Star Wars: The Last Jedi

I saw The Last Jedi Monday night, over two full weeks after its release. Spoilers are ahead but you have already seen the movie. Shut up.

That fact alone should illustrate my level of enthusiasm for Star Wars movies. I wasn’t always like this. I was, like many people in their mid-40s in the year 2018, a passionate fan of the original Star Wars films. Perhaps it’s old(er) age, or perhaps the 2nd Lucas trilogy of episodes I-III were so deflating that they made me stop caring about Star Wars. If Lucas apparently didn’t understand why we loved the originals, what’s the point?

I admittedly was excited about Episode VII, The Force Awakens because, as sad as it id to say, Lucas wasn’t making it. Even that movie, which was universally praised as a return to “Star Wars being Star Wars” I was left feeling somewhat “meh.” Too silly, too jokey, too “wink wink Star Wars fans did you catch that reference we just made! We’re just like you!” It’s was the Big Bang Theory of Star Wars movies. It was also a remake of A New Hope and killing Han was and remains bullshit. You don’t KILL Indiana Jones, he always escapes. You don’t actually KILL Han Solo. You can make us think he’s dead, but you don’t KILL him unless it’s of old age…or maybe Greedo’s son shoots him in the back.

The Last Jedi was better than Force Awakens. I will give it that. But I have a lot of issues with this movie and not just as a Star Wars film. I stayed away from spoilers because I knew I would eventually see it. The only headline I saw was from Mark Hamill who said something to the effect of, “That it not my Luke Skywalker.”

Whoa. That could be really good or really bad, whatever it meant. Turns out, it was pretty damn good. What the film did with Luke was at first jarring — Luke Skywalker has turned into a bitter old man who is so massively depressed he wants to die alone on a rock with these cute little space penguins. Luke’s path makes sense and when you think about it, it makes a hell of a lot of sense. The ordeal of Episodes IV-VI would mind-fuck pretty much anyone, even a Jedi. Then when Luke fails training young Jedi, and fails Han and Leia’s kid, his mind snaps and he retreats into a self-hating mess. Maybe not the ideal Luke storyline, but I can get behind it. And Luke’s end game is also perfect. It’s the hero Resurrection story but without Luke going toe to toe with the dark Jedi. He uses his mind and slips away into Jedi peace-land. Really good.

Outside of the Luke stuff, The last Jedi did very little for me.

So apparently Rey is a super strong Jedi with no training whatsoever. Luke’s training consists of a few verbal warnings and the “reach out” technique. After that she can move rocks around like she’s Yoda. I guess her Midi-chlorian numbers are off the charts! Fucking Lucas. This bugged me in Force Awakens and bugs me even more after Last Jedi.

You can take a huge Rebel (sorry, Resistance) cruise ship, send it into a Star Destroyer at LIGHT SPEED and apparently the Destroyer can take that on the chin.

So if the tracker is on ONE Resistance ship, why not have everyone go to light speed in a different direction? “Ok team, you go here, you go here, you go here and they can’t follow ALL of us. Ready, break!”

So Leia was Wonder Woman all along? Her space flying scene was the most ridiculous thing I have ever seen in a Star Wars movie. When she got blown off the ship I looked at Mary and said, “Shit they actually killed Leia…and early.” Then she space walks like Buzz Aldrin back onto the ship. W.T.F. Do not fgive me her “Jedi powers.” No. Stop it. No. No.

Ok so this Snoke guy. What’s his deal? Oh, you don’t know either? I guess you just gotta have that Evil Emperor character and since Vader already tossed the original down the shaft, why not just invent a new one? Makes perfect sense to me. I also hate the First Order in general. Can we not get new bad guys? A new storyline that isn’t a recycle of shit we have already seen?

Ackbar goes out like that? Damn man that’s kinda harsh.

So I guess Finn and Rose take a trip to Space Monaco to kill some run time in the movie and make sure Finster gets his cameo. That entire sequence was a massive filler. This is all they could do with Finn? Total waste.

The more I thought about the movie, as well as Episode VII, I realized why I was so indifferent to these movies.

Timothy Zahn ruined this for me. Thanks Tim. What I wanted were Jedi twins, Mara Jade, Talon Karrde, Han & Lando, crazy hermit Jedi Joruus C’baoth, and Grand Admiral Fucking Thrawn.

That’s what I wanted. Impossible due to the age of the actors, I get it. But I will take Thrawn over Snoke/Emperor 2.0 any day.