The Last Jedi: A review. Kinda....

Review of The Last Jedi.

After two years, we finally got the next installment of the main Star Wars franchise. Before I get into this one, I will give the disclaimer that I don’t really care for The Force Awakens, so, be warned, some of that may come through in this.

My first reaction when I stepped out of the theater was “bleh.” I haven’t left the theater with a bad taste in my mouth in a long time, but this one managed to pull that off. Why? There are many reasons. So, I will attempt to give an examination of the movie. Even though, I cannot claim to be entirely objective on this one, I will try to give it a fair review.

To be clear, I am not going after the actors, nor am I attempting to vilify the writer/director. I think some errors were made (some, perhaps intentionally), but ad hominem attacks take away from the discussion, are not professional, and just don’t add anything helpful to the mix.

I guess I’ll take this one walking through the film and then give some wrap-up comments at the end.

One of the first things I noticed in the title crawl was that it was stated that the First Order was now in basically complete control of the galaxy. I wondered how this could be. It was stated multiple times that this movie starts right after Episode 7. If that’s the case, we’re dealing with the space of a few hours or a few days at most. It seems entirely unlikely that the First Order would have complete control of the entire galaxy in that short of a space of time. However, it has been put forward that time is never explicitly stated in the film, so it could be a much longer time (such as months) which would then put it in the realm of feasibility. This is a definite possibility since time in Star Wars films has always been a little vague, but the fact that Disney made a big deal about this film starting right on the heels of the last one and the fact that the continuation of the scene between Rey and Luke doesn’t take place until after the opening space battle, I would say that it is more likely that little time has passed. 

The space battle itself was fairly well done. I was appreciative of the fact that there were some old-school A-Wings zipping around. One of my major complaints about Episode 7 was that for an organization that was founded using the left-overs from the Rebellion, the Resistance only appeared to have new ships and only one kind of fighter, the T-70 X-Wing. So, a little diversity in the ships was nice. The bombers, however, made no sense. In space, there is no gravity and the fact that these bombers relied on gravity a la World War II Mitchell’s made very little sense. I understand that they were trying to make the bombers feel vulnerable and raise tension, but it made no sense and took me out of the story. Also: Y-Wings were the bomber of choice in the Rebellion, and they projected their bombs (as did Tie-Bombers). General Hux was made into more of a parody of himself during the odd call-waiting stall tactic.

On that note: the humour in this film was a bit forced. It felt like the writers were going for the current Marvel style of jokes and slap-stick that was introduced with Guardians of the Galaxy. This kind of humour just doesn’t quite fit with the story that they were telling or with the universe… If anyone has any doubts, re-watch Episode I.

One thing that I heard many people didn’t like was Leia using the Force to return to the ship after the bridge was blown open. I thought this was a cool scene. Why? Well, it showed that Leia could actually use the Force (which as an old EU fan, I expected), and it showed that she was a fairly powerful Force user. Most people say that this power isn’t even possible. I would point out that in the book Heir to the Empire, Luke did something similar to move between ship, albeit a bit less extreme. So, the precedent is there, just not quite to this extent.

Side note: Did anybody else notice that when they blew up the bridge, all the male leadership of the Resistance just died (including Ackbar! Boo!), leaving only women in command? Not that this isn’t possible, it just felt more like the writers trying stick in our faces the fact that women can lead (which I’m pretty sure, nobody debates) rather than allowing in-universe logic to dictate that other folks would still be alive in other parts of the ship (that’s how chain-of-command works).

I’ll get back to the fleet story in a bit, but now, on to Luke and Rey.

So, we go right back to where we saw them, standing at the top of the hill, gazing at each other. Then Luke takes the lightsaber. We are all expecting him to say something profound or, heck, anything at all. But what does he do instead? He glares at Rey, tosses the lightsaber over his shoulder and walks away. Rey then follows him around and we see what Luke does with his days. Apparently, he milks giant creatures (which was a very weird scene), fishes for giant fish, and just generally mopes around. Then we hear Luke’s first words in 25 years: “Go away!” If it weren’t for the fact that I’m more mad about what Luke is doing, I would have found this funny, since I’m not a huge fan of Rey and having Luke tell her to go away, expresses my feelings on the matter (I will say, however, that this is not a bash against Daisy Ridley, who has done a fine job, I just don’t like the character and how she is written. But more on that later).

We learn that Luke is hiding on Ach-To for one simple reason. To die and let the Jedi die with him. This is a far cry from what most of us were expecting him to be doing. However, this is what I was expecting after I saw Episode 7 as it seemed to be the only logical reason why Luke would be gone for that long. This is where that line that startled everyone when the trailer came out: “it’s time for the Jedi to end.”

Luke’s grumpiness and refusal to help the galaxy out of a mess that he purportedly caused isn’t even alleviated by Chewbacca’s intervention or by R2’s. Granted, R2 does play the Leia recording from Episode 4, which is a nice bit of nostalgia (and which does get Luke to agree to train Rey), but both of these characters are extremely underused in this this situation. (R2 is never seen again in the movie) Luke knows the two of them much better than he does Rey (whom he just met). Luke even asks her “why are you here?” I asked this very question at the end of 7, why send someone Luke doesn’t know to try to convince him to come out of hiding? Yes, Rey wanted training and so wanted to find the great Master Skywalker, but somebody else could have come along as well to lend weight to her claims of the galaxy being in danger. You know, someone like….. his sister. However, Luke has cut himself off from the Force because he believes that it is out of hubris that the Jedi use it. This explains why Luke is unaware of things that have transpired in the galaxy, such as the death of his friend. We do get a somewhat amusing scene with Chewie and the porgs, but after that the porgs just bother me like the cash-grab ewok-ish marketing scheme they are.

Ok, now back to the fleet. The fleet has been tracked through hyperspace by the First Order and is once again getting pummeled. How are they tracked? They never really explain it. It’s apparently some device at the front of the new Star Destroyers that allow them to do it. Apparently it was mentioned in Rogue One when Jynn is going through files to find the Death Star plans so “it has precedent!” Meh. Still doesn’t explain how it works or why we haven’t seen it until now. Seems more like an ex machina for the sake of the plot to me… So, Finn wakes up and tries to run away because he thinks the whole situation is hopeless and wants to make sure Rey stays away. He then bumps in to Rose who both him, plans on taking him to the brig for attempted desertion, and then decides to help him when they both figure out the hyperspace tracking and Finn’s janitorial past means that he can get them to where the device is. I would like to point out once again that Finn being a janitor and a stormtrooper is very odd. Poe is also in the doghouse because he got a lot of people killed in what ended up being a pointless attack run on that dreadnaught in the beginning. To be fair to him, nobody could have known that it was going to be pointless. Leia is right that not everything can be solved by hopping into a cockpit and blowing things up, but Poe getting demoted felt a little forced. Laura Dern’s admiral character is a very strange addition to the story. Don’t get me wrong, I like Laura Dern as an actress, but the character was just… odd. She was supposed to be an awesome strategist and great leader, but we end up getting someone who doesn’t tell anyone on the ship what the plan is, making Poe freak out and think that she might be an enemy agent. This was just tension for the sake of tension…. No military would operate like that. There was no reason why Poe couldn’t know the plan. So, because Poe doesn’t trust Dern, he helps Rose and Finn sneak off the cruiser to go to Canto Bright to try to get a splicer to break into the First Order ship to shut down the hyperspace tracker so they can get away. Meanwhile, the Resistance ships stay just outside of effective blasting range all the while losing fuel and eventually evacuating everyone to the main big cruiser. That’s mostly it on that story part for now. Nothing much happens. Oh yeah, Snoke’s B-2 shows up.

We finally see Snoke, sitting in his big, red throne room. He mocks Kylo Ren about being defeated by Rey in the previous film and tells him to lose the helmet. He tells Kylo to forget the past and move on. Kylo then has a massive tantrum in the turbolift and smashes his helmet.

Soooo…. Finn and Rose. Nope, not going to talk about this much. This storyline/subplot/filler was superfluous. They go to a casino city that is part Crouscant, part Mos Eisley, but mostly dumb. It was more of a little soapbox for the movie to declaim that rich people are war-mongers and bad people. But oh look! They also sold to the good guys! War is perpetuated by rich people who just want money and who exploit everything for their own pleasure! They ended up not even getting the splicer that they were sent to find. But they did find some random low-life who could apparently do the same things. Was he the guy they were sent to look for in the first place? Unknown. Who this guy is is never explained. Rose then gets really worked up about the animals being kept in pens for racing, but doesn’t seem to bat an eye that there are children in slavery to watch said animals. It’s “worth it” when they let the animals get away, but they just left the kids behind…. She left her ring to give them “hope,” sure, but words are words until action is taken. BB-8 also has some very strange ex machina moments where he can just do things that a droid never has done before: shoot coins (never mind storing them), stealing a ship (although this is more plausible), he even lost his head earlier, and will pilot a walker by himself later (inexplicably getting into it). So, Finn and Rose escape this pointless planet and head back to Snoke’s ship. Apparently, the official explanation of this side-story is that it allowed Finn to grow outside of himself and start to care about other people more than himself. It also, apparently, let Rose start to become the hero that she idolized. Ok. There’s some of that in there, but it doesn’t take away the fact that this scenario added basically nothing to the plot.

Back to Luke and Rey. Alright, Luke agrees to train Rey. Side note: Luke uses the name Sidious instead of Palpatine. While he could have conceivably learned this name from ghost Yoda, Obi-wan, or Anakin, it seems strange that Luke would refer to him as Sidious instead of Palpatine or simply ‘The Emperor.” Anyway, Luke gets Rey to sit down and “reach out.” What then happens is a humourous, Yoda-esque moment where he messes with her about physically reaching out. Seriously, this was one of the few moments in the movie where I actually laughed. So, Rey then actually reaches out to the Force, Luke gives a talk about how the power of the Force is not ours to use; it is the energy of the universe and should we should stay out of it since it is not our place to mess with it. Luke also reveals that he has cut himself off from the Force because of this. Then Rey apparently reaches the Ach-To version of the Dark Side tree on Dagobah. She doesn’t hesitate, but just goes right to it. Justifiably, Luke is frightened by this as she “went right to the Dark Side.” He then avoids her again. After this (I think, the flow of the movie is a little weird, so I forget exactly where some of these things happen), she starts having visions/telepathic conversations with Kylo Ren. I found this very odd, especially the explanation that was given later. The “put a shirt on” gag was lame. Also, things seemed to be able to go between the two (like water) and they were able to touch each other. Yes, this was a sort of foreshadowing of what would happen later, but still very odd. 

Luke gives a version of the story where he “caused” Ben Solo to become Kylo Ren. Later, though, we get another version of the story from Kylo Ren and Luke amends his story. Question: Why did Luke feel compelled to lie (or at the very least, not tell the whole story)? He has nothing to lose as he himself has pointed out.

Sometime during this, we see Rey practice with the lightsaber, showing that she has figured out how 

to use it. By herself.

Then we get a whole long sequence of Rey trying to figure out who her parents were by going into the Dark Side pit. Yes, the special effects were cool in this sequence. The temporal versions of Rey doing the same actions were interesting. We’ve seen this in a Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “We’ll Always Have Paris.” The outcome of this scene is nothing. Rey sees herself. This basically tells us that her past is unimportant, and we need to just accept her as she is. That is a fairly important point as it appears to be the main message of the movie.

Rey talks to Kylo Ren again and this time Luke interrupts. He and Rey have a brief fight scene and then Luke tells the whole story of what happened that night at his Jedi Academy. Apparently, Luke felt the influence of Snoke and was afraid Ben was going to turn to the Dark Side. But instead of trying to combat the influence, or make Ben aware of it, or try nearly a dozen other options, Luke decided that he should kill Ben to stop him from falling to the Dark Side. Good choice there, buddy. Then he realizes his mistake. However, the damage is done as Ben wakes up to Luke standing above him with an ignited lightsaber. Rage ensues and Ben succumbs to Snoke’s influence. Luke is knocked away and out and comes to after Ben has taken many of his students, killed the rest, and destroyed the academy. Luke takes this as a sign that he was so arrogant, believing that he could train the next generation of Jedi and that he had such hubris, believing that he could use the Force to change events. He essentially blames himself for things that were, at least in part, outside his control. Rey decides that Luke cannot help her, especially now that she has decided that she can go save Ben, and leaves. Luke then decides that he has failed for the last time and goes to burn the first Jedi texts.

What follows is a fun scene with Yoda. Yoda tells Luke that the texts are not all that important, even setting the tree where they are stored on fire with lightening. Then Yoda gives Luke the wisdom that failure is the often the best teacher. I agree with Yoda that this is important. However, I wonder about the timing. Did Luke manage to prevent Yoda from appearing to him and telling him this? Apparently, Luke succeeded in stopping Yoda, Obi-wan, and his father from appearing to him… Even though he cut himself off from the Force and can’t manipulate it at all…

Aaand back to the fleet. Poe is grumpy about not being told what is going on, so he decides that somehow, the Admiral (Holdo?) must be a First Order agent. So, he plans an attempt to retake the ship while Holdo is getting ready to evacuate it. The plan fails miserably when Leia comes onto the locked bridge and stuns Poe. They end up finding out that it was Leia and Holdo’s plan to escape to a nearby abandoned rebel base on Crait. Poe is once again chastised and the remainder of the Resistance jumps onto the transports and start flying to the old base, hoping that the First Order won’t detect them. Holdo stays behind on the cruiser to give them cover.

Meanwhile, Finn and Rose get onto the First Order ship somehow and get to where the tracker is. Del Toro’s splicer manages to get the door open, but they are all captured anyway. Without managing to deactivate the hyperspace tracker. They are then dragged back out to the hanger deck where Phasma and Hux plan to kill them. We also find out that Del Toro made a deal with the First Order and is leaving with payment. What he did isn’t entirely clear… Tipped the First Order off that they got there? Made a deal for information that he had after they got captured? I’m not really clear.

Then, Snoke’s ship begins firing on the escape transports and begins destroying them. For some odd reason, the Resistance pilots fail to begin evasive maneuvers… I get flying in a straight line before you are spotted, but once you start taking fire you should ditch the Prometheus school of running away from things.

During this time, Rey gets onto Snoke’s ship. She is greeted by Ben and brought directly to Snoke’s chamber. Much like Luke in Return of the Jedi. Snoke then proceeds to sneer, taunt, and mock Rey. Hitting her head with the lightsaber (which, I admit, was funny) and uses the Force to wrench Luke’s hiding place from her mind. Snoke does manage to appear menacing in this scene and they even use the Emperor’s theme for him at one point. He then decides that she is useless and orders Ben to kill her. Rey says that Ben has some good in him. Snoke then says that he knows Ben so well and has controlled him for so long that there is nothing Ben can do about following Snoke’s commands. Ben then turns the lightsaber and… psych! He turned Anakin’s lightsaber on the throne’s arm and ignites it into Snokes stomach, then pulls it forward and cuts Snoke in half. Snoke is then very, very dead. I will point out that one Sith has survived this sort of thing (Darth Maul, canonically, survived his unfortunate defeat at the hands of Obi-wan), so while he is probably dead, it’s not out of the range of possibility for him to come back.

Rey and Ben then have an awesome fight with Snoke’s guards. Seeing vibro-whips and such was 

really cool. My only complaint is that Rey just seems too good, even saving Ben in the end of the fight. Ben then asks Rey to join him and vice-versa. They both refuse each other and Ben shows that he killed Snoke just to gain power. Ben also tells Rey that he has seen into her mind and knows who her parents are. Who are they? Absolutely nobody important. Apparently, they were scavengers who sold her so they could get off-planet. Aaaand we unceremoniously drop yet another of the carefully built up J.J. mystery boxes.

They then start to fight a bit, trying to pull Anakin’s lightsaber to themselves. They only manage to destroy it (and it explodes, oddly enough).

Holdo then turns the Resistance cruiser and jumps to lightspeed facing the First Order ships, taking out a several of the smaller ships and taking off a good part of the starboard section of Snoke’s ship. This allows the Resistance to escape to Crait and provides enough disruption for Finn and Rose to escape Snoke’s ship (after sending Phasma to die… again [she just ended up being useless… again… such a waste of a character]). The lightspeed scene was absolutely awesome! However, I don’t think making Holdo sacrifice herself redeems her in a meaningful way. If this were a character that had some sort of connection to the series previously, it would have had some sort of emotional payout, but this one didn’t so, while it was cool, it was rather meaningless.

Kylo Ren is then declared the new Supreme Leader of the First Order and he orders them to make a 

ground assault on Crait.

Finn and Rose crash into the Rebel base in a stolen First Order shuttle. This is one of the first times that the good guys open fire on a bad guy ship with good guys in it. Most times they figure it out. I liked that this happened since it is more realistic.

What happens next is very strange… The Resistance fortifies their position with a giant blast shield and the First Order brings down walkers and a mini Death Star laser (to act more or less like a battering ram)… Strangely, this reminded me of the Return of the King. Oliphants (which, at the time, reminded me of AT-ATs) and Grond. Anyway, what follows is similar to the opening moments of the Battle of Hoth. The speeders that the Resistance uses are pieces of garbage and most get destroyed (or fall apart) before they get to the giant planet killer laser-ram. Finn has a moment where he overcomes his selfishness and cowardice.  He’s just about to sacrifice himself to destroy the laser (á le Decker in The Doomsday Machine) when Rose steals his thunder. Just when his character was completing his arc and making me like him, they steal his moment of redemption from him. Yes, they said that we need to fight for someone instead of just fighting against something. Yes, that was an ok message. However, that doesn’t remove the fact that sometimes fighting for someone means sacrificing yourself. There are several examples that come to mind. I’m sure you can think of them yourselves.

The Millennium Falcon shows up and takes care of the Tie Fighters (which was pretty cool, and brought back a good motif). Somehow though, Rey was back on the Falcon, even though it was said a scene ago that she escaped Snoke’s ship on Snoke’s own personal transport. I assume that a supreme leader’s transport would have weapons, so wouldn’t it be good to bring more than one ship to a dogfight? Besides that, how in the galaxy did Rey have time to contact Chewie, dock with the Falcon, and head down to Crait? Not a huge deal, but it bugged me.

So, after the speeder plan fails, Luke suddenly shows up. The scene that follows with him and Leia is absolutely fantastic and the score at that moment is also amazing. It allows these two characters to come to terms with the past 25 years in the space of a few minutes. It also contains what is, I believe, to be the best acting in the entire film. Leia tells Luke that all of this isn’t his fault and that Snoke is mainly to blame.

Luke says he has to go face Ben, which he promptly does. Now that the walking laser has blasted a very tiny hole in the blast shield, Luke walks out to face the entire First Order force. As he walks through, we see the Resistance fighters light up with some hope.

Then… Kylo Ren does the most immature thing he does in the entire film. He orders every ship, walker, and trooper to open fire on Luke. Luke then disappears in a cloud of dust and laser blasts. This continues for a bit until Hux gets him to stop. I wasn’t a fan of this as, it seemed that in the last scene Kylo Ren was supposed to have come into his own as the successor to Vader. But, he doesn’t act like Vader… Vader would have gone down to deal with Luke himself, not pelt him from a distance. Vader was very hands-on that way. So, it undermined Kylo Ren’s development a bit. Then Luke emerges from the dust cloud, completely unscathed; he even goes so far as to brush some dust off his shoulder in order to rub it in. Finally, Kylo Ren decides to come down and challenge Luke directly. So, yes, the lightsaber “fight” was cool. Some very nice camera angles and some ok dialog. Then we get the big reveal: Luke isn’t actually here! He is doing some sort of Force projection from Ach-to! I think I am probably one of the only people who found this lame. Yes, the power was a cool new power. I personally found it to be a letdown of the character. I’ll explain this at the end. So, Luke gives a sort of Obi-wan comment “If you strike me down, I will be with you forever…. Just like your father.” Once Kylo figures out that Luke is not physically there, Luke says “See you around, kid” and disappears (LUKE SKYWALKER has vanished!). What is left of the Resistance does manage to escape through some holes behind the base that some ice foxes show them. Luke also reveals that he is no longer the last of the Jedi, since Rey has become a Jedi (I suppose.) Rey then lifts the giant rocks blocking the Resistance’s escape (with no help from Leia…. Why? Just reinforce to us that Rey is important and powerful.)

Kylo Ren walks into the base and sees Han Solo’s Sabaac dice, which also are Force projections (which lasted for some reason after Leia put them down and Luke disappeared).

Luke drops from exhaustion from his projection, then apparently crawls up and sees the Resistance escape. He then sits on his rock, gazing into the suns-set just like his did all that time ago on Tatooine (you remember, the very first Star Wars? *wink wink*). Then, as the Williams score swells, he disappears, becoming one with the Force. *Sigh* I’ll come back to that.

So, the Resistance escapes and Leia says something about them having hope and all 15 of them escape on the Millennium Falcon. It’s definitely just a spark now… Oh yeah, and Rey took the Jedi texts from the tree on Ach-to. Anyway, last scene of the movie, we go back to the slave kids on Canto Bight and they get in trouble for telling stories that we just saw instead of mucking out the stalls. So they get yelled at. One kid goes out with a broom, looks up to the stars and “sees” the Falcon go to lightspeed. We see that he has Rose’s Rebel symbol ring and we see a look of “hope” on his face. After that he raises his broom (apparently with the Force) so we get a silhouette that looks like a Jedi with a lightsaber. My guess is that this is to tell us that anybody, even those from humble stock, can be the next generation of heroes. Alright, you don’t need to beat us over the head with it. Anakin only started life as a slave….

Did this review feel disjointed? Yes? Good. That was how the movie felt. It had a very uneven flow to it and didn’t seem to be able to make up its mind as to where it was going. As much as I complained about Episode 7 being basically a copy of Episode 4, it had a definable story that you could follow. Even some of the garbage scripts I wrote as a teen had more of definable story arcs and character development. Yes, yes; some people will say “you can’t have it both ways!” I say: “Why not?” Is it so hard to work inside of a pre-existing universe, and still make a new story? Then I look around at all the reboots and prequels going on…. I think we’ve exhausted the creativity of the folks who write for movies. If you want some stuff that works in the universe and still tells a new story, look at some of the old EU Star Wars material, namely: Knights of the Old Republic, Timothy Zahn’s Thrawn books (and any other Star Wars book he wrote), and Star Wars: The Clone Wars (the newer series). These took what was already there, didn’t contradict it (for the most part), and even inserted new characters into the universe that became awesome in their own right (Reven, Thrawn, Mara Jade, Ahsoka). So, don’t tell me it can’t be done. It also feels like the movie has been highjacked to try to give social commentary. This has never been Star Wars’ strong point. There are some comments on a few things, (like the Republic in the Prequels), but generally things are just in the film rather than focused on (you know, like strong female leads who just are there because they are part of the universe, and why wouldn’t they be there rather than “Hey look!”)

So, what did I like about this movie? Well, I liked the score. I think that this movie allowed Williams to do what Williams does best: swelling epic scores. The Force Awakens didn’t have very many score moments that I can remember being excited about. This score did. The use of the Force theme (mostly for Luke), Leia’s theme, the Tie Fighter fight theme, and even Rose’s new theme were effective for what they were supposed to do. I don’t think it quite has the same connection to the film that the original six did, but I don’t think modern directors approach scores the same way people like Lucas and Spielberg did. It definitely will be a fine addition to my collection. I also liked that Kylo Ren was written better. He felt much less whiney and “emo” in this film. While he still remains that way to an extent (see his turbolaser infused Luke-hating tantrum), he is far less annoying than he was in the last film. I’m still not on board with him being a great bad guy (he’s not even a Dooku), but he has gotten better. Leia having the Force was great (although used inconsistently). There are a few more things I mentioned in the above monster text (like the A-wings, Yoda, the lightspeed kamikaze, and Luke’s initial grumpiness), but that’s just about it….

So: Rey…. Rey didn’t really have much growth in this film. Much like the last one, Rey seems to grasp everything that Luke shows her either intuitively or far too quickly. Yes, there was some training, but it definitely felt like a continuation of the last film, where she only needs to see something once or barely guess at it to know how to do it. As someone wise once said: “That’s not how the Force works!” She is so confident in her abilities that she decides to go off after Ben by herself. Yes, this is a throwback to Luke going to Bespin. However, Luke had a bit more training and you also felt that he was doing something potentially disastrous. I didn’t have that feeling with Rey. Also, when she faced Snoke, I never got the feeling that she was in grave danger because I knew that she would find a way to win, or have one conveniently land in her lap (which happened). The big reveal of her parents was that they were nobodies. Ok…. I get it, we’re trying to show that not every hero needs to be a Skywalker or Solo. However, I will point out, that that is what the anthology films are supposed to be about. The saga episodes are purportedly telling the story of the Skywalker family, but if this is the true nature of Rey’s background, then Johnson and Disney just fired a large shot right in their own foot, contradicting their own declared purpose for the films. Besides that, it was a huge let-down as everyone was expecting something cool and we just got “oh, they’re nobody important.” It’s the problem with the whole mystery box idea. You get people hyped up for something and then when you finally reveal what it is, nearly everyone is disappointed. I am of the opinion that this will likely become a red herring and that J.J. Abrams will retcon it, say Kylo was lying, or something. They dropped far too many of his storylines for him to just go ahead with it.

Snoke: Where to start…. Snoke was another major blunder. We’ve been waiting two whole years to find out who this guy is and we’ve been told in the books, comics, and releases that Snoke is a really powerful guy who has been around since before the Clone Wars. He may even be that dark power that Palpatine felt in the unknown regions. This big bad guy mostly delivers for his time on screen; he’s not quite as menacing as Vader nor as creepy as the Emperor, but he does have some menace of his own, especially when he toys with Rey and gets Luke’s location out of her head. However, he manages to get killed by not paying close enough attention while monologuing (You caught me monologuing!). This totally undermines any importance that the character had in the universe. Even if he was a big bad guy, he gets killed so quickly after seeing him, that the supposed terror he has inflicted upon the galaxy seems cheap. Granted, we only saw the Emperor for a very short while in Episode 6, but they, at least, waited to kill him in the end in a way that added to the main story plot and gave Vader more drama. I think this was another part one of Abrams’ plot points that Johnson just dropped, because he thought it was silly and didn’t let him do what he wanted with Kylo Ren (namely, make him a really big, bad guy). While I thought the Snoke thing was silly when Episode 7 came out, I would have expected some consistency with the character and with the internal mechanics of the universe. I guess I expected too much. We expected some sort of confrontation and got a lame villain who gets killed without actually doing anything bad other than tossing some people around the room.

Luke: Alright, this was probably my biggest critique of the film. Luke does not seem like Luke. As I said before, Luke’s hiding and waiting to die does not seem to fit with the character that we saw at the end of Return of the Jedi. Yes, things happened in the intervening 25ish years, but now that we have gotten a look at what happened…. I don’t think it’s enough to make Luke fall into despair like he has. Luke is supposed to have been the most powerful Jedi that has ever lived. While we did see him use astral projection (Which nobody has done before), he didn’t do anything. It took something away from his character that he didn’t physically go somewhere. Yes, it showed some power in the Force, but it just ended up being a mostly pointless delaying tactic. What I would have preferred would have been to see him start to raise his X-Wing, then show up at the last battle, taking out a few TIEs, before going head-to-head with Kylo. Anyway, the ending. Why do I think it is weak? Well, it makes Luke Skywalker, the man who was a hero to the galaxy (yes, maybe a few people hadn’t heard of him, but it’s doubtful; if a junker on a planet like Jakku knows who he is, then most people know who he is [Yes, Rey knows all, but logically…]), just die of exhaustion. It is reminiscent of the ending of the Golden Compass series, where the main characters find “God” and watch him die; he doesn’t go out with a bang or some other massive celestial show, just with a quiet whimper. It seems like this last great show of force has drained him of any strength that he had left and he just dies. Before anyone points out Yoda, Yoda was old and sick, he died naturally. Luke’s death seems anti-climactic for a character who is so beloved. Did he need to go out in a blaze of glory or get wasted like a red shirt? No. If he had actually been there, done the fight, then escaped and died of his wounds at the very end, that would have worked. That would have been a sacrifice that would have meant something and allowed us to leave him in a way that felt right.

As this review is already waaaay to long, I’ll stop here. If you need/want clarification on anything I have written or my thoughts on anything that I may have missed, leave a comment.

 I’ll leave this with one final thought. This film has proven to be possibly the most divisive film for the Star Wars franchise. People are going after each other left and right. Much digital space has been filled with people’s thoughts and reactions. However, much of the discourse has been vicious and unnecessary. So: if you like the movie or if you didn’t like the movie, you can say you did or didn’t and why (as long as you can keep it level and rational [being a little emotional is fine, we are all attached to the franchise, after all]). But above all, keep it civil. Somebody liking it doesn’t make them a liberal misandryist and hating the movie doesn’t make somebody a misogynistic racist. There is so much hate going out on both sides. It’s like the Dark Side has taken over. So, long story short, talk about the story and the ideas. No name calling. Jerks. ;)