This movie made me like Force Awakens, although I used to dislike it so much for copying New Hope. But damn, at least that movie sort of knew what it wanted to do.
It started out great, First Order attacking the Resistance was great. But then we learn about the fuel problem and that leads to a chase scene that lasts for 2-3 days, maybe. With the First Order humongous star destroyer and normal destroyers chasing three Resistance ships. And despite fighters inflicting great damage to the ships previously, in that time no-one thinks to do it again. Despite them probably having thousands of fighters. But no, slowly chasing and firing at the ships it is. Oddly though, they seem to have better accuracy when it comes to smaller ships that are even further away. We also get friction between Poe and a new leader of the Resistance. Too bad that the whole friction and mutiny could have been avoided if she only would have told Poe what they had been planning. Turning the main ship into a hyperspace-missile was awesome though.
Finn's plot is once again completely useless, he seemingly used to be a cleaner on the command ship as well and has to go on a trip to casino with a forced faux-action girl. We also get kids and learn that slaving and arms dealers are bad things. Not to mention we get scenes where they are mad that a wild card sold them out after getting caught on the ship, even though in an earlier scene the guy shows that people sell weapons to both sides and that he's not seeing any difference between them. And in the end they have nothing to add important to the plot. And while he gets to fight with Phasma, it lasts for couple of minutes and then Phasma dies.
On the First Order side, Hux and Kylo still continue their teenager antics, fighting for the acceptance of Snoke. Who seems to channel Palpatine so hard that it's not even fun. But then comes the surprise and Kylo actually kills the guy and we get a good action scene with Kylo and Rey fighting with Snoke's guards. And then it goes back to normal incompetence for him.
Those were my main problems with the movie. It had good scenes such as the opening, Battle of Crait, Rey/Kylo teamup, about every scene with Mark Hamill. But they are very much outnumbered by the bad scenes. I'm curiously waiting how they are going to save the last movie from being about First Order led by Kylo Ren fighting against about 20 remaining Resistance fighters.
Jesus it sounds like a mess.
Why not just write your own review if you're gonna hijack OP's review comment section with a freakin' wall of text that does not even deign to respond to the original review in any meaningful way?
For my own part, I had a good time despite many flaws I find myself in agreement with. But linching one's opinion on a post-2000s action adventure film having plot, tone and pacing problems is a bit like dismissing Cubism as being 4/10 for having too many straight lines. You just have to roll with the bad and find the good, if any. It's a sad state of affairs but that's what happens when money takes priority over everything else.
In hindsight, I probably should have. I just liked his review and thought to give my own opinion about it.
Ah it\'s fine. While Ratbatter\'s post is basically a review in the comments they made good points I wasn\'t able to cover. I used to say before how I\'d take a safe bland movie over a bad one, but at least with a bad film it sparks interest in conversation. Last Jedi is neither so bad it\'s bad, but nor can I say I enjoyed it either. I liked many moments and ideas it had, the moral grey areas between good and evil for instance, but what ideas/characters it has that it could have expanded upon it ditches instantly.
Phasma, for instance, is a great foil that Finn butts heads with. Not even five minutes of screen time she\'s out the picture (after somehow teleporting out of the massive room so she can swagger back in again moments later for dramatic effect. Same with Snoke. He\'s set up as the new bigbad emperor-wannaba, unoriginal but whatever, only to mumble a lot of wishy washy finger wagging at Kylo and pushed out of the story too. So who was he? was he royalty? he was built up so much and didn\'t do anything with him beside knock Rey around the room and reprimand his subordinates. Wasted potential.
You can call it nitpicky, and I freely admit it. I didn\'t feel like I wasted by time, but it\'s very difficult to recommend this to anyone. Watching people leave the screening of Last Jedi today no one was smiling or seemed excited or anything. Everyone just mirrored my own initial reaction. Such a shame.
Thanks for not minding it :) I\'ll chalk it up to coming back from seeing the film at 11:30pm and it seemed like a good idea at that time.
The film just kind of...happened. It indeed has some good scenes, but as a whole, it\'s very inconsistent in what it wants to do. It\'s such a drastic departure from the previous one that it\'s kind of weird to think it\'s supposed to follow up on Awakens. Many of the ideas and characters, as you said, like Phasma and Snoke just die and that\'s it. I bet there will be dozens of books detailing who each of the characters are (Phasma already has a book and a comic about her) but I sure would have liked to know something more about them other than \"We are the new Boba Fett and Palpatine.\" Why on Earth are we left with even Space Nazi teenagers vs Plot-Armor Brigade and who thought that premise would be an exciting climax is beyond me.
I\'m glad I saw the movie already, because reading all the (negative reviews) I\'d have no goddamn ideas what actually happens and why it\'s supposed to be bad.
You know, I feel like too many of the plot-decisions in this movie were decided by shipping. I can kinda imagine the boardroom meeting...
"Our research shows that the fans ship Ren and Rey, but uh-oh! We had already foreshadowed that Rey might be related to the Skywalker clan, so that would be incestuous, and the mommy bloggers would hate that. No problem, let's just throw the foreshadowing out the window and make her a nobody, so we can continue teasing the relationship.
But wait, wasn't there also a hint of romance between Rey and Finn? Also, between Finn and Poe? Are our investors even ready for a gay romance in Star Wars? ... We cannot take chances here! Quickly introduce a new female love interest for Finn, so that we can be sure he is not gay. Oh, but if she is a new character, we have to build familiarity between them. I know, let's have the two go on a pointless side-plot that only exists to establish their "chemistry"! Also, if we are at it, let's make her asian! The chinese market will love that!"
I'm joking, of course, but I can still totally imagine that the underlying motivations behind the script were along those lines.
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The Lost Jedi (spoilers)
The benefits of working at a cinema came around today when at 9:50am me and two other members of staff had an early screening of The Last Jedi. One guy, like me, was a fan of the series and the third, an old timer, who’d not seen any Star Wars film in years. Upon leaving all three of us shared the same basic reaction: “Huh… that was umm.”
An all too heard complaint about Force Awakens was it’s repeating of New Hope and all it’s plot points and beats. Last Jedi has it’s sights firmly upon being ‘the dark chapter’, and it is Empire Strikes Back, with a few sprinkles of Return of the Jedi thrown in. It also happens to be a bloated, complicated, needlessly long, melodramatic jumble of ideas, and master of none.
The First Order, having won big at the card tables somehow buys an entire mega fleet and gives chase to Leia and the rest of the Resistance. Poe does all the legwork as usual, bringing the Resistance squadron into question when he can evidently just do all the dogfights and cripple Star Destroyers himself. Finn seeing the futility tries to unsuccessfully weasel out of it. The Order pursue their fleet across the galaxy, fuel reserves and hope running low.
Meanwhile, Rey and Luke have their quirky Master/Apprentice banter. “Bluhh” grumbles Luke. “I don’t train anyone. Leave me alone!” It felt like Shrek and Donkey all over again. Despite that, these island scenes are the most interesting in the film. It’s the parallel to Luke and Yoda, naturally: stuck in a soggy natural landscape with a mentally questionable teacher. Through the Force we watch Rey form a bond with Kylo, still the put-upon teenager alongside Snoke. We slowly figure out what happened between ‘Ben’ and Luke all those years ago, hints of who Rey’s parents are and Luke’s disappointment in himse-oh, and the squeaky hamster birds annoy Chewbacca! Haha…ugh.
My major complaints with the whole film, putting Episode V to one side, are firstly it’s melodramatic intense scenes and then hitting us with a whiplash inducing funny/cute moment. Some are welcome tension relief, others just make me blink and angrily groan. The Monte Carlo planet, which ultimately doesn’t contribute anything. It’s also two films. Or rather it’s Empire in reverse order. Not content with a noble sacrifice that rips apart the First Order’s Fleet...only to keep going, landing on a
snowysalt planet for a defend the base against incoming walkers. Shots of soldiers in the trenches et al. Except now the good guys are on the right of the screen and the baddies on the left! Plus a mini-death star..?It’s a jumble. We have Snoke’s throne room, complete with “Look out there, Rey… your fleet is lost,” then Snoke is quickly brushed away. Phasma returns in an extended cameo, before being brushed away too. What should have been a simple film is stuffed with sawdust and stretched for two and a half hours. A few good scenes, but not enough to excuse it.