Since I did not think that TLJ was a completely worthless film, I wouldn't bash it as heavily as Turtle225 did, even though he did make a few points with which I agree. There were indeed a lot of strengths in it as a film, the problem is, in my opinion, that TLJ does not work as a Star Wars film specifically. For me, there are a lot of flaws and obvious mistakes in it which I can more or less ignore. Such as Luke disappearing along with his prosthetic hand, which should have remained on the ground where he vanished (this actually hints on another thing to which I'll come back later), Leia entering the "Raddus" where there is no airlock, the Resistance fleet not having enough fuel to get to Crait, regardless of the First Order's pursuit (two points which Turtle225 has pointed out in his post), ships apparently going at exactly the same speed during the chase, and despite the presence of hundreds of TIE Fighters at the First Order's disposal, which were incredibly effective the one time they utilized their fighter superiority, this tactic is abandoned altogether by the First Order afterwards, for reasons unknown. All of these errors are acceptable, because as Pali rightfully points out, most Star Wars films have similar errors, including those from the original trilogy.
Here, however, are several things that I do have trouble with, and those are the things that ruined this movie as part of the Star Wars universe and killed this sequel trilogy for me for good:
1. Snoke mentions Vader as someone for Kylo Ren to aspire to, which is idiotic, because for a Dark Side adept - Vader is the ultimate traitor and false idol. He didn't just kill Palpatine, he RETURNED TO THE LIGHT SIDE OF THE FORCE AND SAVED HIS SON. This wasn't an egotistical act, to kill your master and usurp his power, which is indeed how Sith have operated for centuries, and that's how the cycle of the Order of Two works - when the apprentice is powerful enough to betray and kill his master he does so, himself becoming the master and taking a new apprentice, thus continuing the cycle (Pali himself seems to be aware of this, by pointing out that Snoke's killing was legitimate, and mentions Vader, but for some reason is unfazed at the idiocy of Snoke comparing his apprentice to Vader openly three times in the film, clearly admiring Vader). Vader killed Palpatine only to save Luke, and by doing this he also essentially killed himself by exposing himself to Palpatine's force lightning. It's an altruistic gesture, one of ultimate sacrifice and love towards your family member. Something a true Sith will never forgive or forget. If I remember correctly, Mara Jade only ever mentions Vader in Heir to the Empire as a traitor (she was never a Sith, just a Dark Side user at the time, but that's the only concrete example of how Vader was remembered by Dark Side users post-RofJ that comes to mind right now). Again, Vader being Kylo's grandfather does indeed potentially inherit him with some Dark Side potential, possibly, I am not disputing that. Even Kylo idolizing his Sith relative himself is one thing, but his master (at the time) Snoke referring to Kylo as "a new Vader" is just insultingly stupid and makes no fucking sense whatsoever in the context of what the Dark Side of the Force represents in general. It just goes against the basic concepts of this universe, and you don't have to even be aware of the EU to be able to point this out.
2. The handling of Luke Skywalker in the film. As brilliant as Mark Hamill was in TLJ, the ultimate fate of his character in it has disappointed me to no end. Whether or nor he is portrayed as a depressed and hopeless former Jedi master isn't even the point of great concern for me, because I understood that regardless of this he will eventually take part in the action one way or the other, which to some extent he did. So I will only talk about his demise in the film, and not even in the context of the universe. It appears that the decision to kill him off was made in the last possible moment, which partially explains the vanishing of his prosthetic hand alongside him (it was obviously easier to just remove him digitally sitting on that rock this way, without adding an extra scene of his prosthetic hand clunking to the ground). It also appears that Mark Hamill himself wasn't told the fate of his character, and he only found out that he actually dies at the end at the premiere of the film, and if true, this is an absolutely horrible treatment of him. I'm not even sure Rian Johnson himself wished to kill off Luke, and rumor has it that it was Kathleen Kennedy who did. Different people might react to Luke's passing in this film differently, but for me personally this means zero excitement before the next film. The one reason I was excited to see TFA was the see Luke, Han and Leia again. After Han's death in TFA, and Luke's almost complete absence in it, and after being greatly disappointed and let down by every new character in the film, pretty much the only reasons for my slight excitement for TLJ was to see Leia and hopefully Luke this time. It happened, but now we know that neither of the three main characters from the original trilogy will be playing a substantial part in Episode 9 due to both the events of TLJ and real life intervening in a tragic way. We might get Leia's death scene through CGI and Luke being there as a force ghost, but for me this isn't enough to incite any excitement for Episode 9. I really have no reason to see that movie in theaters when it comes out, even though being a Star Wars fan I probably still will. Still, I already know that there would be nothing for me in that film, and it's depressing, to be honest.
And you know what, that's it. Those are the major issues I had in this film which made me question Disney's understanding of this franchise even further. Everything else in it was either good, or not surprising. The new main characters in the film did not impress me, or seem believable and/or compelling even in TFA, so nothing that happened to them was really of any interest to me anyway. This is a subjective thing though, so I will not attribute it to my overall view of the film, I understand that Rian Johnson had no choice but to work with these pathetic characters the great Jeffrey Jacob Abrams has written for TFA, so I will never put him to blame for them not working for me here as well as in TFA. This is just the stench that TFA has carried onto TLJ, and it was to be expected, with TLJ being its sequel. Some of Johnson's writing choices however I did find a bit weird, with Poe essentially being an unassuming minor villain of the film. If this sequel trilogy had any pretenses of even in-universe realism or logicality, Poe should be court-martialed immediately at the start of Episode 9 for all the Resistance enlisted personnel deaths he singlehandedly caused in this film (leading both the successful, but suicidal for everyone bar himself bomber attack on the dreadnought, and the failed speeder attack on the walkers, during which every participant except Finn, Rose and Poe himself is killed), as well as his coup attempt. The Canto Bight plot line in the film has already been critisized so heavily by even the few people who loved the film, so I won't jump on the bandwagon here, and funnily enough I also didn't have as much of a problem with it (mainly because I don't care for the new characters of this sequel trilogy anyway, and don't mind films with slower pace, and also due to the addition of the surprisingly interesting character of DJ, who despite being essentially just a selfish version of Han Solo works for me, and seems almost like the only character in the film who understands how the universe is supposed to work). The way how even the badly written characters in TFA are getting even worse in TLJ was painful to be forced to see again. Hux is even more of a caricature of an Imperial villain, although to me it seems like Rian Johnson just doesn't know what better use to make of someone as one-dimensional in the first place. Neither does he seem to know how to handle Phasma, but considering how absolutely pathetic that character is to begin with, I feel like almost praising Johnson for just throwing her out in the garbage bin disgracefully the way he did. That really was the only way for her to go, there's nothing good to be done with something that thinly written to begin with. In the universe where so many incredible Imperial villains exist (Thrawn, Pellaeon (not even a villain, but a great fucking character, and an Imperial), Isard, Daala, Zsinj, Kaine, Delvardus, Harrsk, the Teradocs, etc.) it's painful to be subjected to someone as humorously amateurish, pathetically unintimidating and downright stupid as Hux and Phasma. Speaking of humor, the humor in the film was incredibly over-the-top, and the only jokes that worked for me were the ones between Luke and Rey (and I didn't mind Luke wiping his shoulder smugly after the walkers scene and him throwing the lightsaber over his shoulder in the beginning), and every scene with the porgs, who somehow landed well with me, possibly because I immediately realized that they are non-CGI, but actually puppets, which was a nice reference to the original trilogy, as well as the puppet Yoda, btw. I did, however, expect the overload of humor after TFA, and also was warned about it before the film by some friends, so it didn't of course come as a surprise. And since I will be watching this movie in the theater again, I will actually try to relax and pretend to be a normie Star Wars fan, which won't be difficult considering how hard it is to take almost anything in this film seriously to begin with. But I will try to replace my sarcastic smile with a genuine (fake) one. I'll try to trick myself, is what I'm saying. That's the length one has to go to enjoy this film as a Star Wars fan.
A lot of things that I dislike about the film are very subjective to me, and do not contribute to the overall standing of the film. Such as the disinteristing characters of Rey, Kylo Ren, Finn, Poe Dameron, Snoke, etc. They were present in TFA, and their presence in this film was obvious, so it's not like anything could be done in this regard for me. Rian Johnson does, however, prove to be a better writer (as if there was ever a question, really, but still) than JJA, with some new characters in this film being an improvement over those introduced in TFA. Namely Amilyn Holdo and DJ, but I found Rose to be quite charming as well. Kylo Ren and Finn are also developed better here than in TFA, but it's difficult for me to call this a drastic improvement, since the characters are still boring, and there's simply not much Rian could have done to remedy that. And whatever he does, Kylo is just not an intimidating villain to me, especially in the universe where Jacen Solo exists. Finn is ok, but he was never a particularly interesting character to start with. Even Johnson seems to realize his uselessness by relegating him to the least important storyline of the film. As for Rey being just a Mary Sue, I agree with Pali that it's no different in its essence to Luke and Anakin, but it's still disappointing to me that nothing is done to change this narrative flaw so apparent in all of Star Wars - having an all-powerful protagonist for no apparent reason. Surely it can be done, no? Instead we have just gotten a female version of that boring premise. Doesn't make it better or more interesting though, does it? But again, this issue was apparent in TFA, so it's just me repeating myself again. However, I don't remember ever reviewing TFA, so maybe this opinion had to be voiced here.
Considering all of the rules and laws of this new simple and predictable Star Wars universe laid down by TFA, I knew that it's not quite possible for me to love TLJ wholeheartedly or even to take it in any way seriously, so I'm never going to say that I expected greatness from it. Hell no, I just wanted to have a good time as a Star Wars fan, even being ready to ignore the one-dimensional nature of every character from TFA, and the general unoriginality of the whole thing. I just didn't anticipate being spat in the face by how they handled Luke, and by few universe-breaking things that would never have happened even in the prequel films or if Lucas was doing this trilogy (or a real Star Wars fan who knows his shit), such as Vader all of a sudden being a hero in the eyes of Dark Side users post-Endor, and some other nitpicky "Star Wars EU nerd" things, which I have forgotten about when I was writing about everything in-depth above, so I won't go heavily into it now, because it really wouldn't be something of concern for people who enjoyed the film anyway (we do see shields working in this film, but HOW they work is completely fucking illogical, regardless of the power of turbolaser fire withstanded by the shields, no fucking shield can survive 18 HOURS OF CONTINUOUS FIRE UPON IT, the shield generator will just drain, and will never be able to keep recharging for this long, but whatever). It really doesn't change anything.
If you enjoyed the film, then I'm happy for you, and I will not advise not to go see it to someone who hasn't, or anything. If you are able to not think of it as a Star Wars film while you're watching it, or if you're not much of a Star Wars fan to begin with, then I guess it's a fine sci-fi action film, with several surprising twists. It's an average film at best, but not nearly as stupid and unoriginal in its premise as TFA, even though it shares the same boring characters, which in itself is something that potentially ruins any future Episode with these guys in them. I can repeat my frustration at that Rian Johnson wasn't hired to write and direct TFA, because he would undoubtedly do a better job than the talentless fuck who I don't even want to mention by name at not only writing the first film in the new trilogy, but also at building the world and the characters for future installments. Instead, anyone who has ever dared to take this universe seriously was already doomed to suffer through these films, created by people who obviously never were fans of this thing, I don't care what the fuck JJ says, his work speaks for itself. All I can say, is that TLJ was less of a torture for a Star Wars fan than TFA was. If this is a compliment from me, it's a lukewarm one.
Having said that, I realize that we will never get anything better from the people running the show now. And since my journey to becoming a Star Wars fan (and discovering EU) started with the films, I still am unable, unfortunately, to completely ignore their existence. So I will try to watch TLJ in the cinema again, even though that'll require me to dumb myself down and pretend like I've never read an EU novel. Or better yet, not consider it being Star Wars at all. It all really feels more like an unofficial rip-off of it, with no soul of the original remaining. But sadly, that's all we are ever going to get, and fighting it is not a war we can win. So I'll give it another shot, by trying to adjust myself into it. Just because it's winter-time, the holidays, the Christmas spirit, or whatever it is, and I'm sad at not being able to enjoy myself watching a film that's supposedly a part of a franchise I was once a fan of.
Topic: The Last Jedi (SPOILERS SPOILERS LOTS OF SPOILERS YOUR FAULT SPOILERS) (Read 29934 times)