Rated: 2.5 / 5

So I know what you’re thinking.  Will this review contain spoilers?  You bet your ass it will.  I’m gonna spoil the shit out of this movie.  But before I do that, there’s a few things I need to get off my chest.  I’ll put up a spoiler warning sign when I get to that point.  So for those who are worried about spoilers and just want to know my opinion on the entertainment level of this film, how good or bad it is, I’ll say this.  It is better than The Force Awakens, and addressed some of the issues I had with that film.  That being said, this is a film that basically did 3 steps forward, 2 steps back, which frustrates the shit out of me because it could easily have done 4 steps forward and 1 step back instead (there was know way they were going to go all 5 steps forward, not with a Disney movie).  So if you loved The Force Awakens, you’ll love this.  If you hated The Force Awakens, this might change your mind and give you some hope for the final installment in the trilogy (except that that hack Jar Jar Abrams will be back in the director’s chair for that film, which has me worried, even if it’s an improvement upon the last director attached to that film; Christ I wish Christopher Nolan would grow a pair of balls and try one of these out).  And just to throw this in, if you loved The Force Awakens more than Rogue One, go fuck yourself.

Response to the SJW Article

Just to make sure we’re clear, SJW doesn’t stand for “super jedi warriors,” it stands for exactly what you think it does, social justice warrior.  Believe me, I hate bringing this up, I hate having to talk about it because a big part of me doesn’t want to talk about it.  A part of me hopes that I’m wrong about this and that I’m just being an over-sensitive racist (ok, that sounded bad) or something that carried over from my grandfather’s genes (and some teaching he gave me when I was too young to remember it today).  But it becomes pretty fucking difficult to ignore to the point of irritation when I not only see this all too prevalent in films of today, but when articles exist that point out this aspect and praise the film for it, it just gets on my tits, to the point where I’ve gotta brush it off, because it itches and irritates.  And because I don’t want to end the review on this sour uncomfortable note, I’m putting this near the beginning.  If you don’t want to read it, skip to the next big section (seriously, I encourage you to do so, because this is one of those things that is going to piss people off and make them respond violently to me, as some have responded violently towards this article I’m about to mention, which I’m amazed has a comments section).

I stumbled upon this WIRED article (because it was in the newsfeed highlights on my smartphone, so if they’re going to bring it to my attention, they better be careful what they wished for) titled STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI WILL BOTHER SOME PEOPLE. GOOD,  written by Angela Watercutter.  Kind of a difficult title to pull away from unless you’re scared of spoilers, which I wasn’t at the time considering this was about half an hour after I finished watching the film.  The article basically starts off praising the casting of an Asian chick in an important role, and bashes anyone who is against it.  Then it expands to the praising of casting “women and people of color, and the misogynist, racist, classist, dark side of the populace that’s always been present, wielding power in one form or another,” the latter portion of the sentence being written with sarcasm.

Then there’s this section that finally set me off:

There is, for one, the presence of Rey (Daisy Ridley), the extremely Force-sensitive hero introduced to much excitement (and wailing and gnashing of teeth from no-girls-allowed fanboys) in J.J. Abrams’ Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

“no-girls-allowed fanboys”  Alright, first off, that’s not the fucking reason why there’s wailing and gnashing of teeth.  It’s not because the lead it a female jedi.  Hell, I’m glad there’s a female jedi.  What pisses us off is that this character is a bona-fide Mary Sue, a girl who is pretty much perfect in every way and superior to everyone else, with nary a flaw in sight to either her character, personality, or powers/abilities.  More on that later.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then there’s Kylo Ren (Adam Driver), the offspring of Han Solo and Leia Organa, who got neither his father’s charm nor his mother’s compassion. If it weren’t for his willingness to go outside, he’d be every entitled troll on the internet—and the stench of his toxic masculinity only intensifies in The Last Jedi

Holy Christ.  This article is begging to stir up some gender war bullshit.  Normally I’d say the article is way off the mark on that, that this is just the author’s opinion projecting what she wants onto the movie and letting her see in that way and in no other way.  Except that she’s not exactly wrong.  This is most likely what the writers/film-makers/Disney studio execs were going for, minus the entitled troll part which more closely fits Watercutter (let’s face it, this article is baiting people; and I’m the one to take the bait, hopefully strongly enough that she gets pulled into the water overestimating herself).

One last bit, and this is the heavy one:

This isn’t the first time that this phenomenon has occurred, and it won’t be the last. The so-called alt-right took on Rogue One for its female hero and diverse cast. There was, prior to its release, blowback against The Force Awakens for its “black stormtrooper”—the character who turned out to be Finn. (Boyega’s response to the backlash at the time? “Get used to it”—a sentiment that seems all the more prescient now.) Every Star Wars movie from here on out will probably be considered in the context of the period and political climate surrounding its release.

…

You know…

…*sigh*…

…in the past, when it came to those people bitching about this “diversity” in Rogue One and The Force Awakens, I ignored it, because it all seemed silly to me.  And in that link in the above quote for the Rogue One protests, calling them “alt-right” and “racists” and whatnot, I wasn’t taking the bait, because that article is much more click-bait-heavy and “guaranteed comments and views”-heavy than this one is.  I viewed those protesters to be just as dumb and idiotic as the people who wrote the articles on the whole thing.  Both sides are dumb trolls just begging for a fight, the WIRED article author and the people she was writing about.  I looked past all that and enjoyed both those movies for what they were outside of those forced contexts (though The Force Awakens turns out to be almost as forced as some were saying; Rogue One was made well enough to where I just didn’t give a shit).

But now I’m less able to look past all that.  Thanks in part to articles like this that want to stir up this shit (fuck you very much), but also because, I fear, the films do too.  Films and articles like these that are race-baiting, click-baiting, gender-baiting, all while claiming to be on the moral high ground while being the opposite, much like those who promote politically correct language.  The most ironic thing about all this?  Even the movie itself can potentially be seen to take aim at these SJW-opinion-piece-writing-pricks who want to profit off of the petty conflict they stir up.  For instance (ok, so I lied earlier, this will be the last quote from the article):

But Rose, who grew up on a planet dominated and oppressed by the wealthy who marauded its resources, implores him to look closer. The one-percenters on Canto Bright achieved their wealth by selling weapons to the First Order. They’re war profiteers; their money is blood money. To Rose, and the audience watching through her eyes, their way of life isn’t beautiful, it’s evil—and deserving of destruction.

These one-percenters, these gamblers and weapons-dealers, they get rich by selling weapons not just to the First Order, but also to the Resistance (yeah, failed to bring that point up didn’t you you hypocritical bitch).  They profit not just from the weapons they sell to the highest bidder/buyer, but also from the very war they help create, buy helping (and there-by encouraging) both sides fight and kill each other off.  This is something I’ll bring up again in the review.

This film, far more than the other two previous Star Wars films, reeks of going through a mandated SJW checklist.

• Having a non-white male lead.
• Having a female lead.
• Having every other character in the film be a non-white male (don’t forget #blacklivesmatter).
• Promote female empowerment (aka modern-feminism).
• Make the villains white, preferably white males.
• Anti-capitalist message.
• Promote socialism.
• The underdog (who must be the protagonist) is right, those in power (who must always be the antagonist) are wrong.
• (Illegal) immigrants are welcome and are the good guys.

Now, that doesn’t mean each individual point is bad or comes off as forced.  But when a film tends to have most or all of these points in the movie, and when one or more of these points does come off as forced, especially if the film’s theme doesn’t primarily deal with any of the above points (ie a film whose major theme does revolve around diversity or something), then it comes off as propaganda, and propaganda in films is irritating and it can ruin franchises, like the anti-nazi/communist propaganda of the latter Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes films (we get it, Nazis are assholes, now give us a faithful Sherlock adaptation!).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Note on the above video, I disagree with the point that Rey had no character arc in The Force Awakens; she learned to conquer her fear and accept her powers with the force; plus, while some women have fought in significant ways in the previous films, none have ever been given the role of main protagonist, so I didn’t have a problem with The Force Awakens in that regard; that being said, pretty much agree with everything else]

Thankfully, I’m not the only one to call articles like these out on their bullshit.  Some words from those who commented on this article, who can put some of these points forth better than I can.

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I highly regret clicking on it. Need to stop giving into the temptation of the dark side.

oxenmeat

too inclusive? white women rule the good guys, minorities play the heroic outsiders, and white men run the evil empire.

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Ok, now that that’s out of the way…

The Review

So when The Force Awakens came out, I kind of made the same mistake many did when The Phantom Menace came out, we’ll be happy so long as we get more Star Wars and it doesn’t disgrace the franchise.  Some say The Phantom Menace and the entire prequel trilogy did disgrace the franchise, but I wouldn’t go that far (even if some of them make really good points for that argument).  I accepted The Force Awakens as a good film a bit too quickly (initial rating would’ve been a 3.5 / 5).  I enjoyed the film on my first watch, but there were some things about it that started off as small irritations, but grew into very big annoyances that brought down my enjoyment of the film upon further rewatches (which is why I no longer watch it without the Rifftrax treatment, and it’s easily one of their best works; film itself is more like a 2 / 5 for me now).  As I mentioned earlier (for those who dare read the above section), it irritated me that Rey (last name Sunshine) learned the ways of the force so quickly, without any training whatsoever, overcame any and every obstacle so easily, and pretty much came out of the movie as this unstoppable warrior angel from heaven.  The only thing as problematic as that is that the whole film is a glorified remake of Episode IV, A New Hope.  Also the attempts at humor, especially from Finn, were more annoying than funny (look dude, you can deliver dramatic moments just fine, but stop trying to be funny).  It was there for the sake of humor rather than being a part of the character(s).  On top of that, there weren’t really any great memorable moments in the film, in my opinion (and no, Han dying doesn’t count because that’s just a rip-off of Obi-Wan dying).  There were other issues, but those were the big ones that brought the film down for me.

 

 

 

 

 

I was willing to cut the film a bit of slack because Star Wars was newly acquired by Disney at the time, and I figured they were just playing it safe and taking the easy route with it, easing their way into the franchise before being daring and taking risks.  Well, now that slack is gone.  There’s no more mercy from me for the franchise now.  I’m taking the gloves off and not pulling any punches.  If they screw something up, I’m definitely going to point it out and raise some hell over it.

For the first 30 minutes or so, the issue I had with the humor from the previous film entry had returned, in full force.  Not by Finn, but by Poe, who’s X-Wing piloting skills have shot through the fucking roof compared to the previous film.  Haven’t you already done enough harm with making Rey an overpowered jedi?  Is that not enough that you have to have an overpowered fighter pilot too?  Apparently that’s not enough either, because now they’ve also decided to overpower Bitch-Bot #8 also.  I mean, Jesus suffering Christ, this little cocksucking robot takes down several casino security guards (with casino coins), then hacks a fucking AT-ST and blows the shit out of the bad guys with it.  And all I can think is, “What the fuck is up with the security of these places?  The security in all the previous Star Wars films prior to this one was nowhere near as incompetent as it was in this film!  And it’s not even limited to just the First Order’s security, but also to the security of a gambling casino.  No fucking casino has security that’s that incompetent, not in any universe!”  I already had a disliking for this robot existing just for the sole purpose of being “like R2-D2, but better,” but now I’ve been given reason to just flat-out hate this thing.  It makes it very difficult to view the villains as legitimate threats when the protagonists can pull shit like this off so easily.

Back to the humor.  Like I said, it returned in all its annoying glory for the first 30 minutes, with Poe’s exchange with Hux (that hilarious over-the-top speech-screaming bastard from the previous film, who unfortunately doesn’t provide any such so-bad-it’s-good moments in this film), to Chewie’s interaction with those fuzzbirds (started out funny, but dragged on too long to where it became unfunny), to other bits I’d like to forget until I’m reminded of them on the inevitable rewatch; but at least Rifftrax will be there then to lighten the mood.  Thankfully, the forced attempts at humor are drastically reduced as the film goes on, and it actually has some moments that I thought were genuinely funny.  Especially from Mark Hamill, who steals the show from everyone else with his final return as Luke Skywalker and provides the best send-off everyone could hope for for his character [Edit: maybe not, see the Angry Joe video at the bottom of the review].  From how he casually tosses away the lightsaber Rey gives him, to how he makes Rey “feel” the force during her training.  Those were great moments, and I’m willing to bet they were great because he improv’d them.  Either that or he really knows how to make humor work with his character.  But it’s not just the best comedy moments in the entire film that he provides, he also brings forth some stirring dramatic moments, and delivering them in fantastic fashion.

With the humor out of the way, let’s get to the bigger issue of the film.  The incompetence of the First Order.  Seriously, what the fuck?  It’s not just their on-board security when dealing with BB-8 that’s a problem, hell no.  They’re incapable of defending their big Dreadnought ship which is one of the biggest baddest ships they have, somehow allow one fighter (piloted by Poe) to shoot out all the big laser cannons, which then allows these bombers to come up and blow it up without getting much cover from the other Star Destroyers.  And yeah yeah yeah, they took heavy losses to do it, and a noble sacrifice by an Asian chick (more on that later).  But that bullshit shouldn’t have even been able to happen in the first place when you really think about it (how long have they been fighting the Resistance who’se primary weapon tends to be these little fighters; how often have these little fighters succeeded in blowing the fuck out of some megaton warship that sometimes gets to literally be the size of a fucking planet?).  Hell, when I think about it, the destruction of the Dreadnought ends up being pointless in the end.

Let me explain.  This whole thing is to set up how Poe is too gun-ho with his job, that rushing into battle isn’t always the best strategy, that one must know when to cut their losses and go to fight another day, that sometimes the cost and sacrifice just isn’t worth it in the end.  This is exemplified by the Empire bringing in another ship to replace the Dreadnought.  Wouldn’t it have been more effective to have them try to take out the Dreadnought but fail?  To have all their sacrifice be for naught?  But noooo, we can’t have the movie get that dark now can we?  Oh no, we have to have a big winning moment for the Resistance amidst a film that’s supposed to be about them running for their lives and taking heavy losses as they run, and thereby not give Poe a reason to reflect heavily on the consequences of his actions.  That being said, at least the film makes one of their major protagonists human.  They expose him as someone with flaws, that his gun-ho attitude, while it does allow his piloting skills to make big differences in battles, also has a downside to it.  That sometimes his way isn’t the best way, and he needs to learn that or else more will suffer as a result of his actions.  Good stuff, now if only something like that could be applied to Rey (spoilers: it doesn’t).

Anyway, the incompetence of the First Order doesn’t end there.  So they pursue what remains of the Resistance in space, and basically play a game of chase (outside of lightspeed), where their ships aren’t as fast as those of the Resistance, but the Resistance can’t get completely away from them either.  So they bombard the rear of their ships with laser blasts, slowly working on their shields as their ships run low on fuel, and know it’s only a matter of time before they become defenseless and obliterated.  As in 18 hours from when this stalemate begins.  As if there’s no other option for the First Order but to do it this way.  HELLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!?  You’ve got a fucking armada lying around your home-base-planet, wherever the fuck that’s supposed to be, where you can call in reinforcement ships whenever the hell you want!  Dial 1-800-FIRST-ORDER-OF-BUSINESS or 1-800-FUCK-THE-RESISTANCE-UP or something and get them to travel at light speed to the front end of the Rebel ships and start hitting them from the front and the rear!  What the fuck is wrong with you people!?  Fuck me, if these are the leaps in logic–  Scratch that, these aren’t leaps, these are jumping off cliffs to your doom versions of logic.  If I can spot stuff like this, lord knows how many more there are that I haven’t spotted or contemplated [Edit: Angry Joe video at the end pretty much covers all the other bases].  Jesus Christ this movie is dumb.

Alright alright, I’ve gotta change the topic before I lose my mind.  Rey.  Did her character improve at all?  Are any weaknesses or flaws shown in her powers or her character?  In her character, not one damn bit.  She’s still as perfect and flawless and “never wrong” as ever.  That being said, she does have some interesting scenes that had me engaged between her and Kylo Ren.  How she learned more about him, and began to view him less as a monster but more as a character in desperate need of help and redemption.  Their scenes together helped keep the movie, well, together.

Her powers?  Well let’s say she finally comes face-to-face with Snoke in a manner no different than when Luke does with Sidious in Return of the Jedi, complete with those red guards too, who are given a much more prominent presence in this film.  Her ways with the force prove to be no match for his, as he’s stronger than her in every way when it comes to force powers.  So you would think this would be a perfect setup for a villain for her to grow to go against later on, possibly in the next film right?  Wrong!  Snoke gets the shit killed out of him (not by Rey).  Well, so much for having some opposition or obstacle, mental or physical, for her to strive to overcome in the next film, or to give her character some semblance of interest.  So yeah, by the end of the film, she’s pretty much how she was by the end of the previous film, unscathed, strong enough to take on anything or anyone.

 

 

 

To be fair, I honestly didn’t see that coming.  And it was an interesting surprise with regard to the play on expectations compared to The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi.  Like how the previous film had (extremely strong) similarities to A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back, this film had similarities to The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi.  The Return of the Jedi imagery is prevalent when Rey and Kylo are in the room with Snoke.  The Empire Strikes Back imagery is prevalent with the Empire, erm, First Order pursuing the Rebels, erm, Resistance through space, and then having a finale on a planet that is made of ice, erm, salt.  Unlike the previous film which just straight up rips off the entire plot of A New Hope with brief sprinkles of Empire, this film doesn’t rip off plot elements so much as it has fun with them.  It has imagery and plot details similar to that of the aforementioned films, and twists them in its own way to do something unique with them.  Not just with the striking down of Snoke, but also with Kylo confronting Rey about her past.  Rather than doing some big momentous, “I am your father,” it’s more along the lines of, “I am your father’s nephew’s brother’s cousin’s son’s former roommate.”  In that there isn’t anything all that special or unique about Rey or her backstory.

And I get what they were going for with this.  Rather than give some backstory that brings something heavy and significant to Rey’s character much as it did Luke’s in Empire, they don’t have any big momentous twist.  She’s simply a nobody who became a somebody.  And that’s one of the big themes in the film.  That anyone, even a nobody, can rise to greatness and be someone.  It’s how a resistance is built, it’s what war can make of some individuals.  Now, normally, I wouldn’t have any problem with this at all, except that, as pointed out time and time again, Rey is a bona-fide Mary Sue character.  Having a nobody become a somebody is one thing, having a nobody become a god is something else entirely.  All this twist does is just reinforce that notion.

Back to Snoke for a moment.  For now I’m fine with his character being killed off, because it creates a nice surprising moment, and shows how far Kylo has gone to the dark side and what he’s willing to do to achieve power, in a psych out moment where you think he’s doing it for good reasons.  It all fits in with this theme of the past, that it should be burned, forgotten, and that people should move on from it and not be chained to it.  In this sense, Snoke represents past villain Sidious, while Kylo is the new breed, the new generation of villainy.  And thank God they didn’t go for the redemption angle with him, the one thing I feared they would do with Kylo (though I do fear the “outside the box” intentions of why they did it; but whatever the reason, it’s appreciated because it’s different).

The other major theme in the film is with the villains themselves, especially Kylo, how they’re willing to destroy each other for the sake of power, how they’re rage drives them, how their fear of the past creates illusions that can cause their own downfall, because they are not at peace with themselves.  Again, good stuff, and a different take on the villains in this franchise.  That being said, it comes at the expense of making them seem threatening.  This film tries its damnedest to make them seem like a legitimate threat in spite of their weaknesses, by showing just how many Resistance members they manage to kill off prior to the end of the film, but it just doesn’t work.  Mainly because, well let’s face it, no one really gives a shit about the people who end up dying in this film, except for Luke, but that doesn’t count since he dies on his own terms, and not because he’s struck down by the enemy.  And this film had missed opportunities in that regard.

One such missed opportunity comes with Finn, when he’s making a final charge at this cannon that’s about to fire to destroy the defensive door holding back the First Order from invading the old Rebel base.  But then this Asian chick Rose (who exists for the sake of making another check-mark off the “diversity” checklist; next episode they’ll probably get an Indian or a gay/lesbian or a tranny), who has a crush on Finn, rose to the occasion (sorry, I couldn’t help it) and flies in and smashes into Finn’s vehicle to stop him from doing a kamikaze run, even though that would’ve helped out everyone if he succeeded, and even though they should’ve been blasted to smithereens considering they were the only people left of the Resistance on the battlefield at that point, and thus the only targets, while everyone else had been dropping like flies up to that point.  And that smash should’ve obliterated them both, but it doesn’t, and Finn is in just fine-and-dandy and in running condition after that impact (even though Rose at least got some degree of physical damage from that impact; and seriously, what the fuck is up with these names?  Is someone in the next episode going to be called Leaf or Page or Root or Pebble or Tail or something like that?  Kinda makes it fun to think up of imagery of a shark Fin moving above the surface of the water with a Rose tatoo’d on it with a Ray of sunshine gleaming down on it).  And that’s not even the most ridiculous survival tale this film produced with those 2 characters, they also somehow miraculously managed to smash into the Rebel base on a hijacked First Order ship moments before the Resistance closes the door, even though that fucking door should’ve been sealed well before the First Order even made an appearance on the planet.

Oh, right, another really stupid thing, intentional lack of communication between commanders and captains/generals.  That lack of communication, which was a dumb thing to do, caused other main characters to do even more stupid shit which could’ve been avoided if they just shared information and told everyone what the plan was, what the ultimate goal was.

“Hey, we’re going to try and make it to this planet where we can hold out long enough to get a signal out for backup.”
“Isn’t there a better plan than that?”
“No.”
“Well, we’ll see about that.”

There!  Just like that!  And they still could’ve done everything that happened, and thus caused further regret with their actions later on, as opposed to, “Well how was I supposed to know?  You wouldn’t tell me!”  Why wouldn’t they have that dialogue conversation as opposed to:

“What’s the plan?”
“You don’t need to know.  Fuck off.”

So all that (very) dumb shit aside, there is a point in this film where I thought it was going to redeem itself.  Benicio Del Toro’s character arrives by, let’s face it, pure coincidence, as pure a coincidence as Rey having access to the Millennium Falcon in the previous film.  That didn’t bother me too much, not as much as how BB-8 helped them escape from gambling prison because the dumbfuck guards didn’t think to detain that advanced droid that is capable of doing just about fucking everything.  What fascinated me is that, for a brief scene, this film dared to go into the grey area.  Asian girl talks about how despicable all these people are on the gambling world, how they got rich off of selling weapons to the First Order.  And on top of that, they torture these Chocobos for races and have little immigrant children trying to take care of and watch over these bird-animal-things.  You know, to make these rich pricks out to be bigger assholes than necessary.  Those monsters!

But then Del Toro (his character name is DJ; why the fuck couldn’t he have some funky beat to accompany his character wherever he walked?  Ah never mind, I guess his stuttering is supposed to mimick scratching the vinyl record) points out how they also got rich selling weapons to the Resistance, that things aren’t as clear-cut as they may seem.  At that point, I was on the edge of my seat, eager to see where they would go with this, even if that didn’t dissuade Finn and Asian chick Rose from fucking up gambling town after freeing the Chocobos (because fuck corporations and capitalism, even though they’re also responsible in-part for keeping the Resistance alive).  Unfortunately, that scene is where the grey area begins and ends.  Finn and Rose don’t take a single damn lesson to heart from that revelation.  It mine as well as not even be in the fucking movie.  A huge wasted opportunity, with potential to tie it in to the implied theme of how the light side and the dark side of the force are necessary because each bring balance.  You know, I haven’t seen one goddamn Star Wars film that makes it clear why the Dark side should exist to keep the Light side in check.  The Dark Crystal does a better job at that kind of theme than any Star Wars film ever did.  Luke talks about all this life, death, creation, destruction, etc., and how it’s all meant to be together because they all compliment each other, yet not once do any of these films ever really point out why the dark side is a necessary evil, why sometimes one must do something bad for the greater good, or how doing too much good can lead to bad (except perhaps in Episode III where Anakin did all this for love, even though that was all pulled off in a very stupid way that seemed too extreme even for his whiny ass), etc.  Leaves me disappointed with a film that seems to be setting up this message, yet does nothing to tie it altogether in a satisfying manner.  And don’t give me that, “Just wait for the sequel,” bullshit, each film needs to wrap up its own thematic arc in a satisfying manner.

At least the film did the one thing that the previous film was missing, and that’s having a few memorable moments many will talk about when it’s all over.  You know, like how everyone talked about the twist and the lightsaber duel in Empire Strikes back, or Duel of the Fates in The Phantom Menace.  Nothing in the film quite reaches those heights, but at least it makes a better effort going about it.  The scene where we finally see Leia use the force, something built up ever since Return of the Jedi.  The scene where they do a kamikaze light speed rush.  And to top that, finally, a decent lightsaber fight with Rey and Kylo going against the red guards.  Lastly, having Luke face off against the First Order army and Kylo Ren.  The latter is one of the best anti-climactic showdowns I’ve seen in a long time.  That’s not being negative, sometimes being anti-climactic works, and this film managed to pull that off beautifully.  Pretty much anything with Mark Hamill was great in this film (even if some think it’s out of character for him compared to how he was in the original trilogy), God bless him.

Those scenes and a few other decent moments here and there make the film worth watching, but man do you have to shut your mind off to a lot of bullshit to get to those scenes and enjoy them.  Plus, as with the last film, no good memorable original music scores for this movie, just reminders that the music from all entries prior to episode VII were great.  Honestly, the only real significant addition this new trilogy has made so far to the franchise is having a female jedi lead (would be better if she was actually human; you know what I mean), and having a different kind of villain with Kylo Ren, who is a far more interesting character than everyone else (combined) who first appeared in this new trilogy.

So many drops in logic, so many missed opportunities, so much dumb shit, it practically (?) derails the entire film.  One shouldn’t have to shut that much of their brain off to enjoy something like this.  And this franchise has gone on for far too long to expect me, or any decent fan for that matter, to lower our expectations this much, especially after the prequel trilogy.  There are awesome moments, sure, but there shouldn’t be so much idiocy surrounding those awesome moments.  I can’t in good conscience recommend this.  But why should I have to even if I did enjoy it that much?  This is one of those movies where, if you want to see it, you’re going to watch it no matter what.  While this film is better than the last one just because it can actually stand on its own without being overly reliant on the older films, and because it has more memorable moments, and more interesting character arcs in regards to Kylo, the film also has way more dumb shit than the last one.

PS: Oh, right, and I didn’t pay to see this film.  No, I didn’t pirate it.  And no, my job perks aren’t good enough to let me see this one for free (doesn’t work for movies this big).  It’s a more interesting story than that.  So I went to IMAX a few months ago to go see Dunkirk, because I heard IMAX is the best experience for it (it was).  However, the first showing crapped out on us; it wouldn’t start.  Hence to say, many were unhappy about that.  So when we walked out, management not only gave us a refund that we could use for the next showing (which is what I did), but everyone also got a free movie pass to see any IMAX movie whenever we wanted.  Initially, I was going to use that pass for Blade Runner 2049, but didn’t.  So then I decided this would be the next best thing.  So not only did I get to see it for free due to those circumstances, but I also got to see it in 3D.  In regards to the 3D itself, it’s only nice for the first 10 minutes, then the whole thing just felt like another 2D movie with rare insignificant use of 3D.  So I don’t recommend seeing this in 3D, there’s not enough to justify it.

Edit: Oh yeah, one other thing I didn’t quite finish talking about, themes of “letting the past die”. Kylo brings this point up as an excuse to wipe the slate of the Empire clean and start anew. Rey seems to believe this in regards to not relying on Luke (as if she ever needed to, given how strong she is). Yoda shows up as a ghost to tell Luke that you don’t need to rely on these old ancient texts. They were written by ancient people. If they get destroyed, someone else can write their own versions with their own knowledge of the force, which may wind up superior to the old texts to fit with the new times anyway, even if it’s sad to watch the past die. This was an emotional moment and all, just letting this stuff go. Then the film cheats us on this like how Batman V. Superman cheated us on Superman’s death and shows that, psych, the texts are fine and in a safe place on the Millennium Falcon. I mean, what the hell movie. If you’re going to do that, can’t you at least provide an argument for preserving the past after giving excuses from both the good guys and bad guys as to why one shouldn’t be held back by the past?

 

12-18-2017 Update:  One more note, then I’m done with this.  So I watched Angry Joe’s video on this movie, him and 3 others explaining why it sucks.  And I have to admit, he brings up some pretty good points, including many good points that even I didn’t cover (told you this film’s problems most likely extend beyond what I’ve spotted).  He basically demonstrates why this film isn’t just a slap in the face to the star wars franchise in general, but also a slap in the face to a few things the last film had built up.  Kylo supposed to complete his training.  Where are the Knights of Ren?  Luke wouldn’t act like this.  A piss-poor way to send his character off compared to what could have been.  Etc.  I recommend watching this video, not just because of the points, but also because it’s one of the most entertaining and hilarious critiques I’ve ever heard in my life.