveal Luke underneath the mask.

Phew, well, this is easily the longest review I’ve done, but I felt there was just so much too talk about. I still have plenty more reviews coming, so here’s to hoping that returning to school soon won’t slow me down.