STAR WARS EPISODE VIII - THE LAST JEDI - Our review....

**SPOILERS WITHIN**

First up, a disclaimer.  I am not the biggest Star Wars guy.  I appreciate their importance in pop culture history, in establishing (along with Jaws) the notion of a Summer Blockbuster, and their contribution towards the advancement of special effects and what can be achieved on the Big Screen.

However, I simply enjoy them as movies, the odd computer game, but take it no further.  I can take them or leave them.

For Episode VII - The Force Awakens, I enjoyed it overall.  I do think it strayed a little too close to all of the established tropes of A New Hope, but it managed to tickle the nostalgia bone while also attracting a new wave of fans.  It was a fun movie, it looked great and it even brought Han Solo back to the screen (though sadly, for the last time with Harrison Ford in the role).

Which brings us to The Last Jedi.  Now if there was a Star Wars movie I was going to be excited about, this was it.  I am a big fan of the director, Rian Johnson.  Looper is one of the best science fiction movies of the last decade, and his debut, Brick, is an absolute masterpiece.  All the noises coming out from the shooting of this movie were harmonious, Johnson talking about the creative freedom he had been afforded, and the cast talking how much they enjoyed making the movie.

I managed to avoid all of the trailers (I do think the fact that most mainstream movies get 2/3 main trailers is too many these days, often spoiling large sections of the movie or revealing plot points), this point of view being backed up by the fact Rian Johnson posted on Twitter to avoid the second trailer if you didn't want any spoilers.  Less than 24 hours later he retracted this statement and merely said to avoid it if you wanted to go in as fresh as possible.

This was the first sign of trouble.

It's not hard to imagine that after his first tweet, a Disney executive brought him in and asked why he was telling people to avoid the trailer.  Johnson trying to safeguard the movie experience for fans vs the corporate machine wanting to get the trailer for Star Wars in front of as many people as possible.

But anyway, I digress.  We get to the movie, largest possible screen, we have our Star Wars branded popcorn buckets and drinks cups at the ready, the screen is busy, the music hits and we're strapped in for a good time.

How depressing that it should be so disappointing.

This movie feels made by committee, perhaps more than any other movie I have ever seen.  It has been so Disney-fied, that any creative control a director ever had over these movies, any vision set out by said director, has been utterly crushed, and this is the vanilla result.

So what went wrong?  Again, let me be clear, this is only my take on the movie.  I know there are loads of people out there who view it as a masterpiece.  I am not here to douse their enthusiasm, and I am so glad they got everything they wanted from it.  But for a movie that is number 8, over a 40 year period, of possibly the biggest pop culture franchise of all time, it just seems so lazy.

Let's start at the beginning.  In the first few minutes, we get an idea of where the humour is at in this movie.  Now Star Wars has always had a sense of humour.  Mostly carried by Harrison Ford's laid back, sarcastic take on Han Solo.  But it was never humour that felt forced, but true in that universe and true to the characters themselves.  In the Last Jedi, we have Poe Dameron stalling the First Order by making jokes about bad connections, General Hux being unable to hear him, and I kid you not, even a 'momma' joke thrown in there for good measure.  It's no coincidence that this reminds me of Peter Quill's dancing distraction at the end of Guardians of the Galaxy.  It used to be that Star Wars influenced all of these movies, but now it feels like the tables have turned.  The Guardians similarities do not stop there....

Already, this may look like Star Wars, but it sure doesn't sound or feel like it.

To continue the 'humour' element, after two years of waiting, we finally get a resolution to the scene that closed The Force Awakens, where Rey is handing over Luke's lightsaber to him.  A scene all Star Wars fans have eulogised over and have been waiting on tender-hooks to see Luke take it off her.  Instead, it is all played for a cheap laugh as Luke throws it over his shoulder like it is a piece of trash.

But back to the beginning....

So after an impressive space battle sequence (and my word it is exciting, and looks phenomenal), it feels like the movie is correcting itself.  However, the next hour and a half of this main storyline is some of the laziest writing and scenario devising I have ever seen.  You have this Grand Universe of possibilities, could take the story anywhere in the Galaxy, and your main driving storyline is 'If we just maintain this speed, we'll be just out of their reach.  They'll still follow us and fire on us to let us know they are there.  Oh no, we're going to run out of petrol soon....'  That is it.  Now in this scenario, the first order have maybe 30/40 ships following 5/6 ships of the Resistance.  Why not send half their fleet through light speed, get in front of the Resistance and then attack them from both sides?

The reason the Resistance cannot jump to Light Speed is that the First Order have developed technology that can track them through Light Speed.  This amazing, galaxy altering technology is mentioned once and then never again.  So Finn and a new character called Rose decide to take a diversion to a casino planet where they can find a codebreaker, who will then sneak onto the First Order's ship, power down the tracking technology and allow the Resistance to jump to light speed.  This whole sub plot takes up about 40 minutes of the movie and is absolutely pointless.  They introduce a new character (who is not the codebreaker they were looking for but apparently is just as skilled.  This despite the fact they established that only one person could help them), played by Benicio Del Toro, who goes nowhere, has no character development, basically helps them and then turns on them and then disappears from the movie.  Added into this fact, Finn and Rose fail in their mission, so again what is the point in all of this?  This is a plot that solely seems to exist to give Finn something to do.  And in a movie that is already the longest Star Wars movie to date (and boy does it feel like it), this is easily where subplots could have been cut and a much tighter, fast paced narrative could have been established.

If ever a scene in this movie shows that Star Wars is now owned by Disney, then Princess Leia's short trip into space is that scene.  Here we have Leia sucked into space as her ship is part destroyed.  This would have been a fitting death for a warrior princess as she died protecting what she believed in.  Add in the fact the sad passing of Carrie Fisher, and this would have been an elegant way of writing her out of the Star Wars narrative.  However, despite floating in the endless vacuum that is space, Leia is able to fly (I kid you not) back to the ship.  First of all, if the Frozen theme tune had have been played over the top of this I wouldn't have been surprised.  Secondly, this is another beat taken from Guardians of the Galaxy.  In fact it is almost the exact same scene where Peter Quill saves Gomora.  It's almost as if some executive said, people really liked that Guardians of the Galaxy movie, let's remind them about it.  I have no problem with Leia tapping into some unknown force powers, perhaps even brought on by her impending death.  But there has absolutely been no establishment of these powers, by anyone in the entire Star Wars Saga.  It seems like an easy way of saying, we're going to show you some new force powers.  They have been put in simply as a matter of convenience to the story, and don't feel earned in any way.

Which brings us to the mid point of the story, and for me where the story had a great opportunity to do something wholly unexpected and then bottled it.  The scene in Snoke's chambers, where Kylo Ren has lured Rey to.  She literally put herself in harms way just because he said he was conflicted.  She has decided that there is still good in him and therefore puts herself in the belly of the beast.  This scene was unfolding in such a satisfying way where Kylo Ren is able to kill Snoke (guess he's not that powerful.  He literally narrates his own death) and then fight side by side with Rey, taking down his guards.  Here we could have actually seen a switch from the Dark side to the Light, and would have been a pivotal and surprising moment in the middle of the trilogy.  Hell, they even could've performed a switch as Luke had sensed some of the Dark Side in Rey, ad she could've been turned to the dark.  There were infinite possibilities in this moment to take the story in surprising and interesting directions, and instead, they basically reuse a troupe from Empire Strikes Back as Kylo Ren asks Rey to 'join him, and together they can rule the galaxy'.  This was such a shame I thought, as all through the Star Wars saga, characters are continually seduced and consumed by the Dark Side, yet no-one is ever brought over to the Light.  Yes, we had Vader at the end of Return of the Jedi, but that was literally a last minute redemption.  It wasn't a conscious decision to realise that you are fighting for evil when you could be a force for good.

From here, I do think the movie does improve, and there are two moments that will go down in Star Wars lore forever.  The first, is the last stand of General Holdo.  The slow turning of the ship to face the First Order; the jump to light speed; the silence that permeated the air as she sliced their fleet in half; it was all so elegant and awe inspiring.  Though, as someone pointed out to me after (I can't take credit for this idea, though I do think it is a great one), why not have Leia be the one to perform this?  Unfortunately, Carrie Fisher is no longer with us, and this could have been a fitting heroic end for the character.  Which would have left her disciple, General Holdo as the new leader of the Resistance.  But I digress, because in the moment, seeing it for the first time, this was one of the most beautiful sequences in any movie this year.

Which brings us to the battle on the planet Crait, where the resistance may be facing their last stand.  This was a sequence I had been looking forward to.  All the publicity stills looked elegant and exciting.  The sense of scale was superb.  And again, it became a bit of a let down.  All of the First Orders attacks seemed without threat.  Despite all this technology, they do not hit one member of the resistance in the trenches.  When Finn makes his heroic decision to take out the large cannon, I thought again it would be a great end for that character (and to be honest, they were struggling to give him things to do in this movie).  But the last minute save made little sense to me.  Yes Rose has developed feelings for him.  Yes she wanted to save him.  But when she knocks his ship out of the line of fire, both of them crash maybe 20 feet from the First Order.  All it would take is one of the AT-AT walkers to turn their cannons on them and blow them both off the face of the galaxy.  Yet, somehow they make it back inside to safety.  That requires some suspension of disbelief.  Again.

And then we come to Luke facing the First Order.  This summed up the best and the worst parts of this movie for me.  Talking of iconography in the Star Wars universe, the image of Luke facing down the First Order, lightsaber in hand, sunset in the background, may go down as one of THE single greatest shots in the history of Star Wars.  In that one shot, all I could think was - 'I have to say, the First Order looks outnumbered.'  It was a more powerful moment than any other in the movie.  But in terms of summing up some of the movies worst qualities, the final fight between Luke and Kylo Ren is a complete non event.  Luke basically dodges him twice, and then Kylo thinks he has him, only to realise he is a force projection.

I think this was such a shame.  Given that doing this from across the galaxy kills Luke, why not just show up in person?  He has been carrying this regret and guilt about Kylo his whole life.  He feels so ashamed for failing him.  Why not look him in the eye, at the end, and say 'I'm sorry I failed you'.  His sacrifice so that the remnants of the Resistance can escape would still be in tact.  The one thing Luke has never been, is a coward.  He has always rushed head first into danger if he feels he can save someone.  Yet, doing this all from across the galaxy feels like a cowardly move.  What if he couldn't have held the projection long enough for the Resistance to escape?  And no epic lightsaber fight to close out a Star Wars movie?

I have heard people say there was no way Luke could have got there in time.  It had already been established that he had his submerged X-Wing at his island.  Why would he hold onto this for years if he had no intention of ever using it?

And last, but not least, we come to the Porgs.  If ever we needed something to sum up that this movie was made by committee and by Disney, then this is it.  These exist solely to sell toys.  That is it.  Say what you want about the Ewoks and the Gungans but they fought to support the resistance.  They sacrificed themselves for a purpose.  The Porgs do not fight, interfere or play any part in the story.  They are there simply to look cute and have kids torturing their parents for one for Christmas.  I hate to be so cynical, all it would have taken is some Porgs obscuring the views of the enemy, or even biting through electrical cables to slow down the First Order, just, something to show they have a purpose for being there.  Maybe we'll find out in Episode IX that they have an essential part to play.  If so, I'll happily say I'm wrong!

I guess I should probably wrap this up at this point.  As I say, the purpose of this was simply to offer my opinion and thoughts.  I fully respect everyone else's.  I am not here to try and change your mind or convince you that it isn't a great movie.  I hope people enjoyed it and it was everything they wanted.  I'm glad that Star Wars fandom and geek culture is as strong as ever.  But that doesn't mean you have to be blinded by it if it isn't done well.  And again, that is just my opinion.  These days it is actually quite difficult to make a piece of art that divides people so much.  It's so easy to have an opinion right down the middle and just say 'That was alright.' and then walk out of the movie and forget about it instantly.  So to take the risks they have and be lauded by some and criticised by others is extremely brave, and I applaud them for that.

But for me, The Force Awakens was a more satisfying movie, and this one doesn't come close to the original trilogy.

Feel free to sound off in the comments and tell me how wrong I am!