To begin with, there is a problem with the force and, to be fair, always has been. I said in a previous Star Wars review that the force reminded me of the Prime Directive in Star Trek: unevenly applied and interpreted however it needs to be to serve the plot. After The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi, I've decided that it's more like Trek's "technobabble"- useful for getting the plot out of any corners it's painted itself into. The rebels are trapped in a cave? Rey can levitate rocks. Leia's been blown into space? She can create a force-bubble and propel it through space. Ghost Yoda can suddenly call down lightening and burn things, so why didn't he or Obi-Wan ever do this before, during dire situations when it would have actually been helpful? Luke is needed somewhere after refusing to go... no problem: he can project himself through the force. Projection Luke is solid when he needs to be- hugging Leia, fighting Kylo Ren- and not solid when necessary- being shot at, and also fighting with Kylo Ren. It's become the ultimate deus ex machina, used whenever a quick solution is required, which means that the movie never has any clever or surprising resolutions to crises.
My review of The Last Jedi has been pretty negative because, unfortunately, it was not a good movie. To conclude my thoughts on the film, I'm going to spend a bit of time examining the reasons why, in my opinion, it all went wrong. To begin with, there is a problem with the force and, to be fair, always has been. I said in a previous Star Wars review that the force reminded me of the Prime Directive in Star Trek: unevenly applied and interpreted however it needs to be to serve the plot. After The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi, I've decided that it's more like Trek's "technobabble"- useful for getting the plot out of any corners it's painted itself into. The rebels are trapped in a cave? Rey can levitate rocks. Leia's been blown into space? She can create a force-bubble and propel it through space. Ghost Yoda can suddenly call down lightening and burn things, so why didn't he or Obi-Wan ever do this before, during dire situations when it would have actually been helpful? Luke is needed somewhere after refusing to go... no problem: he can project himself through the force. Projection Luke is solid when he needs to be- hugging Leia, fighting Kylo Ren- and not solid when necessary- being shot at, and also fighting with Kylo Ren. It's become the ultimate deus ex machina, used whenever a quick solution is required, which means that the movie never has any clever or surprising resolutions to crises. Problem two: the humour in The Last Jedi doesn't work and it's frequently deployed at inappropriate times. For example, the Poe Dameron 'phone jokes occur right before they go into battle and a huge amount of people are killed, making the silly humour seem tone deaf. Same thing with the moment when Rey hands Luke his old lightsaber. It is- supposedly- a desperate time; the First Order is ascendant, Luke's best friend has been murdered by his own son- Luke's nephew- and the Resistance, along with Luke's sister, is in danger of being totally wiped out. Rey has sought out the Jedi hero of the original rebellion, desperately seeking aid. What should be a dramatic moment is then undercut with a cheap sight gag: Luke tosses the lightsaber over a cliff. A further problem is that these jokes not only undercut the drama, they underwhelm it. To be blunt, they simply aren't good enough to justify their existence. The General Hugs/ Hux thing and the "Your Mom" joke aren't even funny so it's difficult to see why the writers would choose to insert them and stop the drama in its tracks. Problem three: The Last Jedi is a terrible sequel to The Force Awakens. In my review of The Empire Strikes Back, I discussed what made that film a great sequel. Well, TLJ does just about everything wrong. Instead of being a bridge between the first and third films in it's trilogy, this movie goes about undermining the importance of- or outright killing- every plot point from the first film. The Force Awakens set up a mystery about Rey's parents: it's shot down in this film. Snoke is introduced as a formidable foe in TFA, but is killed quickly and easily by Ren in TLJ. Ditto Captain Phasma. We're led to expect the dramatic return of Luke Skywalker, but that too is a disappointment as his appearance is milked for cheap laughs... that's an unfortunate turn of phrase now that I think about it. Luke's role in TLJ is a frustrating waste of time, which I'll discuss in greater detail in my next Star Wars post.
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