Star Wars: The Last Jedi - Review Thread

And yet these new movies seem to be suggesting that training is irrelevant.  Rey seems to be a fully trained lightsaber savant with zero training and now Luke seems to expect her to be the next Jedi despite having no training, no living mentor, and doesn't even leave her with some books to study.

In all of cinema and its many years and films and filmmakers, there have been no films more polarizing, more celebrated, and more beloved than the Star Wars franchise. Yes there are better films, there are bolder films, more creative films. But a Star Wars film has always embodied a sense of awe amongst audiences of all ages for decades now, and directing one of these films is the most coveted job in Hollywood. I was a fan of The Force Awakens, but like its outspoken detractors I was a little dismayed at how much in unabashedly followed A New Hope beat by beat. When I heard that Rian Johnson, who in my opinion is one of the great young filmmakers in the industry, was directing I was over the moon. Here's a director with wonderful vision, writing ability, and an innovative thinker, and I fantasized about a Star Wars film with the grit and storytelling of Looper. For all the people complaining about The Force Awakens being mere formula, here comes The Last Jedi, a movie that's sure to depart from the formula and be all the better for it. And I was right, to an extent. About thirty minutes into the film I thought to myself, oh dear, I don't know if I like this. While no one can accuse The Last Jedi of being a mere The Empire Strikes Back rehash (though it does still contain many similarities), Johnson takes the franchise where it's never been before and the results are mixed. There are concepts explored, especially in regards to The Force and Jedis in general, that I found fascinating and wholly applaud Johnson and the execs at Disney for exploring these ideas. The film, shot in beautiful anamorphic format, is a delight to sit back and soak in. The production is of course exquisite and filled with so many moving parts there's no way to take it all in properly on one viewing. And yet, there are many things with The Last Jedi that just don't sit right with me at all. Who would've thought that under Rian Johnson, the "adult" filmmaker in the franchise, The Last Jedi would be hampered with endless cutaways to comical creatures, the corniest dialogue in the franchise not written by George Lucas, and taking Luke Skywalker in a direction that sounds good on paper but never works in execution. It's astounding to me, having watched the film two nights ago and still trying to collect my thoughts, that the Star Wars I thought would be our return to The Empire Strikes Back is the one that I have so many issues with. There is more to admire here than feign at, but no matter how much I liked or disliked I still come to the same conclusion that this is a definite disappointment, especially since it's the experimentation that fails and not the formula.

As expected, the film picks up almost literally where The Force Awakens ends. Rey (Daisy Ridley) is now face-to-face with Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), Finn (John Boyega) is alive and reunited with the Rebels, and Poe (Oscar Isaac) is onboard a ship with Leia (Carrie Fisher) that's been surrounded by the Resistance force. One element to applaud here is that from the opening of the film, we are wracked with immense conflict from multiple storylines. The film, like many "number twos" in trilogies, has our protagonists separated and undergoing storylines of their own, and The Last Jedi throws us right into the fray without hesitation. Rey's "training" with Luke is nothing like Luke's with Yoda in The Empire Strikes Back, and Luke has become a bitter and reluctant teacher over the years who's unable to build trust in Rey to truly be his apprentice. Leia and Poe are trapped by a Resistance fleet, and while they scramble for a solution the going-ons onboard reveal all of the issues with the chain of command amidst the Rebellion. Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) lurks nearby, lusting for the chance at finding Luke as he attempts to lure Rey to the dark side. There's a lot going on, and no one can rightly accuse The Last Jedi of not having the correct framework in place to take the franchise to its boldest places yet. Johnson from the outset is exploring elements that just really haven't been explored in previous installments. Sure, Siths tempting Jedis to the dark side is nothing new, but I loved how Johnson displayed Rey reveling in the power of it all, marking the first time I feel in the franchise that we get a sense of why someone would turn to it other than being a sociopath. Squabbling within the Rebellion, also good. They're pressed up against a wall and nothing's working, so of course Poe is going to attempt a shakeup and save the day. Luke has become resentful and ostensibly wants nothing to do with Rey, the Jedi, or the ongoing war. Wonderful. There's so much going on, and there's so many strong ideas present, but I'd argue that perhaps none of them, save for Rey's destiny, really shapes out.

Perhaps the most contestable element of the film is Johnson's handling of Luke Skywalker, of which it has been very publicly known that Mark Hamill does not approve of it. When I first heard that I assumed Hamill didn't gravitate towards Johnson's portrayal of him as a crotchety old Jedi, but that's hardly the case at all. I found Johnson's exploration of the light and dark sides to be the most insightful we've seen, but none of it really interprets Luke's actions. Obi-Wan and Yoda surely had reservations about Luke's bloodline, but they trained him anyways. Sure, you can try to pass the idea that Rey is enticed by the dark side to find out about her parents and whatever, but it's pretty clear that Rey will never become and Anakin or a Kylo Ren. Luke is adamant that the Jedi die as an order, only sort of trains Rey (I never thought I'd be asking for a sufficient training sequence, but we got nothing of real substance here), and sulks on an island while his sister and friends are at war. Look, I don't want to imply that Luke should be the character who arises when things get to be their worst, or that he shouldn't be wracked with immense guilt and delusions over what transpired with Kylo Ren. And I also agree that keeping Luke an enigma in The Force Awakens was a brilliant idea. However, the plot devices employed just lead to really contrived scenarios. He never built enough of a relationship with Rey to properly assess her, but sure why not have a brisk training sessions intertwined with silly comedic gags? He doesn't want anything to do with the war, even though Leia is involved in all of this and needs his help, but Rey's presence convinces him to get back in the fight? And don't get me started on how absurd it was for his . It's not really that I had a problem with Johnson's characterization of Luke, because for the most part I really liked where he took the character, but something felt off the entire time. We should be in awe of this Jedi master, even enduring his cynicism and still being in awe, and I never felt that. The ideas that Luke represents are brilliant ways to question the Jedi, The Force, everything, but it's never fleshed out enough to mean anything. In the end, the solution is met in essentially the same way, and the character of Luke Skywalker, one of the most iconic in cinematic history, deserved better.

It stunned me while watching the film at how prevalent silly scenarios were. I'm not trying to be overly hyperbolic here, but the seemingly endless creature gags, slapstick, and corny dialogue employed through the film felt like we journeyed back to the prequels. The entirety of the casino planet was truly something straight out of Attack of the Clones. It was pointless, ham-fisted in its message it attempted to send, and relied on CGI creatures to carry the actions and conflict. When Finn breaks the animals free with Rose (Kelly Marie Tran), the audience is treated to dialogue about "justice" that would make George Lucas cringe. There's so many cut aways to CG creatures for comedic effect that I sat in my seat wondering what the fuck is the tone of this film. It's like Johnson wanted to make the film that explores the actual balancing act of the light and dark sides and got shoehorned into making the movie an advertisement for more toys. Star Wars is always going to have its level of cheese and family friendly creatures, but this was far, far too much. Not even the prequels went this far. If all of this was easily dismissible then I wouldn't waste time writing about it, but unfortunately these scenarios were deployed far too often and to the detriment of the film's tone. In some ways, The Last Jedi bears many of the same issues that The Hobbit trilogy suffered from, and despite its themes and adult examinations of decades-old characters undermines this with cheap CGI nonsense that is sure to entice no one.

And could it be that despite this Star Wars delving into depths unchartered by the franchise is actually written, well, mediocrely? For all of the unique ideas that Johnson presents, there's always elements holding them back. When Rey and Kylo Ren communicate through The Force, all of their scenes feel out of place. Rey is so adamant that Kylo Ren is salvageable because she senses conflict within him, but I never bought it. I never felt like their dialogue, whether or not it was meant to set up a romance, or a piece of exposition should have drastically shifted her viewpoint that he's an irredeemable monster to a sensitive and conflicted person. The scenarios had great intentions, but they never came together. The tension between the Rebels is also pretty standard, mostly culminating in a headstrong soldier viewing his commanding officers as weak and passive. So he reacts. Leia never comes together as a character either, and whatever Johnson intended on the bizarre sequence where Leia is beyond me. I thought at first Neverending had been running the booth and swapped in Superman IV: The Quest for Peace with how ridiculous that scene was. Even more ridiculous that we received no explanation on that whatsoever. Make your own rules, please, but you've gotta come up with some reasonable explanations for doing so at this point in the game. The character of Snoke is also wasted in the film. I've never bought into Kylo Ren and Snoke being our version of Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine, but The Last Jedi shakes up this dynamic with poor results. The sequence within Snoke's chamber with Kylo Ren and Rey is probably the best of the entire film, yet all of it is unable to resonate the same tension, depravity, and scale of our original antagonists. Snoke is all powerful, but like many villains in this day and age, is . Again, my problems with The Last Jedi come down to plot and character through lines, but when you fundamentally disagree with a plot point that should've been hammered out after the first draft it's hard to let it go.

I've done a lot of complaining about The Last Jedi. Perhaps the craziest thing is that I wanted to love this movie; I wanted to go into this film garnering it a 9/10 and declaring it the best film since The Empire Strikes Back. For all of my complaints this a solid film. We, as the moviegoing people, can't whine that The Force Awakens is too formula and then decry The Last Jedi for being too off the radar. It's a different situation, however, to say that while The Last Jedi was a film that boldly explored concepts that other Star Wars films barely grazed and sought to take the franchise in a new direction, it still fails in many elements. I have always been, with every movie I've watched, a person who views a film subjectively and will always applaud a film that fails because it tried something and criticize a film that tries nothing and does nothing. The Last Jedi is a film that is the most distinct in the franchise, delves into its original concepts more than any other film in the franchise has, and boasts some of the most impressive action sequences we've been entertained by, and yet I can't label The Last Jedi as anything more than an extravaganza of immaculate production detail and ideas but a stinging example of experimentation with the most beloved franchise in cinematic history gone somewhat wrong.

7/10

I fall somewhere in the middle on this issue.  If the plan from the beginning was to have Rey just b a nobody, fine, but it just seems pointless to tease and hype up the mystery of her lineage if the answer was just going to be, "Oh, your parents weren't anybody important."  I can appreciate the answer, but not the tactics that got us there.

Bullshit. If they had time to show Luke fishing and getting green milk from an alien they had more than enough time for him to explain who Snoke was to Rey.

Fans wanted to know Rey's lineage because she was an orphan with "important" flashback scenes of her mysterious parents leaving her on a desert planet. I don't see how someone can just take the high road on this and say it never mattered. Especially when we now know the punchline is that it's equally important that she is not a part of the known force lineages.

That's kind of an issue. That's some of the worst writing methods you can take when planning or continuing a story. George RR Martin said it best when he explained that he had his stories planned out and/or already written, when sure enough, some people were smart enough to theorize what was going to happen. However, that is not a good reason to change what was already setup just because some people figured it out. If you're confident in your storytelling, you stick with it, and not be so bent on trying to making everything a surprise. The writing in this movie is so plastered with an attempt at surprising and disproving all fan theories, which is one of the worst routes you can take in writing.

I also don't like how blatant they are that this trilogy has been completely unplanned, for that matter. JJ probably had ideas in his head of how he wanted the whole trilogy to go, with the setups he was making in the first film, but none of which came to fruition. Johnson did completely his own thing, taking a lot of what JJ started with and (pun intended) throwing it over his shoulder. Now JJ is going to be doing the same thing, trying to figure out what to do with the last film that somehow connects.

Putting aside Snoke and Rey's origins (which I'm still not too happy about), can we talk about the supposed importance of Luke dying on Ahch-To island? Why? Why in the world was that important? If anything, him leaving and dying elsewhere would have had more impact, because he just finished talking to Yoda about the written pages and why they don't mean as much. I figured that was saying overall that the place being held as a sanctum held no real necessity. That the Jedi and the Force were within them themselves, and that the physical didn't matter. Getting off his ass, growing a pair, and moving on from the place that he was hiding at would have meant far more.

Nerds.

Agreed.  The guy is a solid craftsman for the most part but all his movies were ultimately forgettable.  Brick is cute but insubstantial, Brothers Bloom is a middling Wes Anderson riff, and Looper proved to just be really forgettable.  The guy's finest directorial hour were probably the Breaking Bad episodes he guest directed.  His high profile seems to have more to do with his self-promotion on social media than any actual unique vision.

It's fascinating that all the star wars fans were freaking out that Rain Johnson was directing the sequel, and trashing JJ for his movie.

Now they are so excited JJ is back, and hoping he fixes everything they didn't like about episode 8... crazy world we live in folks.

This was mentioned on a youtube channel that JJ already knew what the story was in this movie and knew Johnson was doing only The Last Jedi. I think the whole Nobody thing is Kylo Rens well own twisted view of Scavengers or Smugglers and Boozer nobodies who sale or dont love there children. Or are too Busy to love there children. I think we will learn it wasnt because Her parents Sold her for some credits or didnt love her. I think its that Snoke was after her and they hid her away on a no where Planet.