5/10 Normally I keep my reviews short and sweet so the reader doesn’t take one look at how dauntingly long the review is an instantly turn away. Well for the main “Star Wars” episodes (not spin offs) I make an exception and write a novel where I delve deep into the overall positives, negatives and nitpicks because there is so much to take into account. As you can tell by my overall score, this is a fairly mediocre movie that greatly disappointed me (and a lot of fans). It definitely has great things about it that I will give it credit for so let’s start positive, get into the negative, hit some nitpicks and then wrap it up. Without further ado, let’s dive into “The Last Jedi.”
WARNING: SPOILERS TO FOLLOW…
PROS
-First off, the obvious answer is all of the technical aspects. The visual effects look incredible (with only a couple minor exceptions), the cinematography and editing are top notch and the always reliable John Williams provides us with yet another memorable, cinematic score to listen to on repeat. The production and costume design are unique and this movie uses more practical effects than any other “Star Wars” film to date, which is extremely inspiring and impressive. Over use of CGI can really hurt films so by going practical and creating suits for real people to wear to become aliens looks so much better and is the best way to go about creating these characters. Compare how the “Lord of the Rings” films look compared to how “The Hobbit” films look for a great example of practical effects vs. CGI. I will also give credit to the pacing of the movie. At two and a half hours, this movie moves right along and never gets bogged down or has you glancing at your watch.
-Another huge pro for me was the relationship between Kylo and Rey. Rey goes from being an all-around good girl in the last film to, like Kylo, being extremely conflicted. I loved that Kylo was conflicted between the Dark and Light side in the last film and now Rey joins him in that similar mindset. Seeing them temporarily team up was pretty inspiring as to what they could do if they joined forces and got along together. Their Force connection that made them communicate from far away added a layer to their already inspired relationship. They are the two most interesting characters in this new trilogy so far and I can’t wait to see where their relationship gets taken next.
-Another one of the few positives with this movie is the aforementioned fight scene with Rey and Kylo against Snoke’s imperial guards. The choreography and the red walls burning down around them causing ash to float into the air as the duel looked absolutely stunning and was fun to watch both times that I saw the film.
-Even though I didn’t like the direction they took a lot of these characters or the plot, one positive thing I will say is that the film is unpredictable. I wouldn’t have seen Snoke dying in a million years. Having Benicio del Stutterer betray Finn and Rose? Didn’t see that coming. Even though I may not have liked Snoke’s death or certain surprises, they still surprised me, which I give the movie credit for.
-Looking back at my “The Force Awakens” review, the other positives besides the ones I have repeated here like the technical aspects and what not were A) The FEELING of “Star Wars” is back B) I loved the cast and characters overall C) The emotions D) Some of the humor and E) Leaving some questions unanswered. Those positives about “The Force Awakens” can unfortunately not be repeated with this movie because A) This film doesn’t feel like a “Star Wars” film for many reasons B) The new characters introduced were garbage and the old ones had a lot of issues which I will get into later (the only exceptions being Rey and Kylo) C) I wasn’t emotionally involved in this movie like I was last time around D) None of the humor works and E) Most questions we had in the last film are either ignored or the answers are huge letdowns. That having been said, let’s look at the major problems this film before we go into the nitpicks.
CONS
-Finn and Rose. I feel like if there was a “Star Wars” TV show that Finn and Rose going off to evil rich people casinos and freeing poor animals would be a terrible episode of that show. That is what this whole subplot felt like. From the get go, switching the actresses whom played Rose and her sister would have been a great idea. The character of Rose would still massively suck but at least she would be a little easier to look at than a young, female Kim Jung Un. The whole feeling of this casino planet being all evil was so heavy handed. Look at all these rich people gambling. Surely they support animal cruelty. Rich people are bad and don’t care about the poor! Super ironic in a movie made by DISNEY! Do you guys not see the irony there? One of the only two spots of bad CGI in the film comes when Finn and Rose are riding the horse like creatures after they have broken out. After the animals are freed and Finn asks if it was all worth it, Rose takes off the saddle and then dramatically says, “Now it is worth it.” Cringe level OVER 9000 on that one. Then at the end of the film when the film makers could have been really ballsy and emotional by Finn’s noble suicide mission, Rose cock blocks his death (watching her crash into his already weakened ship would have killed both or at least one of them) and the kiss that they share was so tacky and unnecessary. Their chemistry together is so bad they are the exact opposite of Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling in terms of chemistry. Rose is by far the worst character since Jar Jar Binks and Finn continues to become less and less likeable as these films go on.
-Supreme Leader “Nothingburger” Snoke. As much as I gave the movie credit for surprising me in its killing off of Snoke…what a stupid move to make. Snoke was built up to be the biggest villain in all of “Star Wars” and the film makers said he was more powerful than Vader and Palpatine. Yet what did the most powerful villain in all of “Star Wars” do in the two movies he was in? Talk, give orders, complain and die. He didn’t fight once. He didn’t do anything cool. We got absolutely no background on his character or how he rose to power. The most under developed villain that is so two dimensional and has no personality outside of, “Kill the Jedi!” He even says, “I see his mind. I see his every intent” while talking about Kylo. Yet he was so easily fooled with a simple mind trick from someone whose mind he was apparently reading. Like Nancy Pelosi on an elevator, this was dumb on so many levels. Now there is a really interesting fan theory that Snoke is still alive and that like Luke Skywalker, he wasn’t actually in that throne room but instead projected himself (as Luke did at the end of the movie) and was testing Kylo to see if he would be betrayed by him. The only problem with this once intriguing theory is that it is inconsistent. When Luke is projected at the end of the film and shot at and cut through/stabbed with a light saber, the laser blasts and saber all goes right through him because he isn’t really there. Yet when Snoke is killed, the light saber clearly goes through him and his body falls into two pieces, something a projection wouldn’t do which believes me to think he actually died and making him one of the worst villains in all of cinema.
-Awful new characters and hurting old ones. Yes, Kylo and Rey are still great characters…and that is where it ends. Luke Skywalker is ruined. He goes in “The Return of the Jedi” from believing his father isn’t beyond saving enough though he is a mass murderer and full on Dark Side to him seeing some darkness in his nephew whom hasn’t done anything wrong so he better murder him. It is easy to see why Mark Hamill fundamentally disagreed with the decisions that Rian Johnson took with Luke. Him throwing the light saber over his shoulder when he is handed it was so stupid but basically representative of what Rian Johnson did to the “Star Wars” franchise. If Luke would have looked at the light saber and just dropped it, that could have been a surprising and cool emotional moment. Instead he throws it for some weak comic relief. Speaking of Luke and weak comic relief, at the end after all the laser blasts have been firing at his projection, Luke, whom has been super serious and not joking the entire movie suddenly turns into a stand-up comedian and brushes off his shoulder in another cringe worthy moment. Outside of Luke we have Finn becoming more and more annoying, Poe getting stuck on the sidelines, BB-8 pulling some of the stupidest moves since “The Phantom Menace” (more on that later) and Chewbacca with virtually nothing to do. The new characters introduced like Rose, Holdo and Benicio del Stuttering Stanley are unlikeable, joyless and cheesy. “The Force Awakens” at least provided some fun new characters. There are none of those to be found here.
-Mary Poppins Leia/Superman That Hoe. Only at one other time in all of “Star Wars” has Leia shown an inkling of using the Force and it was pretty minor. Then she literally is blown up and shot out into space, dying. She then basically brings herself back to life and flies back to the ship with the Force, apparently not needing to breathe in space which begs the question, why have spaceships at all? If you can survive in space without oxygen, then why even be in a ship? This is the dumbest moment in the movie and the worst moment since Jar Jar Binks accidentally killed a ton of droids in the Battle of Naboo in Episode I. Since Carrie Fisher died in real life, killing her off here and keeping Luke alive would have been the smart decision but instead the Force can just magically bring people back from the dead and make them fly through space now. Yikes.
-Making this up as we go along. From totally creating new Force powers like Force Skypeing between characters, coming back to life and flying or basically having the Force not be special and anyone can use it since it is just energy between living things, Rian Johnson clearly through the instruction booklet for the Force out the window and said, “Screw it, the Force is whatever I want it to be.” The same goes for Rey’s parents. Like Snoke, who her parents were was extremely built up. It motivates her character throughout the movie and makes the audience wonder where she came from. Instead of the big reveal we have all been looking forward to, we get the answer that her parents were nobodies. Now if this is true then what a disappointment because why the Hell was her parentage built up at all for such an anti-climactic reveal? If it is untrue and Kylo was just messing with her then we got no answers out of that and why even include that in the movie? But what I believe to be the true answer is that Johnson didn’t want to deal with who her parents are so he put in an untrue filler about her parents being nobodies so whoever the next writer/director to make episode 9 is (Jar Jar Abrams) will have to deal with it. Before they made this new trilogy it would have been wise to map out a three film overall story arc but instead they go one movie at a time, not knowing answers to questions they raise (reminds me of the show “Lost” which, what a surprise, J.J. Abrams was a huge part of) and making things up as they go along. Knowing that they didn’t put forth the effort to map out the overall story over three films really makes me not care what happens to these characters in the future. Now that we have hit the major cons, let’s end this epic review (or “Sacred Texts” as I am calling this) with all of the nitpicks that may be nitpicky (wasn’t that Shia Labeouf’s character’s name in “Transformers”?) but are still mistakes worth noting that shouldn’t be ignored…
NITPICKS
-General Hux. I complained in the last movie that the casting of Hux was a mistake because you have a young man in his early 30s playing a General and second in command over the entire First Order. He is way too young to be that high up in the ranks unless he had a crazy amount of Force powers, which he has none of. In this movie his character only gets worse. His makeup is so pale and pasty he looks like he is on his way to a My Chemical Romance concert. The opening scene with Poe trolling him over the intercom was extremely unfunny and embarrassing and it only gets worse from there. Not once, not twice but on three separate occasions in the movie does the second in command and a general of the entire First Order get embarrassed, belittled and assaulted in from of his own men and the men he is in charge of. Snoke slaps him to the floor in the beginning, Kylo shits all over him in the throne room after Snoke is killed and Kylo throws him to the wall when they are firing upon Luke in the AT-ATs. This would never happen in any type of military and Hux is so whipped and so much of a little bitch that how the Hell is he in charge of anything?!
-“I have a bad feeling about this.” That line has been in every “Star Wars” film and is a long running tradition. It is never uttered out loud in this movie. When Rian Johnson was asked about it, he said that BB-8 says it via beeps and boops early on in the film. To me that is a total cop out and although minor, just another way Johnson insults the franchise.
-In the opening battle, Poe is single handedly destroying every canon on one of the massive star destroyers. It is explained that the ship is too small to target but that would be like a drone attacking the White House and our government saying that we aren’t equipped to handle little drone attacks, only nukes. It makes sense but is still stupid.
-Later on in that same scene one of the dumbest moments in the movie takes place. BB-8 is in Poe’s ship and Poe’s canon stops working right before he can take out the last canon. Poe tells BB-8 to work on the problem but as he starts to, the problem keeps getting worse with more sparks flying out of the control panel that he is working on. Then comes the stupidity. As everything is going wrong, what does BB-8 do to fix it? He rams his head into the control panel as fast and hard as he can while electrocuting everything around him and it magically fixes it…really?! Next time my lap top freezes let me just head ram or dick slap my computer so it magically comes on. Just like in other “Star Wars” films when characters shoot panels to open up doors with their pistol blasters, it is infeasible and lazy.
-Another problem is inconsistency. Now in a sci-fi movie like this I can suspend disbelief to a certain extent, but when the movie isn’t consistent in its rules, I no longer can. So in the opening battle scene the big goal is to drop all these bombs on one of the biggest enemy ships. Here is the problem…there is no gravity in space. So when Leia is blown into space she doesn’t fall down, she floats, as she or anyone else would. So then why when these bombs are dropped does gravity suddenly appear and they fall straight down? You can’t have your cake and eat it too, Johnson.
-One early attempt at humor after the Poe trolling Hux failed attempt at humor sees our introduction in the movie to Finn. In another awful attempt to make children and adult virgins laugh, Finn wakes up and falls out of bed (surprised there was no banana peel on the floor) and has water and fluids spraying everywhere. When he meets up with Poe, liquid is spraying everywhere. No alarms were sounded when he became disconnected from his medical devices and no medical assistants thought it would be a good idea to come to him as water was spraying all over the place like the tears of true “Star Wars” fans watching this Benny Hill bullshit.
-THE PORGS! Oh boy, I won’t get into this too much but the Porgs are clearly only in the movie to look cute to children so they can sell merchandise and toys. This isn’t the first time a “Star Wars” film has pulled this stunt (Ewoks) but at least in past films the creatures they shoehorned in served a purpose to the story. Here, they do not. They try and fail at more attempts at humor as we see Chewbacca going to eat one that is already dead and the Porgs shame him into not eating it which was so stupid. The thing is already dead. Who cares if he eats it or shoves it up his ass? It’s dead! Then he inexplicably takes one onto the Falcon with him and we get to hear it make noise and slam against the window. Just absolutely cringe worthy cash grab that shows off the greed of Disney and that this movie was made for financial profit and not because it is any good.
-Breast feeding. In one shot we see Luke carrying a big fish that he hunted as he takes it to (we assume) to go eat it. This shows how Luke has been living off the land and that is great. That was smart to put it in. What was not smart to show or put in was Luke milking some alien titty milk and drinking it. Apparently there is 40 minutes worth of deleted scenes yet this nastiness wasn’t cut?!
-Luke is full of it. Luke tells Rey, “I came to this island to die.” Uh….no you didn’t. You have been here for like 30 years and are still alive. If you truly came here to die, you would have died when you first showed up or at any point in the last 30 years. So why say something dishonest like that?
-She’s A Trap! Along the same lines of pushing aside old, interesting “Star Wars” characters to make ways for new, boring ones, Admiral Ackbar is killed in such an unceremonious way and never even mentioned again. If you would have replaced Holdo’s honorable suicidal death with Ackbar, it would have held a lot more emotional weight and given a character from the original trilogy the respectful sendoff he deserves. Instead, he is pushed aside so a Buzzfeed editor can steal the limelight. SAD!
-Demotion. Leia slaps Poe and says he is demoted when Holdo is nowhere near to them. Later Holdo tells Poe, “Weren’t you just demoted?” Now it is entirely possible that Leia told Holdo that she just demoted Poe but we never see that conversation take place and when they are in this life and death, high stress situation, it seems fishy to me that Leia would take the time to tell Holdo about something not super significant to what is happening right now. So how did Holdo know that Poe was demoted?
-Holdup! Holdo also tells Poe, “Follow my orders.” The problem being that she never gives him any orders or fills him in on whatever her plans are, which creates unnecessary conflict and is something a good leader would never do. Why doesn’t she just tell him her plans? Oh ya, it is to force the Finn/Rose subplot to sneak off on their own mission and provide some of the worst parts of the film. Got it.
-An Inconvenient Tooth/I Can’t Feel My Teeth When I’m With You. After Rose stuns Finn early on in the film and he can barely move, he tells Rose, “I can’t feel my teeth.” What a stupid line and a dumb thing to say. Our teeth aren’t full of sensory nerves, ok? They aren’t your testicles. Our teeth, like our hair, doesn’t have much feeling. Our gums do or our heads to when our hair is pulled but to suddenly explain how something must be wrong because of all things you can’t feel your teeth? I want to punch you in the teeth now and see if you feel that.
-Swipe Left. Even though I praised the film for having the most practical effects out of any “Star Wars” film made, in the opposite direction, this movie has the least amount of swipes out of any “Star Wars” film ever made. For those of you who don’t know what a swipe is, let me explain. It is an editing technique used to transition from one scene to the next. Instead of just a hard cut, we see a swipe go across the screen for the transition. If you YouTube “Star Wars swipes” I am sure you can find them. Lucas over used the swipes in the prequels but now Johnson underutilizes them and it would have been nice to get some more of them without going overboard like Lucas did.
-They Do Move In Herds. When Finn and Rose are in the casino, everything starts to shake and liquid is spilling out of glasses. They walk to the balcony to see that the horse like creatures have started a race. These creatures are far too small in size and in number to cause the foundations of a casino to shake that much. The film makers just needed a way to call attention to them and they picked a stupid way for that to happen.
-Cameos. It seems like the last two episodes have shoved in famous actors for cameos for no reason at all. When you can tell who it is (Daniel Craig) it becomes a distraction and hinders the film. When you can’t tell (Simon Pegg) it is fine and you don’t even realize it. This movie continues that tradition and for me the distracting cameo that took me out of the movie was Justin Theroux as the code breaker whom they were actually supposed to link up with. He isn’t as recognizable or as A list of a star but movie buffs whom are familiar with recognize him and it took me out of the movie.
-Get Carted Off. Back on the island, another failed attempt at humor occurs when Rey cuts a big chunk of a rock off with her light saber and it falls down the hill. We see it smash into the cart of some of the creatures whom inhabit the island and the coincidence and timing of it is just there to manufacture a cheap laugh which doesn’t work.
-Ah, Break Out! When Finn and Rose first meet Benicio’s character, he is locked in a jail cell with them. By the end of the scene, he picks the lock, opens the door and walks out, impressing Finn and Rose enough for them to trust him into helping them. The problem with that is that if he could pick that lock and escape all along, why didn’t he? It was so he could meet Finn and Rose and they could see him do it, which again is just forced the story to happen instead of it naturally unfolding.
-BB-Not So Gr8. I mentioned earlier how BB-8 goes full Jar Jar Binks in this sequel. In the casino subplot, when he meets back up with Finn and Rose in the hallway after they break out of jail, he single handedly takes down four or five armed guards. He does this to some of them by shooting coins out of the slot where a drunken alien put coins inside of him. This is some Sonic the Hedgehog bullshit and just hard to communicate via words how dumb this is. Later on he ex machinas his way into a battle scene and is in half of an AT-AT. First off, that AT-AT is cut in half and wouldn’t be operational and second, BB-8 is a droid, not some guard whom has been training for battle. He fixes fighter planes for Poe, he doesn’t do battle. It reminded me of Jar Jar killing droids to have a silly character actually killing all these trained soldiers. It was insulting to the audience and painful to see.
-Repeat Stuff. In “The Force Awakens” I complained that Finn repeats lines two to three times quite often in the movie and how annoying that was. Luckily he only does it once here but it is still as equally annoying to hear him say “Stop enjoying this! Stop enjoying this!” while him and Rose ride CGI horse creatures.
-Speaking of those powerful horse creatures, if they are so strong that they can run through and destroy casinos, vehicles, cause a ton of mayhem and property damage, etc., then why would they be guarded by a bunch of six year olds whom look like they wandered off of the set of “Oliver Twist” or “The Newsies”?! You’d think better security or at least one adult around to supervise or guard these creatures would make sense. That is like putting elementary school students in charge of security at the lion, tigers and bears section of the zoo. Oh my!
-Sink or Swim. Maybe my most insignificant nitpick but Rey is from Jakku, a desert planet with basically all sand and no water. Yet she falls into the black hole and lands into the water and swims her way to land. How did she know how to swim? It isn’t like she had loving parents teach her how and she is from a desert planet so how would she know? Furthermore, if you see how deep that pit was that she fell in and realize that there is no ladder or no clear path leading back up to the entrance of it, then how did she get out of that hole/pit? Someone would have had to throw a rope down to her but I am sure Luke was too busy drinking green titty milk to notice she was even missing.
-Yoda. Besides when Finn and Rose were riding the horse like creatures, the only other moment of questionable CGI takes place when Yoda first appears. When we first see him, he looks really fake. After more and more shots, he starts to look more realistic but that first shot should have been re-rendered or something because it did not look good. Speaking of Yoda, his personality was all joking and acting crazy which he only did around Luke before Luke knew who he truly was. He has never acted that way around Luke since then but for some reason reverts back to his old, crazy self.
-Come on Yoda Light my Fire. There are a couple other problems with the Yoda/Luke scene. First off, Force ghosts like Yoda or Obi Wan have NEVER been able to do anything but talk and offer advice due to the fact that they are dead. But since Johnson is making things up as he is going along, he suddenly gives Force ghosts the ability to conjure lightning and impact real world circumstances. This is an awful idea because Force ghosts can’t be hurt or killed since they are already dead. But if they have these powers then why doesn’t Yoda appear next to Kylo or Snoke or any villain and have lightning strike him and there would be nothing the villains could do about it? This opens up way too many doors and was a terrible idea to introduce. The other bad part of the scene was that Luke is literally walking up the steps to destroy the Jedi temple and sacred texts when Yoda appears. Then Yoda uses lighting to set the Jedi temple on fire which burns it all down and destroys the sacred texts. Luke then gets mad at Yoda for doing exactly what he was about to do. What kind of sense does that make? Yoda just saved you like 18 steps uphill to burn that mother down, Luke. You should be thanking him.
-Screwy Chewie. Besides Admiral Ackbar another character from the original trilogy that is left with virtually nothing to do and put in the corner so newer, terrible characters could take the lime light is Chewbacca. He is a tragic character who lost his best friend in the last movie and now his other friend Luke. Despite not being able to speak English, he talks to those around him but is giving nothing to do or say in this movie. He is totally underutilized and if you took him completely out of the movie, not much would change. Here is to hoping he has something to do in the next episode.
-The BB-8 Bump. When Finn, Rose, Benicio and BB8 go undercover to infiltrate the First Order, they basically put a black trash can over BB-8. He then continues to bump into everything and hit walls and almost run into other droids. This was not funny and if anything, would have given away that something was out of place. This is a classic, “If you see something, say something” scenario that most likely would have been reported.
-Wakey Wakey. So Leia is in her coma (why not just use the Force to wake up from it?) and just so happens to wake up at the exact time to come in and stun Poe. It isn’t the fact that this takes place, it is the extremely convenient timing of it taking place that is problematic.
-Delay of Game on the Defense. After Snoke is killed by Kylo, it actually takes his imperial bodyguards a long time for them to attack Kylo and Rey. Their sole purpose is to fight for and protect Snoke and after he is attacked they take their time in doing anything about it.
-Let’s Do the Time Warp Again. One of the most frustrating moments in the movie for me was when Holdo goes into light speed to cut the First Order’s ship in half. The idea is great and visually the way it looks by having the movie go silent was stunningly beautiful. The problem though is what is happening on the enemy ship. Finn and Rose are seconds away from being executed and Captain Phasma and a ton of storm troopers are standing over them. Then the ship gets split in half by Holdo. When we cut back to Finn and Rose, all the storm troopers around them of course are dead or injured while Finn and Rose don’t have a scratch on them. To make matters worse, 30 feet away we see Phasma and some storm troopers approaching them. Uh…what?! They were just standing two feet from them but somehow teleported 30 away and now have to re-engage with them. There is no continuity with where characters were standing and the fact that everyone is hurt or dead with the storm troopers while Finn and Rose are fine had me shaking my dead in disgust.
-Orphasmic. Speaking of Phasma, another character who is incompetent for being in a leadership role and doesn’t do anything (coughBobaFettcough), she goes out like a bitch. Instead of an epic fight between Phasma and Finn, they battle very briefly and he doesn’t even kill her. Instead the floor below her collapses and conveniently stops collapsing right before it gets to Finn of course. So they didn’t even really need to fight. He just needed to wait for the floor to collapse before running away. Add this to Finn’s awful line, “Let’s go, Chrome Dome!” and you have all of the makings for a terrible scene.
-Give My Love to Rose. The entire ending battle scene has a lot of problems in it. First off, when we meet Rose she talks about her job is cleaning pipes and doing infrastructure work. Yet she is flying a fighter plane in the ending battle. How does she know how to pilot this when that was never her job? Finn also does a completely stupid move. The hot laser beam that is locked onto the giant door does not move and stays locked onto one place. Finn could have flown just to the left or right of the laser beam and still at the last second flown into it to make it explode but instead he stays in the direct line of fire of the beam as it slowly destroys his ship. Not the brightest idea there. If Finn would have made that noble suicidal sacrifice, that would have been an extremely ballsy and applauded move but instead Rose has to do what she does best, ruin the day and be awful. She ends with the line, “It’s not fighting what we hate. It’s saving what we love.” Dear Lord is there any lines that come out of her mouth that don’t make me want to commit suicide into a heated laser beam?
-Holla Gram! So since Luke was projecting himself via a hologram and not really there he wasn’t able to touch or do anything. Everything goes through him. So how then does he physically kiss his sister’s forehead and hand her the dice from the Falcon? And what was the point of handing the dice from the Falcon since once Kylo touches them later they disappear? Huh?
-Those Are Rookie Numbers. By the end of the movie, with all of the casualties sustained by the Resistance, I counted and there are under 20 members of the Resistance left. Now I know they will pull some crap and recruit a bunch of child slaves in the next movie but with none of their allies coming to help, I don’t see how 20 Resistance fighters will be able to take on the entire First Order from here on out, especially since Luke is dead.
-Leia Hypocrisy. Near the end when Poe says they should find a back exit out of the bunker everyone turns to Leia since she is the boss to see what they should do. She says, “What are you looking at me for? Follow him.” What a complete 180 from all of her interactions with Poe. She demotes him and tells him we need a real leader, not a hot headed fly boy who wants to blow everything up. He needs to respect authority. Then she changed her mind and says to just do whatever he says. Ok then.
-Cool Hand Luke. Luke’s death was a terrible idea. If they would have killed off Leia due to her real life death they could have kept Luke alive for the next episode but now we have no one left from the original trilogy for our main human characters. His death was also so anti-climactic and he didn’t do much in the movie overall. To see him take up arms again for a worthy cause and fight the First Order along with the Resistance would have been extremely rewarding and exciting but instead he basically ODs on the Force. What a lame way to kill off such an iconic character.
-Force Skype. Snoke revealed that he was the one who had connected Rey and Kylo’s minds so they could communicate with each other and Snoke could spy on them. Yet after Snoke dies, they still communicate in this manner. Who was bridging their minds after Snoke’s death? Or did they learn to do it on their own? This is never explained.
-The end. The ending moments with the children sharing stories of the Resistance and having a Resistance ring from a Cracker Jacks Box and using the Force to pull a broom to himself to sweep (why not use the Force to move all of the leaves into a trash can, kid?) just felt so cheesy like the future of the Resistance is in the hands of a bunch of kids/the next generation. It just felt really cheesy to me and ended the movie on the same note it carried throughout its running time…disappointment.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Mad props for anyone who read all of this. I know it was a long read but there were so many problems to list and I wanted to address them all individually. I believe Disney heard the complaints about “The Force Awakens” being a repeat/rehash of older “Star Wars” movies like “A New Hope” and so to course correct they over compensated and went in the complete opposite direction which makes for good intentions but completely fails in its execution. I can no longer say I am excited for Episode 9 but of course I will hope that it turns out ok. Feel free to let me know what I got right and what I got wrong or if you have answers to some questions that I proposed. Thanks for reading and may the Force be with you…always.
#SnokeingOrNonSnokeing / #WithARebelYellSheCriedPoePoePoe / #ForcedHumor / #KluHuxKlan / #PoeticInjustice / #HoldonToYourButts
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