Star Wars: Episode VIII The Last Jedi Movie Review

Star Wars: Episode VIII The Last Jedi (2017)

Watch the trailer
Written by: Rian Johnson, George Lucas (based on characters created by)
Directed by: Rian Johnson
Starring: Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Mark Hamill, Adam Driver, Carrie Fisher, Oscar Isaac, Andy Serkis, Lupita Nyong'o, Domhnall Gleeson, Anthongy Daniels, Gwendoline Christie, Kelly Marie Tran, Laura Dern, Benicio Del Toro, Frank Oz
Rated: PG-13

Plot
Having discovered her Jedi powers, Rey goes to see Luke Skywalker while Leia, Finn, Poe and the Resistance battle Kylo Ren and the First Order.

Verdict
This is always entertaining, subverting nearly all of my expectations or assumptions. I didn't guess anything correctly, even minor plot points. A big part of that is the logic and the need for this to reinforce it's an expensive blockbuster and defy logic.
There's plenty of action, but it lacked any kind of meaning. You begin to think certain characters will survive because the plot needs them. These character get so amazingly lucky right on the brink of all hope being lost. There is a sequence where they are facing certain death and the camera might as well pan over to the right just a bit as a character says, oh yeah that obvious thing right there we never showed the viewer, that will save us. The plot transitions were so contrived.
Cool scenes are just thrown into the mix with little grounding. I would love to delve into the characters of Kylo Ren and Luke Skywalker or even General Hux.  We already had a lot of characters and we get even more. There are ridiculous coincidences and plenty of forced scenarios. Sometimes I really wondered if Rian Johnson was making fun of Star Wars. This also has a lot of humor, and it feels out of place or at least outside the norm of a Star Wars movie.
As a movie, I wasn't that impressed, but as part of this huge franchise that everyone is going to discuss, that hype easily persuades you to at least be curious. I'm glad I saw it, but the disappointment is strong with this one.
It depends.

Review
All spoiler talk will be at the bottom of the page with a preceding "Spoiler" banner, don't scroll too fast and you don't have to worry.

This is really the first Star Wars that isn't heavily George Lucas inspired. Even J.J. Abrams was invoking Lucas in The Force Awakens, bridging old and new (read my review).

This movie doesn't get to introduce a new villain like Kylo Ren or update us on what our heroes have been doing for thirty years. We got a glimpse of Luke in Episode VII and what he's been doing isn't much more than what we guessed from. He is the rebel's only hope.

Episode VII was the start of the Disney's yearly Star Wars movie cycle. Just wait, next year Disney will launch the young Han Solo movie.
I thought Rogue One (read my review) was going to wear thin, but it had consequences that felt real. Characters weren't safe. Episode VIII has a lot of plot armor. Some of these characters might as well be invincible. It becomes predictable in that you know who won't die, the surprise is just how contrived will avoiding death be.

Kylo Ren was an angsty teen in Episode VII, and not much has changed. He could be interesting, but the movie is content to avoid making him into a nuanced human being.
There's just too much in this movie, you could cut out an entire subplot and not lose anything. This is written and directed by Rian Johnson, and I expected more, especially with a movie like Brick (2005) on his resume. Kylo and Luke are both dull characters despite the potential. This movie never slows down enough to become a character drama. It's all about the big space explosions. If character motivations fueled the plot more than space explosion, this could have been really moving, a look at two broken characters.

While this is easily the best looking Star Wars from composition to framing, it doesn't have the big moments that Episode VII had. There is no impact. There are no memorable reveals. Maybe it's the length or the pacing. It doesn't stand on its own. Force Awakens is mandatory viewing. The characters bide there time throughout this movie, waiting for the conclusion of this trilogy. There's no resolution in this movie, but the second movie in a trilogy rarely resolves anything.


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My disappointment was swift. I didn't even get out of the text crawl. The text always makes the world feel bigger, letting us know multiple stories and events are happening in this universe and we're just seeing one part of it. This text crawl is just about the characters and events of episode VII of which we're already aware. Where is the massive world?

This opens with the First Order set to destroy the Rebels. Poe is in an X-wing with BB-8 as the lone opposition against a huge fleet. General Hux is surprised and begins a monologue over the communication lines to Poe. It's long rant about how he will destroy the rebels and as it concludes Poe responds that he's on hold for Hux.The movie lets us know early on what kind of humor we're going to see. While it lightens the mood, I didn't want the mood lightened. We're going to see a lot of death and destruction, but all of it is unnamed characters, robbing it of any impact or emotion. We're constantly on the verge of the rebels ending, but it never feels dire.

 

The movie frequently creates a near impossible task that no one could overcome, and then has the characters overcome it. It quickly reaches the point where you know success is inevitable. Poe was a distraction in a plan to bomb the First Order Dreadnought, a real bruiser of a ship. Dozens of bomber ships are destroyed and the rebels are down to their last ship, the last living crewman, and the detonator just out of reach. Against all odds the rebels succeed. It felt instantly contrived. Why isn't detonation automated? How is the crewman on a catwalk in the bottom of the ship exposed to space with hundreds of bombs falling and not having trouble breathing? It looks cool, but is there an invisible force field so the crewman can breathe? Let's not even get into gravity or how cold space is.

Rey picks up right where she left off in Episode VII on Luke's planet. He doesn't want to train her and she ends up not needing almost any training. Is she that special or has all this talk of Jedi school been a farce? I guess you can't choose to be a Jedi, the force just chooses you. Each trilogy features someone even more powerful than before. When do we reach that ceiling?

Kylo Ren is Snoke's lap dog. Snoke derides him for his silly helmet, and the movie picks apart more than a few Star Wars conventions. It's funny, but I frequently felt that the script was making fun of fans. 
I wished the movie had explored Kylo's conflict more. He's caught between an uncle he thought wanted to kill him, Snoke who just wants to use him, and a desire to prove himself. With all of thos swirling emotions, the movie does very little with him. Towards the end he just pivots on a dime from possibly choosing to leave the dark side to wanting to rule the universe.

Kylo and Rey are linked somehow, and that was a neat reveal when we discover Snoke set all that up, but then when Kylo and Rey have the same link after Snoke's death, what was that? Her power? His? As with most things in the movie, it's just too easy.
Snoke used Kylo to acquire Rey. Rey wants to turn Kylo to good. It feels very original trilogy.
Did I mention how easy everything comes? Kylo kills Snoke after Snoke says he can see everything in Kylo's mind. If Kylo had made a snappy one liner like, "I guess you didn't see that coming." That would at least let me know the movie is self aware. With Snoke out of the way, Kylo wants to start the world from scratch with Rey by his side. She refuses so he'll destroy everything instead.
The big reveal of Rey's parents is that they were nobodies. I liked that. speculation ran wild and the movie again throws a jab. A friend and I discussed that with them sure Kylo lied. I like the idea that anyone can be a jedi, that it's not genetic. Star Wars did the family soap opera angle once, we don't need it again.

Finn has his own adventure, but its' a side plot that you could cut out and not lose much. Sure he gets to battle Captain Phasma but this whole adventure proves to be a moot point. It's also a mirror to how the movie plays us, making us think we're getting one ending and completely subverting it. Finn's plot is a red herring. I will give it credit for being character motivated instead of plot motivated. He's fleeing to save Rey from death, but Rose's idea of a Rebel hero is crushed when she sees him boarding the escape pod.
They team up to do the impossible. There is only one person that can help them crack a code to infiltrate the First Order ship and stop the hyper space tracking device.. They can't find him, but Benicio del Toro, a drunk, happens to pop out of nowhere, possess the required skills, and agrees to help them. The sheer extent of these coincidence feels like a joke at our expense, or making fun of Star Wars and some of the coincidences in the previous films. Del Toro chews some scenery and then exits.

The First Order can track the rebels through hyperspace, a novelty. It's what sends Finn and Rose on an adventure, and is the constant source of impending doom for everyone else.
As the First Order follow the Rebels and attack, the bridge of the Rebel ship is compromised. Leia floats into space, a vacuum unless the Stars Wars universe is different. She force pulls herself back to a door, somehow finds an intermediate chamber to pressurize herself then goes unconscious. That entire sequence was hard to take. This plays fast and loose with logic to make cool moments. I didn't like the moment.

With Leia out, Poe takes control in a coup. The rebels had a plan but kept it secret from the viewer and Poe just to teach him a life lesson about being so brash. Just when we think all hope is lost, there's an abandoned rebel base, the camera just never panned far right enough for us to see it.This is all part of Poe's life lesson character arc this movie. He needs to realize you can't just blow up all your problems. It gives him an enemy in Laura Dern, making us dislike her before it's revealed she had a good plan. The movie had her act cowardly when she could have just told Poe that there's a chain of command and she's going to save everyone and he needs to know his role.

I was expecting Luke to show up at any moment. He's their only hope! He sent Rey on her way and I figured he'd be remorseful and return. One of the best moments in the movie is Luke and Kylo recounting the night Kylo killed half the kids in the Jedi academy. They each remember that night differential and that felt realistic. That's something I wanted the movie to explore. It's had an impact on both of them, but it's clear we've seen the extend of that.

The most amazing moment may be Laura Dern's character's sacrifice. She aims her ship at the First Order and goes into warp drive. The devastation and direction is just amazing. While the movie set her up a bit too hard for this faux redemption, the aftermath is awesome.

There's no escape at the rebel base. The Rebel's are locked in and the only escape is the front door with the First Order on the other side. It just so happens the First Order has a super powerful battering ram no one knew about. The invincible door will crumble. There's no escape for the Rebels until there is. That escape route is thwarted until it isn't. Every plot bridge felt contrived.

Luke finally shows up and even that's a bit of a twist. He creates the legend of Luke Skywalker, with an unrelated final scene showing kids playing as rebels and Luke. Also, Luke dies, becoming one with the force. He created a projection of himself just to mess with the First Order and send Kylo Ren into a rage. Kylo orders every missile fired at Luke. When the dust clears, Luke brushes the dust from his shoulders, the crowd at my theater went wild, and thus the legend is born.

When this movie ended, I wasn't sure what I thought. I had plenty of misgivings, and the cool scenes didn't feel cohesive. They were tacked together haphazardly. It's a spectacle for sure, but it loses character development to create these big moments. We do have interesting characters, but we also have too many and are introduced to even more. This movie is constrained in the same ways that Rogue One had a lot of freedom. I really have to wonder if Johnson is making fun of Star Wars to a degree.

There were plenty of plot points to speculate on after Episode VII, with this one not as much. It's going to be Rey versus Kylo as the First Order continues to attack the Rebels. We'll see a Rebel network pop up after the distress call to all Rebels and we'll get an inordinately large fight. There weren't the mysteries like where Luke was and what he had done, Rey's parents, etc that we got after The Force Awakens.