29th December 2017, 10:01 PM
(This post was last modified: 29th December 2017, 11:41 PM by A Black Falcon.)
Warning: Unmarked spoilers!
So I saw this movie last night, and I've got very mixed feelings on it.
In its style, writing, plot, and more, I saw this as the least Star Wars movie ever. This shows throughout, such as in the acting and composition. Even more than The Force Awakens, this is clearly a movie by a different person, not George Lucas, making a very different film. It also shows in the writing, as the central "kill the past" theme is a major divergence from Star Wars' past. It also ignores or very weakly answers the major unanswered questions from the last movie, The Force Awakens, which is kind of annoying.
All of that stuff is understandably divisive. As a big fan of all of George Lucas's Star Wars movies, but a critic of the post-Lucas ones, I was expecting to not exactly love this movie, and that is the case for the most part. I love the Lucas movies, "bad" acting or no, and this extremely different style was offputting. Even I didn't think it was all bad, though; I liked it sometimes and disliked it other times. Like the style or not it is, for the most part, a well-made movie which tells an interesting story. I think that story has some critical flaws, but still, it was interesting and tense. The space battle scenes are probably the highlight, I think.
Here's the thing, though. Beyond any complaints about some other details of the plot, and I could get into that, I think there is a central, crippling irony behind this movie. While on the one hand The Last Jedi goes against Star Wars convention in many ways, on the other hand it continues on one element of The Force Awakens: it is dedicated to the terrible idea that they must recreate the universe of the original trilogy, whether or not it makes any sense whatsoever.
So, in The Force Awakens, the New Republic was a thing... but then, seemingly out of nowhere, a massive force appeared called the First Order. It is not explained how they got so strong so quickly. They have a giant superweapon which can blow up multiple planets at once, and during TFA it fires, destroying the New Republic's capitol world and some of their fleet or something, as if it would all be in one place or something. The Last Jedi continues on this theme; now the Republic is dead, the Order has taken over the galaxy, and the movie cuts the good guys, the Resistance, down more and more until it's like a couple dozen people by the end, max.
Now, two problems: first, none of the First Order's rise makes any sense at all, and none is explained in either film to any degree worth mentioning. And second, this basic concept, that a secret army appears out of nowhere and crushes the actually weak known armies of the world/universe in a single stroke, in order to set up an 'underdog' arc in a series where it does not make any sense at all, is REALLY REALLY BAD writing. It's terrible conspiracy-theory stuff, and I pretty much hate it. This is not an uncommon trope in fiction, and it is both always terrible and makes absolutely no sense almost all of the time. I am not one to believe in conspiracy theories, I want things to be plausible within their world's rules. This kind of story fails on that level. It's one thing if it is a literal alien invasion out of nowhere, but in a known world you can't do this and get away with it, not if you want to have written an actual credible story! And yet, the plots of both TFA and TLJ ONLY work if you accept this, without almost anything in the movies themselves that makes me believe for a second that any of that could ever have happened.
Now, part of my dislike is of course also about the old Expanded Universe, about all of those Star Wars books I read in the '90s and '00s. The EU had its ups and downs for sure, much more downs than ups in its later years, but to distill the difference between the EU and TFA/TLJ, the EU's version is "safer" and more positive. Lots of really bad stuff happens, more and more in the books from the '00s on, but it never gets anywhere near as bad as it does in these new movies, and in retrospect I appreciate it for that. This is not my main reason for disliking this kind of story, but seriously, I know that sci-fi is often quite dark, but this movie is a bit much.
So overall, considering all of that, how can I take this movie seriously at all? The whole plot of The Last Jedi is about the chase, about how this unstoppable, galaxy-controlling First Order has the last remnants of hope on the run, dying one by one. It's a dark and sometimes interesting film, and I like parts, such as the settings, the space battles, the segment with Rey in the cave, and more. It has other issues as well, such as how its version of Luke goes. I think that this Luke made for a good story, but does not fit well at all with the Luke of the original trilogy, or with how the Jedi work. Or how about Leia? Even ignoring the silly flying-through-space bit, she's reduced back to her ESB-ish role of "base commander of the rebellion", which is certainly not what an older Leia should be. The politician Leia of the Expanded Universe was a much better character I think... but behind all of that, the whole setup only happens because of an idiotic and impossible to believe piece of badly written nonsense! The rest of that stuff matters, and I might address that in another post, but this is the most important problem with both of the new, post-Lucas Star Wars movies: that they felt the need to recreate the "rebels versus empire" setup of the original trilogy, in a setting where you cannot do that.
On the other hand though, I definitely like that this series has a female lead protagonist. Lucas's Star Wars movies are great, but the original trilogy barely has any female characters, and the prequels aren't as much improved as they should be. Apparently the idea of a female lead in this series actually comes from George Lucas, but regardless, seeing in this movie that it's not only Rey, there are a lot of female roles, is a very good thing.
On the whole though, I think that it's kind of unfortunate that The Last Jedi, while making a boldly different kind of Star Wars movie -- in a lot of ways that rub me seriously the wrong way as a longtime Star Wars fan, but also some that I liked -- on the other hand also decided to double down on the previous film's worst element, the devotion to recreating the rebels-versus-overpowering-empire universe of the original trilogy in a setting where you really cannot do that credibly. It's really ironic that this movie which exists to "kill the past" and 'free' Star Wars from its past... is also dedicated to recreating that past in a central, and yet really badly conceived and almost utterly unexplained, way. Too bad.
... So yeah, I thought The Last Jedi was ... okay-ish? Disappointing, but maybe not as awful as I thought it might be, I guess? And yet, it is very disappointing and a waste, in some key elements; it's sad that this movie will be the last time we see Luke and Leia on screen together, because it sure doesn't do well with them in so many ways! The Force Awakens is, in my opinion, the worst Star Wars movie. This one... uh, it might be better, or worse? I'm not sure that I can decide that yet.
So I saw this movie last night, and I've got very mixed feelings on it.
In its style, writing, plot, and more, I saw this as the least Star Wars movie ever. This shows throughout, such as in the acting and composition. Even more than The Force Awakens, this is clearly a movie by a different person, not George Lucas, making a very different film. It also shows in the writing, as the central "kill the past" theme is a major divergence from Star Wars' past. It also ignores or very weakly answers the major unanswered questions from the last movie, The Force Awakens, which is kind of annoying.
All of that stuff is understandably divisive. As a big fan of all of George Lucas's Star Wars movies, but a critic of the post-Lucas ones, I was expecting to not exactly love this movie, and that is the case for the most part. I love the Lucas movies, "bad" acting or no, and this extremely different style was offputting. Even I didn't think it was all bad, though; I liked it sometimes and disliked it other times. Like the style or not it is, for the most part, a well-made movie which tells an interesting story. I think that story has some critical flaws, but still, it was interesting and tense. The space battle scenes are probably the highlight, I think.
Here's the thing, though. Beyond any complaints about some other details of the plot, and I could get into that, I think there is a central, crippling irony behind this movie. While on the one hand The Last Jedi goes against Star Wars convention in many ways, on the other hand it continues on one element of The Force Awakens: it is dedicated to the terrible idea that they must recreate the universe of the original trilogy, whether or not it makes any sense whatsoever.
So, in The Force Awakens, the New Republic was a thing... but then, seemingly out of nowhere, a massive force appeared called the First Order. It is not explained how they got so strong so quickly. They have a giant superweapon which can blow up multiple planets at once, and during TFA it fires, destroying the New Republic's capitol world and some of their fleet or something, as if it would all be in one place or something. The Last Jedi continues on this theme; now the Republic is dead, the Order has taken over the galaxy, and the movie cuts the good guys, the Resistance, down more and more until it's like a couple dozen people by the end, max.
Now, two problems: first, none of the First Order's rise makes any sense at all, and none is explained in either film to any degree worth mentioning. And second, this basic concept, that a secret army appears out of nowhere and crushes the actually weak known armies of the world/universe in a single stroke, in order to set up an 'underdog' arc in a series where it does not make any sense at all, is REALLY REALLY BAD writing. It's terrible conspiracy-theory stuff, and I pretty much hate it. This is not an uncommon trope in fiction, and it is both always terrible and makes absolutely no sense almost all of the time. I am not one to believe in conspiracy theories, I want things to be plausible within their world's rules. This kind of story fails on that level. It's one thing if it is a literal alien invasion out of nowhere, but in a known world you can't do this and get away with it, not if you want to have written an actual credible story! And yet, the plots of both TFA and TLJ ONLY work if you accept this, without almost anything in the movies themselves that makes me believe for a second that any of that could ever have happened.
Now, part of my dislike is of course also about the old Expanded Universe, about all of those Star Wars books I read in the '90s and '00s. The EU had its ups and downs for sure, much more downs than ups in its later years, but to distill the difference between the EU and TFA/TLJ, the EU's version is "safer" and more positive. Lots of really bad stuff happens, more and more in the books from the '00s on, but it never gets anywhere near as bad as it does in these new movies, and in retrospect I appreciate it for that. This is not my main reason for disliking this kind of story, but seriously, I know that sci-fi is often quite dark, but this movie is a bit much.
So overall, considering all of that, how can I take this movie seriously at all? The whole plot of The Last Jedi is about the chase, about how this unstoppable, galaxy-controlling First Order has the last remnants of hope on the run, dying one by one. It's a dark and sometimes interesting film, and I like parts, such as the settings, the space battles, the segment with Rey in the cave, and more. It has other issues as well, such as how its version of Luke goes. I think that this Luke made for a good story, but does not fit well at all with the Luke of the original trilogy, or with how the Jedi work. Or how about Leia? Even ignoring the silly flying-through-space bit, she's reduced back to her ESB-ish role of "base commander of the rebellion", which is certainly not what an older Leia should be. The politician Leia of the Expanded Universe was a much better character I think... but behind all of that, the whole setup only happens because of an idiotic and impossible to believe piece of badly written nonsense! The rest of that stuff matters, and I might address that in another post, but this is the most important problem with both of the new, post-Lucas Star Wars movies: that they felt the need to recreate the "rebels versus empire" setup of the original trilogy, in a setting where you cannot do that.
On the other hand though, I definitely like that this series has a female lead protagonist. Lucas's Star Wars movies are great, but the original trilogy barely has any female characters, and the prequels aren't as much improved as they should be. Apparently the idea of a female lead in this series actually comes from George Lucas, but regardless, seeing in this movie that it's not only Rey, there are a lot of female roles, is a very good thing.
On the whole though, I think that it's kind of unfortunate that The Last Jedi, while making a boldly different kind of Star Wars movie -- in a lot of ways that rub me seriously the wrong way as a longtime Star Wars fan, but also some that I liked -- on the other hand also decided to double down on the previous film's worst element, the devotion to recreating the rebels-versus-overpowering-empire universe of the original trilogy in a setting where you really cannot do that credibly. It's really ironic that this movie which exists to "kill the past" and 'free' Star Wars from its past... is also dedicated to recreating that past in a central, and yet really badly conceived and almost utterly unexplained, way. Too bad.
... So yeah, I thought The Last Jedi was ... okay-ish? Disappointing, but maybe not as awful as I thought it might be, I guess? And yet, it is very disappointing and a waste, in some key elements; it's sad that this movie will be the last time we see Luke and Leia on screen together, because it sure doesn't do well with them in so many ways! The Force Awakens is, in my opinion, the worst Star Wars movie. This one... uh, it might be better, or worse? I'm not sure that I can decide that yet.