The Last Jedi: A Spoiler-filled Review

Spoilers abound -- enter at your own risk

The first thing you'll probably want to know is I am a fan of the original trilogy, disliked the prequels, and loved Genndy Tartakovsky's Clone Wars. While I was initially skeptical, I rather enjoyed The Force Awakens, which had some problems but was overall an enjoyable Star Wars film that fit well into the franchise. I went into The Last Jedi, therefore, with a heart filled to the brim with hope.

Some of The Last Jedi worked quite well, such as the overall color and texture of the film, the music, and the sound effects. Even the physics of the film worked well -- consider, for instance, Leia's surprise Superman moment: without gravity, and in the vacuum of space, it makes sense that if Leia "force-pulled" something as massive as a spaceship toward her that she would move toward it, giving her the bizarre appearance of flight.

But therein lies the problem. While The Last Jedi looks and sounds like Star Wars, the plot, motivations, and overall tone did not. For instance, much of the film feels a little too jokey to match the original trilogy. While IV, V, and VI have humor in them, it is less slapstick and kiddish. After all the silly jokes in this film, its hard not to laugh when we suddenly see Leia space-flying.

Another major problem is the relationship between Kylo Ren and Rey. When Rey and Kylo Ren start to meet psychically, you think "of course -- they're twins!" Suddenly everything starts to fall into place: it was foretold that Anakin would bring balance to the force, which having one good grand-baby and one bad grand-baby would do; the little bit of light in Kylo and the little bit of darkness in Rey mirror and compliment each other like yin and yang;  Leia is a twin, so it's not unreasonable to think that she would have twins too; the force is strong in the Skywalker family, so naturally Rey would be able to use it with minimal training. But all hopes* for this are dashed when Kylo Ren tells Rey her parents were nobodies. So the whole twinning of the two of them was the galaxy's biggest red herring of all time.

[*To be clear, this wasn't something I'd actually hoped for, it just would've made the new films make a little more sense -- I'd actually hoped that she was Ezra Bridger's daughter, which I thought would be much more interesting.]

Granted, it should't matter who Rey's parents are. After all, it didn't matter who Anakin's parents were. And no one is asking who Po or Finn's parents are. But then, their parents were never mentioned, while hers were, and after making such a big deal about her parents in not one but two films, it is a major misdirect to suddenly say, essentially "never mind, it doesn't matter."

But in the end, we're not sure Kylo Ren is telling her the truth anyways. He may be telling her what he thinks will get him the outcome he desires -- for her to rule the galaxy with him. Because not only does Kylo Ren suffer from the same emo, angst driven temper tantrums that Anakin did, he also shares Anakin's delusion that women who believe in democracy will be all-too-happy to rule over the galaxy with an iron fist, forcing everyone to be "good."

But, despite all that, a much bigger difficulty with both The Last Jedi and The Force Awakens is understanding anyone's motivations.

Why is Po a trigger-happy pilot, and why is he with the Resistance? Why does Rey protect BB-8 when they have just met and she could trade him for what seems to be two months worth of food? Why doesn't Rey want to join the Resistance and leave the place that has brought her only loneliness and misery, and why she is upset with Finn when he doesn't want to join the Resistance? Why is R2-D2 in low power mode when he possesses 99% of the map to Luke? Why would Han Solo let his son get the drop on him? Why does Chewbacca just walk past Leia without even bothering to let her know that Han is dead? Why would Rose and Finn go to Canto Bight and not evacuate an injured Leia and others there at the same time? Why would they release animals to their certain death only to leave the child animal keepers to their miserable slave existences? Why wouldn't Amilyn Holdo tell anyone the escape plan? Why is Rose seemingly in love with Finn after spending only a few hours with him?

It's hard to even decipher the smallest motivations, For instance, when Po and Finn come up with their plan to get smuggled onto the ship and save everyone, why on earth do they call Maz? Hypothetically, if Luke and Han were stuck somewhere and needed to be smuggled onto a ship and Luke said "I know who could help us" with a knowing glance, we would believe that Luke and Han were thinking of the same person because they have shared history. If Han then responded "oh no, not him, anybody but him" we would believe they were thinking of Lando, because we have a shared history with them too.

But for Po and Finn to exchange a knowing look and then end up on the phone with Maz is just plain weird. Does Po even know about Maz? He was flying an X-Wing during that battle, so he certainly has never met her. And Finn only spoke to her long enough to find out how to get as far away from there as possible. So why would Finn think she would remember him, or help him, or is even alive after the Battle of Takodana presumably destroyed her tavern and all her possessions? They might as well have called the Unkar Plutt for help; Po doesn't know him either, but at least Unkar knows Rey and collects ships like the Millennium Falcon which could be of use. Not only does it not make sense for them to call Maz, but there doesn't seem to be any point to a knowing look if the audience doesn't know what it's about.

Additionally, it seems so unlikely that Luke would draw his lightsaber on a child who might be turning to the dark side. After all, this is how Anakin became Darth Vader; he killed children because he feared his wife might die in labor. And Yoda has taught Luke better than to give into fear.

During their training, Yoda explained to Luke that a Jedi never attacks, only defends, and that fear and anger are one with the dark side. It therefore seems so inexplicably out of character for Luke to decide he will kill a young Kylo Ren out of fear, especially when we know that he spared Darth Vader because he thought there was still good in him.

Even the villains' motives aren't clear. Why aren't Kylo Ren and Snoke more interested in Rey? When Vader and the Emperor learn of Luke's existence, they are practically foaming at the mouths to get him on their side. But Rey seems to just be floating around the universe, seen as neither potential ally or threat. And who even is Snoke? We end up knowing more about hermit Luke's hunter-gatherer skills than about Snoke.

The motivations in the original trilogy are clear and concrete: Leia needs help destroying the Death Star, Luke needs training to be a Jedi, Han needs rescuing from Jabba the Hutt. But in the Last Jedi, what is even the main plot line? That the 400 remaining Resistance fighters are going to have the world's slowest spaceship race with the empire until they run out of gas? (And just to clarify, every time one of the ships runs out of gas and gets blown up by the empire, has the ship been evacuated or is everyone dying?)

Lastly, The Last Jedi lacks forward motion for the Resistance, since they never actually achieve anything. The entire movie just shows the Resistance is fleeing, without any major victories against the First Order. In fact, Rey doesn't even defeat Snoke since Kylo does it himself, and Luke doesn't defeat Kylo.

Arguably, the child at the end who has Rose's ring is supposed to instill in the viewers a feeling of hope that the story of the Resistance lives on in the next generation. The trouble is, the child who is telling others the story of Luke Skywalker is speaking an alien language, so we don't know which of Luke's stories he is telling. However, there is no indication that it is the story of this movie, and in fact all signs point to it being a legend from 30 years ago.

In the original trilogy, R2-D2 and C-3PO act as a Greek chorus, bearing witness to the events as they unfold. This is why C-3PO is able to relay the story to the Ewoks in Episode VI; he was there to see what happened and can then pass the information along. But in The Last Jedi, no one witnesses the events. No one sees Luke and Rey training. No one sees Kylo kill Snoke. No one sees Luke face off with Kylo. No one sees Rey move the rocks blocking the path. Because there is no witness, there is no one to tell the story, so it is impossible to think that anyone -- much less a slave child on another planet -- would be able to retell the tale.

To be fair, my movie viewing experience was probably somewhat hindered by the fact that I literally held my breath every time Carrie Fisher was on screen, thinking alternately to myself "this is it, they're going to kill her off" and "this is it, the last time you'll see her on the big screen." And yes, I did cry when R2-D2 showed Luke the old footage of Leia, thank you for asking.

Nevertheless, in the end the audience is left with a film that feels so tonally out of line from the original trilogy and with such large problems with characterization and plot that it is difficult to defend the film at all. Further, having now run out of the original main players (Luke, Leia, and Han), and having made no forward progress in this film, its difficult to see where Episode 9 could possibly lead. Our only hope is that Star Wars will return to a more plot and character driven means of story-telling that can be enjoyed by fans old and new.