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renegade-skywalker · 6 years

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Okay, it’s time for me to rant about The Last Jedi:

Let me start off by saying that I am all for pushing boundaries, exploring the limits and really delving into the philosophy of Star Wars. I loved The Force Awakens, but I was very much ready for The Last Jedi to take the new trilogy in a new direction and catapult us beyond the horizon of everything we thought we knew about the world of Star Wars and its mythos. I was fine with the idea of Luke defying expectations and being disappointed by him, I was ready for grumpy Luke, and hell, I was even anticipating that the Big Twist™ would be that Luke was the antagonist. I was all for Luke going Paul Atreides/Muad’Dib on the galaxy and becoming an antagonist in the sense that Batman does at the end of The Dark Knight. I was ready for the plot twists, I was ready for the Rey and Kylo arc, but I was not ready for this mess.

What’s sad is that this has been done before. I may be biased, but Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords explores Star Wars in ways no other SW-related media ever has, yet it manages to do so within the realms of Star Wars’ “rules”. It feels believable, it draws from the Original Trilogy and the Prequel Trilogy, it discusses the problems with the Force as well as the Jedi and Sith who both feel as if they are entitled to act on behalf of the Force. It deals with redemption, but it also has a message that “ultimately nothing matters” and Kreia’s ploy to destroy both the Jedi and the Sith, but more importantly, The Force Itself and it makes sense. You see her point, you understand her desires and motivations. Not only do you see the Jedi and the Sith fail and bring violence and turmoil to the galaxy within the game regardless of their motives and intentions, even turning Revan into a bit of a villain whether you were Light or Dark in your playthrough, but also makes you think of how you can say the same of the movies, how the Council utterly fails Anakin in the Prequels just as the Council fails the Exile and how redemption is always possible for all of your party members and even Kreia, just as it was for Vader.

The Last Jedi has elements of this story, but has absolutely no depth. Luke is not only out of character, in fact in many parts I feel like he was in character but he was most of all inconsistent. His comments about the Force and the Jedi are interesting, how the Force is not a “right”, and for the Jedi to think they have a claim on controlling it is pure vanity. I LOVE THAT. But beyond that line... that’s it. We do not see this point explored. In fact, Luke goes back on this idea almost as soon as he says it. For someone who has cut themselves off from the Force (think: The Jedi Exile, which has a lot of potential) he still cares about the Light and the Dark and is biased against the Darkness. After giving a rather nihilistic speech about the Force, Luke still sounds like the Jedi Masters from the Prequel Trilogy, who he also just criticized for being righteous hypocrites. He berates Rey for being drawn to the Darkness, yet decides she’s the Last Jedi? Nowhere do we see Luke come to this conclusion.

There is no reason for Rey to be a Jedi. She can certainly be an arbiter of justice, or at least someone with the power to confront Kylo in the next act, but there is no argument for her to uphold the Jedi name. Yoda even destroys the old texts, which also feels like a slap in the face because the events of the Prequels are all kind of Yoda’s fault? Not to mention that scene was cheestastic as all hell. Yoda stuck to the code, did not give Anakin the training/guidance he needed, and did not heed the Classic Star Wars Bad Feelings™ of people like Obi Wan (at least in Phantom Menace, by Attack of the Clones he cares for Anakin and has hope in him) and Mace Windu, who never seems to trust Anakin or his future. Again, it is not Anakin’s fault that Darkness surrounds him. He was born into slavery, his mother is still a slave (which, for peacekeepers and do-gooders, shouldn’t Qui Gon and Obi Wan have done something about that??? Isn’t that what Jedi do???) and yet they still blame Anakin for his life’s circumstances, for things completely outside of his control, and for feeling things. The boy needed therapy, he would have been fine. This problem is brought back up in Ben Solo’s origins as Kylo Ren. For Luke to call out the Old Jedi Order (with receipts) and then do THE VERY SAME THING to his nephew makes no sense, especially since Luke was able to reach Vader by believing in him, by seeing the Light in him, and trusting him. What made Luke so cool in Return of the Jedi was the fact that he told Yoda and Obi Wan “No, I will not kill my father” when they kept telling him that Vader must be destroyed. And Luke was ultimately right. Where did that compassion go? Ben was just like Anakin, kind of thrown around like a bomb to go off, and I’m sure that will give any kid anxiety, so when Snoke comes along and tells him he’s powerful and worthy, it makes sense that he would be swayed. This is just like Anakin. Anakin was openly distrusted by the Council, but was welcomed and “understood” by Palpatine. I don’t see why Luke would overlook this.

Speaking of Snoke, the Big Twist that he dies makes no sense. Who was he is a big question, sure, but ultimately why did it matter? It doesn’t. It also makes me realize that the First Order is completely motivationless, and Snoke’s desire to train Ben/Kylo is made completely pointless. And if he was so strong in the Force, enough to reach out and influence Ben across the galaxy without seemingly ever met him and create a Force bond between Rey and Kylo, how the hell did he not even simply hear the lightsaber next to him rattling on the armrest? In Return of the Jedi, the Emperor is taken by surprise by Vader in a seemingly silly way, considering they’re both Force users and Vader just throws him over the railing and into the battery of the Death Star, but it’s more believable. Palpatine is so busy revelling in torturing Luke and the physical act of electrocuting him, in showing him that he’s right, that he does not see Vader turn. He is so vain that he does not see Vader change right beside him. But there’s motivation there. Snoke isn’t doing much when Kylo kills him, he’s too busy giving his Villain Takes the Time to Explain How The Hero Is About to Die speech to notice that his vision is right but ultimately a misinterpreted prophecy. It’s not believable.

Also, Palpatine keeps Vader on a tight leash but he gives him power, he gives him the illusion of agency. Snoke literally calls Kylo a snivelling bitch every three seconds. He’s like the abusive dad who puts down his spouse/kid all day every day and goes on and on and on about how weak they are and how they’ll never fight back or amount to anything only to get decked in the face during the climax. It was the behavior of an abuser, yes, which we know Snoke was from The Force Awakens, but this makes him an unintelligent abuser. Palpatine was a master manipulator. After seeing The Last Jedi, I have no idea why Ben would follow Snoke, nor do understand why Hux would for that matter. He’s not a villain, he’s a bully. How boring...

There is so much more I could talk about, but when concerning the mythos and philosophy behind Star Wars, what makes Vader so interesting and the rest of the movies so good, and everything else that felt wrong with The Last Jedi. I’m convinced Rian Johnson didn’t even see The Force Awakens and maybe watched the other movies a couple times and was somehow convinced he could make a Star Wars movie. Gareth Edwards’ movie felt like a Star Wars movie. It felt like a story that had always been there, from the beginning, we just hadn’t heard it yet. It was new, yet it kept the feel of the Original Trilogy. The sets and designs looked like they came out of the late 70′s production of A New Hope, but the characters were completely different than any other Star Wars characters we’d seen, they showed how even the Rebellion could be bad and how grey morality could work in a Star Wars movie where there is so much emphasis on black and white Good and Evil, and they killed off every single character by the end which was a bold move. The Last Jedi didn’t just introduce new ideas and explore the philosophies of Star Wars, it completely disregarded them and failed to feel like it belonged in the series. Even though the Prequels have a different tone to them than the Original Trilogy, they still have a feel to them that makes it consistent. The story and the mythos are there, even if the sets and the technology did not add up with what we saw in A New Hope. But The Last Jedi has neither, so I’m failing to see how this is a Star Wars movie at all.

There were so many plot holes, the Resistance plot line was essentially just a ship running out of gas, the First Order is magically able to track them through hyperspace, Hux turned from Space Nazi to Gargamel, Phasma is brought back for three whole seconds only for her to get her ass kicked again, Luke decided to give his ass-tral projection a Rogaine makeover and a different lightsaber, Yoda somehow looks worse than both his puppet and CGI counterparts in the Prequels, the guards on Canto Bight look like they just walked off the set of Spaceballs, and why did the movie end with a Star Wars Duracell commercial, y’know the ones we get this time of year about kids imagining they’re in Star Wars and how it makes Christmas special? That Resistance ring looks like it came out of a Cracker Jack box.

Honestly... what the fuck.

#star wars #the last jedi #the last jedi spoilers #tlj spoilers #the only redeeming quality was the cast #they did their best and I love them all

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