Star Wars: The Last Jedi review
Written by Jaden Schroeder, Former Student on Monday, January 8, 2018
Star Wars: The Last Jedi features Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker, Daisy Ridley as Rey, Carrie Fisher as Leia Organa, John Boyega as Finn, Adam Driver as Kylo Ren and Oscar Isaac as Poe Dameron. Set in a galaxy far, far away this movie is an action adventure with some comedy and drama elements mixed in. This film was a mess riddled with plot holes and it didn’t feel like a piece of art to me and instead felt like a product made solely for money. If you are a big Star Wars fan you will most likely walk out of the theatre angered and upset but if you’re more of a casual movie goer you will simply go see an average and forgettable flick.
Essentially this movie is like a really slow car chase but in space and instead of cars there’s massive space ships. The last of the Resistance is being chased down by the first order and the Resistance ships can keep out of range from the First Order but they have a limited fuel supply so this sets up the main conflict of the movie. On the side while all this is happening Rey and Luke’s story pick up right where it left off from the ending of The Force Awakens. Then there is an extremely pointless and boring sub plot on some Casino planet involving Finn and a new character whose name I cannot remember because she was so forgettable (It’s Rose I had to look it up). Kylo Ren and Rey also have this thing throughout the movie where they can see and talk to each other through the force but they don’t know how. But mostly it bounces back and forth between the Luke/Rey plot and the space chase one for the majority of the movie.
This movie was mostly a mess but it wasn’t all bad. The first like 20 to 30 minutes were pretty enjoyable and I had very little negative to say. Also the cinematography and visuals of this movie are absolutely breathtaking. Every shot and scene looks gorgeous and the locations throughout the movie are all very memorable and beautiful. The CGI was a bit overused (especially in the casino planet) and I would’ve liked more practical stuff but it all fit within the movie and looked nice. The designs were great and it all looked very Star Wars and extremely well done with the exception of some of the dumb new animals they added to sell toys. Overall though the movie looked a bit too clean for Star Wars but I guess that’s just the visual style the new trilogy is going for and while I may not like it too much it’s more of a nitpick than an actual complaint. This is basically where my positives for the movie end.
There were so many parts to this movie that were literally pointless such as the terrible Casino planet sub plot with Finn and Rose. It had so many plot holes and inconsistencies that if not for the stunning visuals I would’ve thought this was one of Disney’s crappy live action films that they loved pumping out in the early 2000’s. They threw away so many plot lines and character build up from The Force Awakens in this movie for like no reason other than the director didn’t like them anymore. I feel like the writers didn’t even watch previous Star Wars movies and didn’t bother reading any expanded material because things happen in this movie that make no sense in Star Wars. Leia was handled terribly in this film, she had no purpose and actually had the dumbest and cringiest scene that I have seen in a movie. Luke and Rey’s plotline ends extremely anticlimactically even though for most of the film this was actually the best and most interesting part. Kylo Ren was probably the most interesting part of this film for me even though I don’t like what they did with him near the end and kind of threw away a lot of the stuff they built up with him in the previous film. Kylo and the character Poe had by far the most development and were the most bearable to watch even though Poe didn’t really do anything either in this movie other than in the first 10 minutes. Rey is really bland and boring in this film and she has some Mary Sue like moments and was only kept interesting by Luke. Speaking of Luke I think that he acted very out of character and if the writers bothered to actually learn anything about Star Wars they would know that Luke would not act like and do the things that he does in the movie.
This movie was all over the place… There was so much going on and so much disappointment. It feels like the movie was going to be completely different but when they changed directors (which actually happened) the new one decided that he was going to do his own thing and Frankensteined both of their completely different ideas together. While this film can be enjoyable to someone who just wants a dumb pretty looking action flick I think it is quite mediocre. Its stunning visuals weren’t able to pull it together for me and I think most Star Wars fans can agree. I think even if you don’t really care about Star Wars and just want a dumb fun movie there are much better ones for you to see.
