Behold our Lord and Savior, Rey Kenobi… or Skywalker… or Solo… or… Windu?

A Review of Star Wars: The Last Jedi

WARNING: Spoilers.

The coverage of Rian Johnson’s (seemingly long) awaited Star Wars sequel, The Last Jedi, has garnered a naturally passionate response from fans. Unfortunately, for those of us who enjoyed the film, that passionate response has been less than positive by a loud — but thankfully small — cohort of fans. The issue first arose when Rotten Tomatoes (my personal favorite movie review source) found that only 53% of responding fans liked the movie; the least amount of any Star Wars movie. This was seen as odd by many, as critics on the same site have it rated currently at 92%; slightly below the original odyssey *A New Hope and The Last Jedi’s immediate predecessor [The Force Awakens](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/star_wars_episode_vii_the_force_awakens). Furthering suspicions that RT’s fan ratings were off is that the film has grossed a grand total of $573.7 million as of December 20, significant even for Star Wars*.

This odd disparity has led to speculation as to why RT’s fan rating is so low, from Russian bots to alt-right man babies. Personally, I have seen the visceral reactions all over social media, ranging from simple indignation to full-throated attacks against parts of the movie that could’ve used fixing but all-in-all weren’t that problematic. Some have even gone so far as to say that *The Phantom Menace and [Attack of the Clones](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/star_wars_episode_ii_attack_of_the_clones), two films in the franchise generally regarded by both critics and (especially) fans as barely worth Hutt dung, are better. These folks also somehow tend to believe Rogue One is better than The Force Awakens (Rogue *is terrific, but no), so take their assessments with a grain of Crait salt. Allow me to walk through the movie and explain what I think worked, could’ve been done better, and what's received a lot of hate, but actually was fine to begin with.

Honestly, I’m digging the classic Jedi look.

Right off the bat with this installment of the harrowing space opera we have the comic relief that seemingly only Marvel fans have been able to revel in as part of the recent explosion of nerd films. Poe taunts Hux to the point of flustering him, Rey ruins the days of a few Caretakers with her clumsiness, Luke establishes himself as the embodiment of Sir Alec Guinness’s opinion of the franchise, and much more. Some of the humor does come at awkward times of death and destruction; however, it would be fair to say it is a way for the characters themselves to cope with the loss. It was truly refreshing to have humor that was snappy but not drawn out and thankfully not involving Jar Jar Binks. The claim that the humor was forced is terribly unfounded; my showing had the audience laugh aloud at almost every attempt. If you want to see forced humor, watch Seth MacFarlane’s The Orville — a good show, but sprinkled Family Guy-esque jokes that just don’t cut it on a space cruiser.

Perhaps the bigger bone of contention for the Russian nesting bots of American neo-fascism is the twists and turns. Star Wars has been universally known for it’s incredible, jaw-dropping, tear-jerking plot twists since “No, I am your father.” The Force Awakens did not disappoint on that end (Remember when you thought Finn was the Jedi?) and neither did The Last Jedi. This time though, Rian Johnson cleverly and masterfully toyed with us using trailers: suggesting Kylo Ren (again) slaying one of his parents (the scene being completed before Fisher’s untimely passing), the turning of Luke or Rey to the dark side, maybe whoever Rey’s parents are, maybe Snoke is Mace Windu, and Reylo confirmed????? Save your breath, the answer is no on almost all counts. To our angered friends, this was a betrayal. How could you possibly tease all of these things and have something completely unexpected happen instead?!

Darth “It’s-Not-A-Phase-MOM” Goth™ embodying the consensus on Rian “You-Killed-My-Childhood” Johnson.

Luke says, verbatim “This is not going to go the way you think.” It’s called building suspense. Why bother having the movie if the trailer says it all? Sure, Disney would like to gobble up as much money from ticket sales and merchandising anyway, but they aren’t stupid — they know people will get bored eventually if they don’t add some spice.

Look, we all knew deep down that Rey’s parentage was nothing. Why on Coruscant does every single wildly talented Jedi and Sith in the galaxy have to be a Skywalker, or a Kenobi? It’s clear from Rey’s apparent absence of any significant lineage, and the final scene in which a Force-sensitive slave boy is inspired by the Resistance, that anyone can be a powerful Jedi hero. Should we not be celebrating — in this era of populism — that you can project yourself across the galaxy to badger your insolent nephew about how much of a brat he’s being and that he doesn’t have to live up to his grandfather’s legacy, who was basically Space Hitler?

One of Hamlet’s famous soliloquies about the ethics of being a huge crybaby.

Another enjoyable twist was a string of badass moments that led to the entire movie becoming “Kill the Useless Villains Day.” I for one am glad to see Snoke go, while most fans are perturbed by the lack of attention given to his character. His immense Force abilities on display (such as smacking Hux’s face to the floor from light-years away and flinging Rey around like a rag doll) did intrigue me and gave me my first actual interest in the character. However, in light of the idea posited earlier — that anyone can be strong with the Force — that interest is fleeting. Regardless, my giddiness at seeing his sad, 800-year-chain smoker torso sliced in half by an apprentice he supposedly had wrapped around his finger was sky-high. This jack ass spent this movie and the last sitting high and dry while Kylo Ren did his dirty work and then had the nerve to kick him while he was down? There was no better way to end the character than having his own apprentice so simply end his miserable existence. Good riddance.

That being said, I am sure fans universally enjoyed Snoke’s dressing down of Kylo Ren early in the story. Not only was it the fuel for the fire that carried Ren’s character for much of the rest of the movie, but it also put to rest accusations of Rey being a Mary Sue and poked fun at how much of a little brat Ren was in The Force Awakens. Take this with the amazing fight for survival Ren and Rey put on with Snoke’s Elite Praetorian Guard, in which Ren proves his abilities as a master melee warrior. Even though it was initially forced upon them by Snoke, the Rey-Ren chemistry that had blossomed in the last film displayed bright new colors in this one. Rey is right, they are connected for a reason greater than Snoke’s tricks. Snoke even highlighted that Ren is the darkness and Rey is the light that rose to meet him. Their personal connection becomes an honest, frank, and mutually caring one that Ren doesn’t have with anyone else, even his mother.

The Caretakers also weren’t fans of Rey’s lineage… or her.

Kylo Ren (or should I call him Ben?) truly grows into his own in a way that was sorely missed in the previous installment. His whininess, only eclipsed by his grandfather and uncle, faded away in this chapter to make way for a more complex and sympathetic badass. Sure, he devolved back when he encountered Luke, but that was a well-placed moment for that; it illustrated how much he felt Luke had wronged him. As we find out, Ren’s feelings towards his uncle are not simply the concoctions of Snoke after all, and maybe you would be pretty pissed at your uncle for a while too if he tried killing you in your sleep. Yet another Johnson twist no one expected though was well taken.

Ren is not the only Skywalker to have some character development in The Last Jedi. Luke proves to be far more difficult at getting through to than Rey initially anticipates, going so far as to toss his family lightsaber off a cliff when she first returns it to him. We knew he felt guilty about letting the galaxy and his nephew down, yet we were sure he was still the wise Jedi who left us in Return of the Jedi — wrong! He, like his nephew, is now a whiny lump filled with self-pity. He goes so far as to try and destroy the last strands of the Jedi that remain with him on Ahch-To, only to change his mind and end up having Yoda do some Zeus crap to do it for him. All of this because Luke misses the point entirely (much like our uncultured crusaders of the “real” Star Wars way): we fall so we learn to pick ourselves up again… oh, and finally focus on the present instead of bitching about crap that hasn’t even happened yet. Not to mention, anyone who doesn’t think that him projecting himself to Crait and stalling the First Order was not the most jaw-dropping scene of that movie can go assemble a protocol droid with nothing but Popsicle sticks and Elmers glue.

FUNNNNNNNNYYYYYYYYY JOKE

You can do the same too if you were not on board (at least at first) with the Poe-Finn-Rose Save-the-Day misadventure (looking at you, Leia). One thing I'm not clear on is why not tell everyone on the ship that bailing the ship and hiding on Crait was the plan? That would have saved everyone a heap of trouble, and not made the action of a good thirty to forty-five minutes of the movie useless. The director’s choice to do that was obvious: build up the stakes. In terms of story though, not the strongest way to go. But who cares? Thanks to this hair-brained scheme we finally got to see Finn wail on Captain Phasma for being in the Snoke Club of Useless, Abusive, and Entitled (and Dead-by-the-End-of-this-One) Jerks.

A part of that failed save-the-day plan, some think the Canto Bight mishap was a bit too far from the course of the film. That may be fair, yet it took us away from the intimate setting of the First Order against the Resistance and we got to see how other planets were fairing during this galaxy-wide conflict and how the war affects them. For the first time in Star Wars cinematic history, we caught a glimpse at how the warring factions of our often tumultuous galaxy far, far away supply themselves, and it ain’t pretty. Not only that, but a lot of those arms manufacturers getting tipsy at the poker table on blue milk sell to Rebel scum and Imperial dogs alike. As mentioned earlier, while that trip ended up being useless for our heroes, their daring run from oppression seemed to inspire the slave children of Canto Bight, and so maybe that trip was not so useless after all.

Disney: ~Smarter Than You Think~

Either way, we got to see Vice Admiral Holdo (Holdo, really? First Shiiv, then Snoke, now this? Disney is worse at naming Star Wars characters than historians are at naming wars) jump to light speed through a god damn ship and disable an entire flotilla. That is the kind of thing you WISH you could do in Battlefront. We almost saw Finn repeat that selflessness by crashing into a cannon on Crait, but thankfully our idiot hero was saved by Rose (and the Falcon! YEEEE-WHO!). It seems as the movie went on, our heroes got a little too caught up in suicide missions and needed some good old advice from Martin Sheen: “We don’t need martyrs right now. We need heroes. A hero would die for his country, but he’d much rather live for it.”

I will admit, as I have in bits over the course of this review, that there are some odd points I did not like. What was with the bridge of Raddus getting blown to bits and Leia soaring in with her only known use of the Force to save herself? Adrenaline maybe, and maybe the vacuum of space does not instantly rip you apart? (Looking at you, Guardians) Rose kissing Finn? Yeah, she was obviously a big fan at the beginning of the movie, and they went through quite a bit, but I was never convinced of any chemistry. Now Rey kissing Finn, or Poe kissing Finn (Yeah, it’s 2017. Cry me a river, build a bridge, and get over it.) would have been more logical. Lastly, where on Mustafar are Y-Wings in this trilogy? The only bombers the New Republic could loan the Resistance were these Wampa-sized Tic-Tacs? Oi.

“I HAVE COME FOR YOUR CHILDHOOD”

Regardless of the problems I had with the movie, haters are still going to hate, probably because it diverges too much from the Original Trilogy as compared to its predecessor. I understood The Force Awakens as purposefully close to the originals because Disney wanted to show they could make good, classic Star Wars. Rogue One was an attempt to divert from the norm, and people really seemed to like it, though I would argue it took an out-of-place U-turn back to classic Star Wars in the third act. The Last Jedi is just enough like the originals to feel like Star Wars, but not too much like them to border on being a copycat, as its predecessor was accused of being.

Put simply, Star Wars: The Last Jedi can not be a film you see once, whether you liked it the first time or not. Most films tend to run at one hour and forty-five minutes; The Last Jedi is forty-five minutes longer than that, making it a lot more to process. See it again and still do not like it? That’s fine, you are perfectly welcome to that opinion — but please, for the love of the Whills, stop putting it on the same level of Batman and Robin and quit hating on the porgs.