a.k.a. The
Resistance is Futile
All right, let’s get this out of the way now – this will
contain spoilers, so if you want to go into the movie with a fresh perspective,
then stop reading right now! However, if you don’t mind knowing some of the
things (some important, some not) that happen in The Last Jedi, then by all means, continue on!
So, first thing’s first. How did my predictions in my
last blog match up against what really happened?
The death of Princess Leia/General Organa – Sort of close
Rey becoming disillusioned with Luke – Yes
Rey turning to the Dark Side of the Force – Not quite*
Kylo and Rey joining forces to take on Snoke – Sort of
close
Luke is not Rey’s father – Yes (maybe)
Surprise twist that Snoke is Rey’s father – Nope
Changes in how we perceive the Force – Not really
Luke is killed off in the movie – Absolutely
*While Rey doesn’t turn to the Dark Side and join with Kylo, she does fall to temptation in an attempt to see the fate of her
parents, not unlike Luke failing his test of the Dark Side Tree in The Empire Strikes Back.
So, in the end, I think my predictions came fairly close
to some of the major themes that occurred during the movie, which makes me more
surprised than anything. But there is a lot to discuss and explain on why TLJ
might just go down as the weakest of all eight (nine if you include Rogue One) of the current Star Wars
movies to date. I’m still struggling over my feelings about the movie and as
much as I don’t want to say “disappointed” I struggle to find another word to
match my first impression of the next segment of the Star Wars saga. I really
wanted to like this movie as much as I did the latest two Disney productions. I
was hoping for at the very least a great experience. However, I think the fears
I had mentioned in a blog post prior to the release of The Force Awakens came to be realized in this outing.
If people thought that The Force Awakens was derivative of A New Hope, then one can most certainly see that The Last Jedi is derivative
of The Empire Strikes Back, not that
it’s a bad thing, but unlike Episode 5, which is considered the best in the
saga, Episode 8 falls far short of that distinction and does almost nothing to
advance the franchise in any meaningful way. We have the Resistance being
discovered and evacuating their base; we have a new Force user going to a
remote planet to train under an aging Master; we have a Great Space Chase; we
have a land battle that is highly reminiscent of the Hoth Battle; we have
characters heading out on a side journey (a la the trip to Bespin); and a
betrayal that costs them dearly.
Unfortunately, there the comparisons can stop. What we
end up with in The Last Jedi is
nothing more than a generic Sci-Fi action flick, rife with plot holes galore
and one that practically thumbs its nose at the pre-established lore that made
Star Wars the popular franchise it is today. No movie is perfect, and I am sure
that we can find plot holes of all sorts in any movie we pick. For the most
part, these can be glossed over or are barely noticed during the course of a
film. I must admit, that I hardly take note of any in most of the movies I have
seen, and it’s not until it is pointed out in a review or someone else
mentioning it that I even know there was a plot hole to begin with. With
Episode 8, however, some of the plot holes were so big and bad, that for the
first time in my experience, I felt like I was slapped in the face right there
in the movie theater when they happened. The real tragedy is that the first one
occurs right in the beginning of the film and essentially is the catalyst for
every single other one to occur. In fact the very premise of the entire story
of the movie only occurs because the very first plot hole. If it wasn’t for
that, there would be no movie. But that’s not the only thing that jarred me out
of the experience during the show.
Star Wars movies have always contained a bit of humor
spread throughout the action. For the most part, the humor fit right in with
the scene and worked brilliantly. Then along came Jar Jar and the Slapstick
follies of Episode 1. Fortunately, George learned his lesson after that, and
Jar Jar’s screen time was noticeably reduced in the two follow ups. The humor
in Episode 7 got back to the roots of the original trilogy. However, some of the
humor in this movie felt far too juvenile. The extended joke in the opening
scene started off well enough, and fit in perfectly with the established
characterization of Poe Dameron, but then it devolved from there, and afterwards
I was waiting for a token fart joke or two to make an appearance in the movie.
The next head shaking moment comes at the end of the
battle as the Resistance makes its escape. Moments before, we saw the outcome
of the scene in the trailer where Kylo Ren is about to fire upon the command
vessel, killing his mother, Leia. He relents and cannot pull the trigger (a
great moment in the movie), but immediately afterwards, two First Order
fighters fire upon the bridge, killing everyone, ejecting them out into space,
including Admiral Ackbar (wasted potential there to give the character a larger
screen presence in the movie – thumbing that nose) and Leia Organa.
Here I thought my prediction had come to pass and that
indeed this was how they were going to kill Leia off. A fitting and noble end
for the Princess turned General. On the one hand, they probably should have
finished her off her as Leia have very little to do in the rest of the movie
aside from a tender moment with Luke at the end, but from the standpoint that
this is Carrie’s last movie, as a fan I liked that she was still there. But, I
think death would have been the more noble move, especially when we get to see
how she is “rescued.”
When I got home, I had a Mythbuster moment and had to
look up how long a human can survive in the vacuum of space and much to my
surprise learned that it was indeed plausible for her to have survived for the
amount of time she did. However, she quite wouldn’t look as good as she did in
the movie, but we can chalk that up to a necessary and typical Hollywood trope.
Consciousness, however, would only have lasted a few seconds, so the fact that
she used the Force to return to the ship would receive a solid “Busted” in this
case. At the end of the day, the scene just took on an air of cheesiness I was
wondering if I had suddenly been thrust into the B-movie or bad fanfic dimension.
It just looked bad.
Aside from the too long joke scene, and the “I’m not dead
yet” scene, the opening action of the film was spot on and set my hopes up high
for the rest of the movie. Unfortunately, it was also the first plot hole slap
that broke me from my emersion. Now, I’ve never been in the military, and I can’t
say I’m a great student on how disobeying orders on the battlefield might be
handled, but it seems to me that when an officer on the field ignores a
superior’s command and as a result gets most of his squad killed for little to
no tactical advantage, as well as puts the entire army, including the high
command, in serious jeopardy for doing so, one would receive something more
than a demotion and a slap on the wrist.
Poe should have been locked in the brig and a court
martial convened for his actions. What transpires after this battle pretty much
sets up the premise (that other things in the movie continue to compound) that
the Resistance leadership has no idea what they are doing from a
military/tactical standpoint. There is apparently much ado about the bulk of
this movie being focused the women in command of the Resistance. I didn’t have
a problem with that at all. It just continues what was established in the original
trilogy. However, where the movie goes wrong (aside from having mostly humans
in command and relegating just about every alien to cameo appearances), is just
how much in your face it became. At one point, I ended up counting every single
female character that appeared on screen. By then it just felt like to me that
Disney was trying to say “Hey, look – there’s women in Hollywood. Look how many
women we have in our movie.” At the end of the day, it defeated the purpose.
Coupled with the stupid decisions made by those in command throughout the
movie, and the complete waste of Phasma (the first female antagonist in the
movies, and one with excellent potential at that) any point that the production
was trying to make was significantly weakened by the poor delivery.
So the next major plot hole to pull me out of the
experience was Finn and Rose heading off to Canto Bight to find the
code-cracker in order to help rescue the Resistance from the Great Space Chase.
Ultimately, a side trip that turned out to be completely unnecessary (and only
occurred because of the first plot hole) except for the fact that the writers
wanted to include commentary about war profiteering. Another message lost on
poor delivery. But anyway, there are our heroes, on the run from the law,
because well, stupid decisions seem to be the norm for the Resistance in this
movie, and as luck would have it, they are jailed with someone claiming to be
able to crack First Order codes. Now, never mind the fact that they were there
to find a bonafide code cracker (who they did locate before being arrested),
who was highly recommended by Maz (in a very brief cameo) as the only one who
would be able to help them save the Resistance. So what do our heroes do? Take
the jailbird with them solely on his word and that he was able to unlock the
doors of some backwater jail. Let that sink in for a moment, cause I was still
trying to figure that one out until the end of the movie (or one of the ends, I
should say), when it finally made sense. It was simply because the filmmakers needed
some dramatic tension during the ending battle.
Now this little side trip was set up because the
character of Laura Dern (Vice Admiral Amilyn Holdo), who takes command after
Leia is incapacitated, continues theme that the Resistance is militarily incompetent.
Essentially, during the length of the Great Space Chase, the surviving Resistance
command decided they would head for an old Rebel base to make a last stand.
However, they decided to tell no one else of this plan despite the fact that
Resistance ships were being picked off one by one as they ran out of fuel
(Apparently there is no inertia in this part of space). So of course, the
rebellious fighter pilot, who got most of the Resistance pilots and bomb squad
killed, but was still walking around free as a bird decided to come up with a
plan of his own (go find the code cracker) and lead a mutiny aboard the command
ship. Again not having a military background, I can’t say for certain the
effect that this would have had on the morale of the troops, but I would think
this bit of information is something that might have been a good idea to share
with the troops so everyone sees that the leadership is in firm control, has a
viable plan, and no one need to despair.
There was absolutely no good reason to keep secret the
plan to head to the old rebel base, except of course it is required for the
side story, and the rest of the plot holes in the movie. It’s funny that I saw
the movie at the time I did, because the conversation between Poe and Holdo
about the plan after his failed mutiny reminded me greatly of conversations
about having faith in both Miracle on 34th
Street and Elf. Again, just
another jarring moment that takes me out of the immersion of the movie. Having
faith in regards to Santa Claus is a good thing. It’s sheer idiocy when lives
are on the line in a war.
But wait, there’s still more regarding the Vice Admiral
that just gets better! Thanks to the writers of this film, we know have been
graced with the “Holdo Maneuver.” That’s right folks, space battle will never
be the same again when one can simply take a starship, point it at the enemy,
and just enter Hyperspace to wipe out everything in front of it. Now we see
where the Rebellion went so wrong, not once but twice, when it came to fighting
both Death Stars in the original trilogy. Simply point a large enough ship, set
it into Hyperspace, and there would have been no need for those dire space
battles to begin with. How many lives could have been saved had the Rebellion
done that?
What’s that you say? Holdo was the first to come up with
the idea? Sorry, but that’s highly unlikely given that Hyperspace travel has
been around for several millennia at this point in the lore. Plus, what was
with all the sudden realization on the part of the First Order and Resistance
when Holdo turned the ship towards the First Order Fleet. It seems to me, that
everyone knew what she was about to do, which then would have to say that this
is something was that either done or seriously planned in previous military
encounters. No doubt about it, it made for a great scene on screen, but the
whole concept is ludicrous taken what is established about Hyperspace travel,
and all those previously mentioned space battles we have enjoyed in the
previous movies.
There’s also been a lot of talk about the length of the
movie, and funnily enough, towards the end, I got the Return of the King feeling of the movie having a few too many
endings. This is the first time I was waiting to the end of the movie to
arrive, and was disappointed that we had yet another scene to get through. It
just went on and on and on. What made it worse was that by this point we had
been subjected to such bad scenes, including that plot hole of a betrayal scene
where Benecio’s character suddenly knows what the secret plan of the Resistance
had been with no possible way to know it. But of course, we needed that
dramatic tension to set up the derivative of the throne room scene in Return of
the Jedi where all looked hopeless and Luke was about to turn to the Dark Side
of the Force, where in this case it was Rey in Snoke’s throne room.
And here, let me take another side track. I have read
where Billy Dee Williams would love to return to reprise his role as Lando
Calrissian (as would many Star Wars fans). At one point, the writers were going
to make Benecio’s character Lando, but wisely chose not to. However, the
perfect opportunity for Lando to return would have been to make him the expert
code breaker that Finn and Rose were looking for. Another lost opportunity to
bring back another character and tie this trilogy into the original. At the end
of the day, the whole betrayal scene was completely unnecessary and the story
would have been better served with the heroes bringing Lando back to save the
Resistance, only to get caught anyway as they did.
In the end, this movie could have been better served by
being a generic sci-fi space action movie, which is a shame. There were very
many good parts of this movie – the scenes with Snoke, Rey, and Kylo were
superb, as was Rey’s time on Luke’s island hide-away. I know Mark Hamill wasn’t
happy with the characterization of Luke in this movie, and I did have some
similar issues, but those were minor and I thought it was a pretty good job
that was completely overshadowed by the sheer terribleness of much of the rest
of the writing in the movie. Taken on its own this would have made for an
entertaining Sci-Fi action flick where the plot holes wouldn’t have had as much
of an impact. However, these movies simply cannot be taken on their own. They
are part of a saga with a past and an in-depth lore (and it’s that lore that
makes it great, like many others – Star Trek, Tolkien, etc.) I guess at the end
of the day, I do have to say I was disappointed with this movie, despite those
very good parts. The writers were just not up to the task of encompassing and
honoring all that rich story and lore that came before it, and they should have
admitted to themselves that they were not up to the task and passed that job on
to someone who could have done a much better job at it. Instead, The Last Jedi just becomes a weak point
in the Star Wars saga that ultimately shows little to no respect for the
reasons why Star Wars became and is Star Wars, and loved by millions across the
world.
