To end 2017, we are blessed with yet another Star Wars film, but this time, it is the eighth installment of the main saga, The Last Jedi. The movie picks up right where The Force Awakens left off, as Rey looks to a seasoned Luke Skywalker to teach her the ways of the force, and The Resistance continues their battle against a vengeful Kylo Ren and the First Order. But as this movie is poised to be the “Empire Strikes Back“ of the series, can it live up to the hype of the new series?
*This review will contain spoilers, so be warned*
Positives
Plot over Fanfare
This movie does a great job of focusing more on plot than on fanfare, which in all honesty, was a negative for me in my re-watches of The Force Awakens. The plot gives more to the new class in Star Wars, with Rey learning that the Jedi and the Force isn’t all she thought it was, Finn learning why he should stop running away from the fight, and Poe realizing he can’t just shoot his way out of every situation. Kylo also get some character development as we see his further fall into the dark and him learn not to fall under the mystique of his idols, with him openly killing Supreme Leader Snoke and ending the life of Luke. The only characters that don’t get a major upgrade as a character are General Hux and Captain Phasma, even though Phasma’s development was more so done in her standalone comic series.
This series also does good of not jumping to multiple locations, instead keeping the locations to realistically four places: Snoke’s ship, the Resistance ship, Ahch-To and Crait. Doing this also shows that while this fight is one that is for the safety of the galaxy, it feels smaller in scale. Last Jedi does an amazing job in giving us a more plot-driven Star Wars film than a bang-bang Star Wars film.
Visuals
This film is absolutely stunning. From Leia’s space scene, to the Crait final battle, this film is absolutely beautiful. Rian Johnson does not shy away from using the backing of Disney to make this film beyond gorgeous. While some reviewers may dislike the fact that Canto Bight uses a real life city to make the casino scenes, I personally love it because it blends so well into the story and delves into another plot layer of Star Wars we haven’t seen yet: the war profiteers and how they don’t care which side wins, but what side pays more. But the biggest visual scene that made me drop my jaw was Holdo’s sacrfice against the first order. Not only had we never seen light speed used as a weapon, and boy was it amazing.
Negatives
Supreme Leader Snoke and Captain Phasma
Okay, first let’s get Snoke out-of-the-way. I understand killing him off to make Kylo’s fall into the darkness even more apparent, but was it really necessary? Snoke wasn’t built up properly, and we never really got an explanation as to why he so desperately wanted to kill Luke. And to be fair, it’s not even fully explained if he has a connection to the Sith or Emperor Palpatine. I don’t think he is truly dead, as I feel he is Darth Plagieus, but that is to be seen.
Then there’s Phasma, who is supposed to be our Boba Fett of this series. While I genuinely love the fight between Phasma and Finn on the destroyed Snoke battleship, why is she only shown in the final 40 minutes of the movie? I get that her comic series gave her some serious development as a horrible person who will do ANYTHING to be in the First Order, but to only have her in the back half of the movie feels like a bigger slap in the face than calling her the Boba Fett of the series (because Boba Fett is overrated, I don’t care what you say).
Knights of Ren
Okay this is the second movie where the infamous Knights of Ren have been mentioned, even Luke going so far to say that Kylo took some of Luke’s students with him. So when are the Knights of Ren going to show up?! I loved the fight between Snoke’s guards vs Rey and Kylo Ren, but to me, The Last Jedi missed out on making the fight even more badass by having Kylo having to kill his former classmates and Rey go up against multiple force users.
Final Grade
8.5 of out 10
This movie to me, felt like I was watching Empire Strikes Back all over again in the sense that both movies had high points at the beginning (battle of Hoth/ First Order Dreadnought vs the Resistance) and end (Luke vs Vader/battle of Crait), but the middle had a plateau. Now this isn’t saying that the middle is bad, in fact, it’s very layered in plot and is a gold mind for Star Wars fans like myself, but for anyone that has The Last Jedi as their third Star Wars film, it won’t be. This movie is worth a couple of rewatches, and hopefully even more after Episode IX is released.
What did you think? Did you like or love the movie? Leave your comments down below.
JayTezla's Nerdvana 