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Star Wars: The Last Jedi
What is it ? : First of All,
SPOILERS
(obviously)
So, the First Order are hunting down the Resistance, and have located their one and only base just as they are evacuating. Not only does a fleet of Star Destroyers jump in, but also a Dreadnaught which can level planetary bases. Poe Dameron distracts the First Order while his squadron of bombers can scramble, and he leads an assault on the Dreadnaught, destroying the massive vessel at the expense of almost his entire squadron. He returns to the escaping fleet just as it makes a hyperspace jump.
Meanwhile, Rey has just arrived at Luke Skywalker and handed him his lightsaber, which he throws away. He expresses that he has no interest in training new Jedi, and that the Jedi order needs to end. Rey watches him milking an animal and hunting fish, and explains to him she needs to learn to be a Jedi to beat Kylo Ren. He promises to give her 3 lessons, which will show her why the Jedi should end. During the first lesson she locates a nearby Dark Side cave and listens to it's promises, which makes Luke worried about her power, and that she rushes to the Dark Side without even trying to resist. Rey experiences visions of Kylo Ren, during which they talk, and he tells her to find out the truth about why he turned from Luke.
She Questions Luke, who explains for a moment he sensed the dark side in Kylo, and was going to kill him but realised he was just about to kill his nephew and had failed him. Kylo wrecked the Jedi Academy, killed some students and took the rest with him. So Luke cut himself off from the Force and went into hiding.
Meanwhile back at the fleet, they emerge from Hyperspace deep in space, and suddenly the First Order Fleet emerges behind them. They prepare to jump away, but realise that the First Order can track them, so until they find a way to avoid being tracked, they must flee in normal space as they are short on hyperspace fuel. Snoke arrives aboard his Mega Star Destroyer, and Kylo Ren and swarms of fighters launch and attack, causing the Bridge of the only Resistance capital ship is destroyed, killing Admiral Ackbar, and launching Princess Leia into Space. As she freezes in the cold of space, she uses the force to pull herself towards the ship, and Poe and Finn pull her inside, and she is put into a healing machine.
The Resistance fleet is marginally faster than the First Orders, and they flee, but never get outside firing range of the Star Destroyers which pummel them from long range.
Poe comes into conflict with the new commander of the fleet, and Finn reveals that the First Order can track ships through Hyperspace, but if they can sneak aboard he can help locate and sabotage it, but they'll need a code breaker to get them aboard the Capital ship. They contact Maz Kanata, who tells them of a Hacker on a casino world, who can do it, so Finn and Rose (a technician aboard the Capital Ship, whose sister was aboard one of the bombers at the start) set off.
Luke and Rey almost train, Rey visits the Dark Side cave and sees mirror images of herself, then they get in a bit of a fight, so she leaves because she believes that Kylo can be turned to the light side. Luke decides to destroy the Jedi library he's been guarding and a light side tree, and is visited by the force ghost of Yoda who does it for him, and teaches Luke that his failures are something that he can teach new Jedi, and that all a teacher can hope to do is make their students better than them by helping them not make the same mistakes.
Finn and Rose arrive at the Casino planet, discover that while it looks glamourous, that masks the slavery and corruption that bring the rich here, and then get arrested for illegal parking. In Jail they meet another cracker who assures them he can get them aboard the Mega Star Destroyer, and they escape with his aid and head back to the fleet.
They board the Mega Star Destroyer, and sneak through the vessel, getting to the tracker where Captain Phasma is awaiting them and takes them into custody.
Poe thinks that the Admiral is incompetent, as only the capital ship is left after the supporting vessels have run out of fuel and been destroyed by the First Order, so he mutinies and prepares to hyperspace away. However Leia recovers and stuns him, revealing that the slow escape has been a cover to get within shuttle range of an old Alliance base, where the crew begins evacuating to leaving only the Admiral aboard the capital ship.
Finn, Rose and their hacker friend DJ have been taken to the hangar for execution, and the hacker reveals the Resistance plan, so the First Order detect the shuttles and begin firing on and destroying them.
Rey gets dropped off at the Mega Star Destroyer by Chewbacca, and meets with Kylo Ren who handcuffs her and takes her as a prize to Snoke. However when ordered to kill her, he turns on Snoke and kills him, arming Rey so the two of them can fight side by side to defeat Snokes guards. He then invites her to join him and rule the galaxy together, revealing that her parents are of no importance, and sold her for drinking money. She knocks him unconscious and leaves.
The Admiral seeing the shuttles get destroyed, turns the Capital ship on the Mega Destroyer and jumps to hyperspace ripping the Mega Destroyer apart. In the chaos aboard, Finn knocks Phasma into a burning pit and escapes.
Awaking, Kylo orders the First Order to attack the Rebel base, while on the planet Poe prepares to use outdated technology to defend against the First Order. Walkers march against the base, with a siege cannon to destroy it's massive door, and Poe, Finn, Rose lead an attack against the First Order but are ineffective. Luke turns up and talks to Leia, before single handedly going outside to face the First Order after the door is breached.
Kylo orders all weapons fired against Luke, who is unharmed, and then faces him himself, while the resistance find a back door out and board the Millennium Falcon, fleeing into space. Kylo realises the reason he can't harm Luke, is that he's not there, he's projecting across space, and that the remnants of the Resistance have escaped.
Meanwhile, the strain causes Luke to die, and he becomes one with the force.
High Points : Normally I'd go through the things I love, but it's too soon, so suffice it to say, the special effects are first class, the dialogue is on the whole very good, and the acting is absolutely amazing with many of the established characters giving their best performances ever, with Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher and John Boyega being particularly noteworthy, but every single actor being amazing.
Low Points : Here I'd normally pick faults, but again, it's too soon, suffice it to say, at this moment I do not consider this to be one of the best Star Wars movies, in fact at this moment I'm having problems considering ever watching this movie again. But I'm aware that's just a knee jerk reaction, and this movie definitely deserves a second, third and possibly fourth watching to catch all of it's nuances and make a fully formed decision on its position in the Star Wars canon.
So what do you really think ? : Let me first say, I've only seen this movie once, and there's a lot happening in this movie, which will take time to soak in. I'm already reconsidering elements of the movie, and I'm starting to think it's a lot better than I thought when I came out of the cinema. By the time that the next movie comes out, it's entirely possible this might be a favourite of mine.
However, without a time machine I can't review it for how I might feel, and must review the movie for how I feel now.
This is the first time I've come out from a Star Wars movie in the cinema feeling disappointed, this movie feels over long, it feels like there's so much which could be cut to tighten up the story, it feels different in tone to the previous episode.
The tone is so different from The Force Awakens in that it doesn't seem part of the same story, it's very obvious that it's not part 2 of this trilogy, it's a sequel, a sequel written by someone completely different. And to tell the truth, it doesn't feel like a Star Wars film at all, from Yoda using contemporary phrases, to Luke being more the amazing funny Mark Hamill than the hero we remember. Right through to the casino world using all new species, not any recognisable species there at all. Rey's parentage is almost a throwaway line (and she was apparently sold by her parents for drinking money, sold to who? As far as we were aware in The Force Awakens she was a Scavenger not a Slave, it's almost like Rian Johnson got mixed up between Anakin and Rey's backgrounds).
The film feels too long and rushed at the same time, the Director/Writer was so much in a rush to get certain story elements out of the way to introduce his own. Certain elements do nothing, for example the Dark Side cave, Luke warns about Rey giving into what it offers without resisting, but when she does, there's no consequences, and even she admits she learned nothing. That entire sequence could have been cut without affecting the rest of the film at all. Most of the Casino scene could have been cut as well, it leads nowhere, and apart from picking up DJ, nothing of importance happens there.
Even what happens within the movie doesn't necessarily hang together that well, it starts with the First Order having conquered the Republic since the destruction of Starkiller base, however no time has passed between the movies, Rey is still holding the lightsaber waiting for Luke to take it. Luke burns the Jedi Tree Temple, and the books within, but they're aboard the Millennium Falcon at the end. Snoke talks about Rey being Kylos light side reflection, while she's growling at him in anger holding a red lightsaber. Luke uses a force hologram to avoid fighting Kylo, then dies anyway. The Resistance looks for a backdoor out of their base, because they figure Luke had to have got in somehow, but he was just an illusion, so they find one anyway.
Going in, I like most people thought this was going to be like The Empire Strikes Back, and the movie played into that mostly, however when Snoke died, I thought that it was both Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, so we're heading into new territory, which I found interesting. However, we were right, this was trying to be Empire, it was trying to be dark, and like most copies it tries a little too hard. In Empire we found out that Vader was Lukes dad and Luke had lost a hand and that Han was in Carbonite. But we had hope, the heroes were setting off to rescue their friend, Luke was healing, and we were ready for adventure. However at the end of The Last Jedi, we're left with the entire Resistance fitting aboard the Millennium Falcon, there being no Jedi to train Rey, and those the Resistance had relied upon for help having left them. There seems little hope, and there seems to be little reason to be excited to see what happens next.
I heard before I saw the film that it was going to be devisive, and it certainly seems that way, but for the moment I'm with those who aren't happy with this episode, it's a massive let down.
Final Words : Now, don't get me wrong, The Last Jedi isn't a bad film, it just doesn't seem to be a good Star Wars film. It's the most depressing Star Wars movie, even more so than Rogue One, it's a movie where the Rebel fleet spends the movie slowly running away and losing ships and people throughout. It's a movie where the greatest hero of the series dies, it's a movie where Admiral Ackbar, a Mon Cal who certainly knew a trap when he saw one, dies without fanfare and barely without mention. A movie where Luke abandons the friendship that held the original trilogy together.
But it's also a movie with some amazing moments, the destruction of the Mega Star Destroyer is handled amazingly, Poe messing with Hux at the beginning is brilliant, Rose for a new character is charming and full of heart (although why she ends up piloting a speeder into combat I don't know).
While I was at first sad that Colin Trevorrow had stepped aside from doing Episode 9, after watching the Last Jedi I'm glad that J J Abrams is returning, because it will lend some consistency to this trilogy and perhaps repair some of the damage done. It's also possible that after seeing all the threads of this movie woven into the final story, I'll realise the brilliance of Rian Johnson displayed in this movie, but at the moment I'm slightly depressed, slightly sad, and really disappointed that this was the last we'll see of our Princess, Carrie Fisher.
Score : 5.5/10 (At the Moment)
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