Friday, December 22, 2017

Movie review - "Star Wars: The Last Jedi" (2017) ** (warning: spoilers)

What i liked
- Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, C3PO, R2, Chewie
- Daisy Ridley, Adam Driver
- the special effects
- Crait the old mining planet
- Ahch-To the island - that was really cool
- the cute animals, all of them - truly, I think they were genuinely cute and fun
- the moment Kylo Ren decides to kill Snoke - this was great (even if ripped off Return to the Jedi)
- the urst between Rey and Kylo Ren
- bit of that final battle on Crait with Rey and Chewie zipping around in the Falcon
- all the broken down ships on Crait
- the character of Rose, except at the end (see below)
- the back story that Luke almost killed Kylo Ren (i really liked this)
- the casino planet

What I liked in a campy way
- that woman with frizzy hair and long nose who looked like a uni librarian who played the rebel officer
- all the talk about "turning people" - it was like the galaxy of the gays (when are Poe and Finn going to get a room, Finn seems sexually uninterested in any woman) and Rey was trying to lure Kylo Ren to the joys of heterosexuality

What I was frustrated by but didn't necessarily hate
- no explanation about Snoke's backstory or Rey's backstory ("oh your parents were junk dealers")... we don't know if it's true, it was so dramatically underwhelming
- Princess Leia suddenly developing the ability to fly through space
- Laura Dern trying to pretend to be a bad ass admiral (I'm all for women playing these roles but can they get someone who looks tough eg Judi Dench, Joan Allen - Dern looked like a mother from Sydney's north shore)
- Rey and Kylo Ren doing most of their scenes by intergalactic telephone
- John Boyega's bland "I feel nothing" performance
- the fact there was no explanation to DJ (Benico Del Toro) being locked up in prison when it took him five seconds to get out
- BB-8 suddenly becoming this great fighter and killing all these people
- Rose somehow knowing to fly when she was established as someone who just worked in IT

What I hated
- all the repetitive dialogue
- the bad exposition (is it so hard to do?)
- the lack of narrative momentum
- the acting of Domhall Gleeson whose outrageous scenery chewing threatens Hayden Christensen's rank as the worst lead actor in the series
- not saying what happened to DJ
- not having Luke in person appear at the end
- not having Luke spend a decent amount of screen time with other characters
- the fact the entire rebel army is effectively reduced to a bunch of people who can fit in the Falcon (i got that right didn't I? they lost all their ships and something like 99% of their fighting force and could fit everyone on the Falcon? I know it's roomy but it ain't that roomy)

Most of all - the way all the characters acted like irresponsible selfish illogical idiots
- Poe disobeys orders not once but twice, both times endangering the fleet - why is he even in the films?
- Poe leads a mutiny  against Holdo/Laura Dern - now I love a good mutiny story but it's so poorly motivated, makes him look like an idiot - they try to fix it by having Laura Dern go "I like him" but why should she?  Why have Poe keep his plan to go to Canto Bight secret?  Why have Holdo keep her plan secret? It all felt like wasted screen time - why not have Holdo as a turncoat villain? Why not have Poe as a villain? I'm not wild about stories stories where all the drama could be resolved by a simple chat
- Why have the plan to go to Canto Bight at all? To liberate a horse? Give some kids a ring? Why not have Finn and Rose cross with Rey on Snoke's ship ? Aren't they on there at the same time?
- Finn's going to do a noble suicide run to blow up the big cannon on Crait - and Rose stops him! He's trying to save the rebellion and she STOPS HIM because she's in love with him? Her actions endanger the whole rebel alliance (including their own!!!) - it completely trashed a good character.
- Luke goes out to meet the baddies - the reason being he's trying to give the rebels time to get away only he decides not to tell anyone. Poe just guesses Guesses!
- When Luke goes out to fight Kylo Ren - Kylo calls a halt to the entire invading force so they can stop and duke it out

I've read the above being described as "subverting expectations" and "doing the unexpected" but I think it was just poorly done. 

I didn't mind the basic story - the stakes are the survival of the fleet... Rey tries to get Luke to come out of retirement... there's a mission to a casino planet... but it wasn't put well together.
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