The Last Jedi: The Good, The Bad, and the GEEEEEEET OUT!

Hello, loyal readers! I know it's been a while. We have been settling in after moving from Taiwan back to the States. I know I'm way overdue for an article, and I've been looking forward to getting back into the writer's seat. So, without further ado, let's get started!

My brother, Scott, is about to leave for his mission in Minnesota for two years. So this weekend, my brothers, his friends, and I bought tickets to see the 3D version of The Last Jedi. All of us were excited to see the film; the preview was intriguing enough for us to go and see it, but let's face it: this is Star Wars. Of course we're going to all go see it within the first week! We went in, and realized that there were two seats missing. Scott and I were whisper-arguing because we were sure we bought 6 tickets. Then, a couple minutes later, a couple on the left quietly stood up and walked out of the full theater; joy-riding, I guess. We just laughed and sat down. Second problem: we forgot our glasses, so I missed half of the previews to go and fetch 6 of them for all of us. Finally, we sat down and the classic Star Wars wall of exposition came down with the exciting, yet familiar tune. A quarter of the way through, my Crohn's started acting up. But this is Star Wars, man! I was determined to hold it all the way through--and I did! After the movie was finished (and after a quick trip to the restroom), we could not stop talking about the movie. The good, the bad; the questions we felt were either not up to our expectations, added to the story, or were just plain unanswered... We discussed a lot of it on the car ride home. So today, I thought I would take my own thoughts and place it into internet form.

Spoiler Advisory

From here on out, there will be major spoilers to Star Wars: The Last Jedi. If you haven't seen it yet, come back unless you like things spoiled for you. You're weird.

So... The Last Jedi. Let's get into the Good, the Bad, and the GEEEEEEET OUT!

The Good

I felt that Star Wars did something that hasn't been done since the original trilogy: it had morals to its story, shrouded in character development. Poe Dameron learned the importance of a.) retreat rather than do-or-die resistance, and b.) the chain of command. Poe has always been a hot-shot pilot, a stereotype that has always been rewarded. It was interesting for me to see this cliche of a pilot realize the consequences of his actions, as he is largely responsible for several deaths after defying orders--and arguably, even more after he staged a coup onboard the Resistance flagship after Leia was incapacitated. At first, as I was watching the film, I couldn't help but roll my eyes because I felt that Poe was going to inevitably be right and the person they put in charge was going to be this terrible leader that Poe was supposed to conquer as a cliche form of character-development. But I was wrong. It turns out that the movie's moral in this aspect was to respect the chain of command.

I was afraid of another issue in The Last Jedi, which was remedied by a similar lesson the story tries to teach us. In the preview, he stated that the Jedi needed to end. Then, we got a clue that Rey and Snoke might be working together. Putting together the pieces from the preview, and considering the popular opinions of the internet over the last few years, I assumed that Disney/Lucasfilms would oblige to the popular opinion by creating "The Grey Jedi": a blending of dark and light that truly "brings balance to the force". I hate that first-year philosophy BS that says good and evil are perspectives. 
I was expecting Star Wars to pander to that philosophy, and I was very pleasantly wrong. Granted, there are characters in the film that believe that and even go so far as to prove it with their own actions. Despite that, the theme of the film is that there are very clear lines between good and evil, light and dark. The movie very clearly stated that "grey" was not going to happen. However, that didn't mean that the Jedi were going to remain the same. If we look back at the Jedi Order in the prequels, we see that the Jedi themselves were in a way responsible for their own extinction. Their archaic ways got in the way of what was right in front of them: Emperor Palpatine. Yoda made a cameo to teach us an important lesson: it was time for the Jedi not to end, but to change. "We are what they grow beyond." Absolutely wise words, and it fits perfectly with the theme of the film: failure is okay. Retreat is an option. Yoda left another quote that snuggles right into the story: "The greatest teacher, failure is." Just like in The Empire Strikes back, The Last Jedi is a chapter of failure on the Resistance's part. It is about moving on from those failures. It is about sinking with dignity. It is about renewal. I absolutely loved that Star Wars has finally decided to have the time for morals and lessons in its story that are wholesome and important for us to remember. That receives huge bonus points in my book, and it earns its spot as the first and best Good thing in this review.

Next, I loved the plot twists. Empire was most memorable for its, at the time, original and mind-blowing plot twist: Vader was Luke's father. At its time, that reveal, in every way, was absolutely spectacular and important for cementing the series for the rest of time. Since The Last Jedi is designed to mirror Empire Strikes back, major plot twists were to be expected. And boy did it deliver! Many times. There were two major ones that I think were expertly-done. The first was the whole Snoke issue. Many people cited this as a terrible thing, but I applaud it for its break from tradition, and also something we all should have seen coming: Snoke is killed by Kylo Ren. Of course, people were expecting to learn more about Snoke; they were expecting him to be defeated by either Rey or Ren in Episode IX. But man, when I saw Kylo ever-so-slightly turn Rey's lightsaber at Snoke's side, my mouth was wide open. And when it happened, I could almost not process what was happening. What a cool moment! Then, when Kylo betrayed Rey to take over the First Order, all I could think of was, "Tale as old as time; another Sith gets struck down by his apprentice." It was a great setup for Kylo, and it makes me wonder if he will ever make a redemption like Vader did. People knock this movie for its content. I applaud it for making it unpredictable, original, and entertaining. I also want to address the fans that are trying to shoot this film choice down. I've heard that people were complaining that they didn't know anything about Snoke. Who was he? How did he have so much influence with The First Order? We don't know. And that's okay. Before the prequels, we didn't know that Palpatine may or may not have been related to a Gungan. We didn't know how involved he was with the Republic. Yet he got thrown down a pit anyway. I'm totally fine that Snoke died before the fans were ready. Plot twists, my dudes.

The second major plot twist I wanted to talk about was Luke Skywalker at the end of the film. If you saw the movie, you immediately know what I'm talking about. Luke confronted the First Order at the very end of the movie in order to give the Resistance a chance of escape. In front of the new and improved AT-AT replacements, they fire everything they can at Luke. He walks away from it unscathed, even going so far as to brush off the dust from his shoulder as a taunt to The First Order. It is then Kylo confronts Luke directly. They have a discussion about hope and how Kylo lost, how Luke isn't really the last Jedi (even though "Old Ben" should know that), and then a small skirmish ensues. Luke gets stabbed by Kylo, but it doesn't even phase him. Well, it does actually: Luke was projecting a hologram of himself from the planet he never left the entire movie. There he is, levitating on that planet, alone, projecting himself as a diversion so the Resistance can escape. In my book, that is easily the coolest Jedi trick we've ever seen, and serves as the absolute best climax to a Star Wars film since the Death Star was first destroyed (and for those of you who think the Death Star destruction wasn't that cool, in 1977 audiences all across America all stood up and clapped when the Death Star was destroyed; no one had ever seen a villain on the scale of the Empire, nor a weapon that could obliterate entire planets, so this was pretty original back in the day--so good Star Wars constantly plagiarizes itself 30 years later).

Speaking of awesome force tricks... When The Force Awakens was still in development, JJ Abrams made a comment something along the lines of, loosely paraphrased, "There will be absolutely no midichlorians anywhere in this reenvisioning of Star Wars; they are gone." While there wasn't much in The Force Awakens to confirm this, his comment screams true in this chapter of the classic saga. The Last Jedi completely eliminated anything regarding midichlorians from Star Wars canon. From Luke explaining the force in the philosophical description as energy that permeates everything, to Luke demonstrating that holograms from thousands of lightyears away are not to the credit of microscopic bacteria in your blood, I loved the new direction of the all-powerful force. Maybe midichlorians do exist, and maybe they indicate how strong the force is in someone, as the bacteria feed off of that energy. But as of current canon, the force is energy that surrounds us all--just like Obi-Wan said in A New Hope.

The Bad

"Star Wars is like poetry; it rhymes." ~ George Lucas. Well, it definitely did that. The Force Awakens was essentially A New Hope 2.0. That being said, I was expecting The Last Jedi to be more or less a retelling of The Empire Strikes Back, or worse... Attack of the Clones...

In the first two minutes of the movie, I was not surprised. The Resistance was abandoning their base as the First Order invaded. HMMMMMMMmmm.... Where have I seen that before? But beyond that, it seemed pretty original. I had to roll my eyes at Poe Dameran shortly afterwards, as he taunted the First Order and single-handedly took on the fleet with an X-Wing outfitted with the magic Warp-Speed Paul Walker nitro. 

But, on the same token, I also understand that this was a way for the writers to set up Poe's character development. We had to see that he was a hotshot who played fast and loose with the chain of command when he felt like he needed to, as if he had more motive in the Resistance than Leia flipping Organa. I agree with his character development that tied into the moral, but their setup was kind of sloppy and I wish they had done it a little better. The plan to send Poe out by himself is kind of stupid, and shouldn't have been attempted in the first place. Retreat should have been the first option, like all the higher-ups seemed to think immediately after they thought Poe's stupid suicide mission was going to work.

Fin's adventure. Not only was it just adding to screentime for no other reason than to add to screentime, it also became one of the reasons so many Resistance members died. Essentially, Fin and Rose, a new character in the series and Fin's love interest, decided to go on their own adventure to find a hacker that can infiltrate the First Order flagship--a discount Executor that had the last of the Resistance in its sights. They didn't get the hacker they were looking for, but they did land a shady dude who betrays them in the middle of their operation on Discount-Executor. I kind of liked the character, actually. Not because of his devil-may-care attitude, but because he proves the point I made earlier: the only ones in the movie who say good and evil are perspectives are the ones who abuse that mentality. But that doesn't excuse the fact that this adventure Fin and friend went on was pointless, and served to corner the Resistance, because this same shady character they recruited gave up the cloaked escape pods they somehow couldn't detect by looking out a window. 

Unlike some people, I know that space isn't black--it is clear. This means there is no light in space for you to see nearby ships if you look out the window. But this doesn't stop characters in Star Wars (and many other space franchises) from looking out the window and watching ships do things--including fly to an uncharted planet the First Order also apparently couldn't see by looking out the exact same window! Really? Lazy writing, right there. Here, I blame the writers for trying to make Rey's story and the rest of the story blend together when it clearly didn't fit. I applaud them for not messing with time like JJ Abrams clearly did many times in his Star Trek reboots, but Rey needed her training. I'd much rather see the Resistance on the planet they were escaping at the beginning of the movie, trying to find a way to escape the blockade, and before the First Order could get through their base's deflector shield. But nope. Somehow, Resistance ships were able to outrun First Order ships, despite being significantly superior in almost every way, creating artificial tension that was only necessary for Rey to get there in time. A pure shame.

While on the topic of Fin's adventure, I'd also like to point out that this whole thing portrayed rich people as the villains. I'm not even remotely on the side of the rich who become rich by stepping on the backs of the poor. But that's not every rich person. Despite that, movies post-2010 seem to think that rich people are the only villain that can exist. Fin's adventure went out of its way to add that cliched, antagonistic trope in for no other reason than to add it in, and I think that was pretty stupid. Fictional politics didn't work in the prequels. Did you really think real-life politics would do any better? I have a cardinal rule about film-making: keep your politics out! It shows when you add your own political beliefs into a movie, because it serves to alter what should be a natural story. Fight the urge, and keep it politically-neutral. The rich-people-are-evil cliche literally served no other purpose than to fellate a severely-opinionated notion. This was on the GEEEEEEET OUT section of my last movie-show review about Star Trek Discovery, but I didn't really feel that this was enough to destroy the film and completely drive the narrative like it did for the good ol' STD. So it's just part of the Bad section today.

In the last minute of the movie, we see kids enacting the last stand of the Resistance just a few minutes prior with toys, when another "big, bad rich person" tells them to get back to work. One of the kids uses the force to grab a broomstick, and then stares out at the stars with a ring of the Resistance on his hand. When I saw this scene I immediately turned to my brother and said, "Look, it's Anakin 2.0." I'm not quite sure how I feel about this. At first I wanted to keep it neutral, but then, "Now this is podracing!" keeps echoing in the back of my head and I gave in to the Bad side. We have no idea how he's going to fit into Episode IX--if at all. Could just be a kid who represents the "new" resistance. I will make a concession here, though. If he is really just a representation of the people rather than a new character in the last 30 seconds of the film, then it signifies what wasn't really shown in the other two trilogies: the galaxy is tired of tyranny and is ready to bring on a full fight. Especially now that Starkiller (a name we all know JJ used just to poop on stuff he declared no-longer canon) was destroyed, people didn't fear a space station that could now blow up entire star systems. So I'll give Anakin wannabe a little bit of slack here.

I was cool with Snoke dying. He's not selling any action figures with that face, yo. I actually think there was one character who was killed off that was 10 times worse than Snoke, and it seems to slip the minds of several people when I talk to them about it--mainly because this whole sequence pretty much was unnecessary and took a back seat to the main plot. Like Boba Fett, Captain Phasma gets about the same amount of screentime, and goes out completely like a punk. I don't know what it is about Star Wars and killing off their most profitable action figures, but we can certainly add Phasma to the list. This is something that bugs me for many reasons:
First, Captain Phasma was made for a specific reason. Go ahead and Google (or you can Bing it; whatever floats your boat) "Female Hero". A lot of what comes up on the image searches are very scantily-clad, objectified women with protection that's probably less-useful than what the Armor Class says. I'm a huge Metroid fan, but I'll be the first to admit that a major problem with the games is how they sexualize Samus. The games reward you for completing the game with eye-candy--to say nothing of the image results when the Safe-Search filter is off. But I digress; Captain Phasma, by design, was meant to counter sexualizing women in film. Ladies: you can be really awesome and not have to wear a chainmail bikini at the same time. By killing her off, there is one fewer female character out there who is able to set the example, raise the bar, and bring a better image for women everywhere. Shame.

Second, Phasma's death served no real purpose other than to tie up a loose end, as if it couldn't be finished up later at a time where it really mattered and where there weren't 40 other things going on at the same time. With Snoke, his death furthered the plot by allowing Kylo Ren to strike down his master in true Sith fashion, while also properly separating him from Rey and setting up his possible redemption in the ninth installment of the Star Wars saga. It allowed Kylo to take full control of The First Order, which has marked an interesting shift in the faction's political balance. Phasma died because it looked cool, and that is not cool.

GEEEEEEET OUT!

I'm just gonna go and say it: Leia using the force to keep herself alive in space. No. No. No... We had the coolest Jedi ability in the history of Star Wars, and we also had the stupidest. The most unbelievable part about this was that Leia wasn't even all that strong in the force. Pretty much the only force ability she had shown before was that she could sense the presence of her brother--but not until after she had kissed him; couldn't sense it then, huh? As far as we know, Leia has had no formal training, and from what we could gather in The Force Awakens, she and Han didn't want to explore the force any more than they had to with Ben Solo. So... I am calling BS on the space-surviving shenanigans. I've only seen people survive the vacuum of space 4 times in film, and none in real life. Titan AE, Battlestar Galactica, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (you know, with the main character named STARKILLER?), and Mass Effect 2 (technically). Each and every time a character lives from space exposure, I think, "No. That's BS." My opinion has not changed. Get out with your stupid Leia maneuver!

I'm going to say this slowly: You, do, not, ever, use, a, plot, device, that, can, derail, your, action, ESPECIALLY, if, there, is, no, counter, to, that, plot, device. What am I talking about, you might ask? Ramming a ship into another ship by going into lightspeed. Congrats, you got your shocking moment. Now explain to me why factions don't do that to their enemies on a regular basis. Explain to me how you can possibly defend against that. You can have unmanned ships destroy half of the enemy fleet and there's nothing the enemy can do about that, now. "But Jake," you might argue, "you have to have someone manually start the jump to lightspeed!" 1.) Why? That's stupid; even Star Wars has remote connections and something akin to the internet. 2.) Droids. Enough said. 3.) If you really can't use the other two options for whatever ridiculous reason, then what is one voluntary life if it saves millions and destroys your opposition? Maybe you don't believe that's a good idea, but someone in a galaxy far, far away might. How could you defend yourself against that? That could have solved their problems straight from the beginning of the movie if they had sent one unmanned ship ramming into the First Order fleet at lightspeed. But no, Poe's suicide mission was more viable. Okay. Right. And let's extend that logic to the rest of Star Wars! Why make a Death Star Run when you can use one X-Wing to shear the Death Star in half? I'm no expert, but I think that hole is gonna be a liiiiitle more than 2 meters wide...

Final Verdict: 8/10

Fanboys Hating On Perfectly-Good Movie ^

I think the fanboys who hated this movie are going to hate me too. Were there problems? Yes. Lots. Probably more than I covered here. Does that change the fact that I thought this movie was one of the best Star Wars films? Not even remotely. Every Star Wars film has problems--major flaws, even. We usually just look past that because it has something else good to offer, right? No? Really? I don't believe you. You even thought the prequels were entertaining, if not flawed. Why do people hate this movie? I have a theory on that, but I think for now I will save that until next blog article. For now, thanks for choosing Taiwanese Takeout!