The Last Jedi feels the Force (SPOILERS)

Well. Let’s put this initially into a few words. What an amazing movie. Yes, there are a few problems but i ain’t event mad.

Now. Spoilers ahead. I said SPOILERS!

You have been warned.

 

Star Wars: The Last Jedi, directed by Rian Johnston, hit the cinemas from 14th December, and I was there for the Midnight showing after watching Star Wars: The Force Awakens immediately beforehand.

Since then, until now, I have seen this spectacle five times. With different people.

Maybe a bit over the top. But still. Star Wars.

I loved this movie from the get go and it has only been with successive watchings that a few issues have cropped up that are vaguely annoying, but no more so than any other Star Wars movie.

Let us just get this right out in the open straight way. I love Star Wars, but none, and I mean NONE, of them are perfect.

• One, two and Three (to me) are the weakest of them all. I am sorry but they are. Midichlorians?!? Are you F@*$ing shitting me, George?? And Jar Jar?!? The kids at that time seem to have lapped it up, so good on them. The real difficulty for me was firstly, I was not 10 and secondly, they were very unlike Four, Five and Six, so it was immediately difficult to connect to a familiar world.

• Four, Five and Six are the core of Star Wars. The first tentative journey towards the land of Faerie that sees your hand being taken and pulled towards a universe of strange peoples, evil overlords, sorcery in space, chivalric warriors with lightsabers instead of mighty swords. It was the space opera fantasy that set the standard for decades to come.

• Seven and now Eight continue to the flight of the fantastic a long time ago in a Galaxy far, far away.

• Not to forget Rogue One – beautiful and brilliant in a very special way

These movies work well because of allowing you to enter a land of make believe by suspending our disbelief because, as Tolkien puts it, it is too dangerous for us to ask too many questions lest the gates be shut and the keys lost. And in this big bag of imperfection, how does The Last Jedi hold up?

From the first scene we are cast back to The Empire Strikes Back with the evacuation from the Rebel base as the First Order arrive to wipe them out. No Death Star this time, but a giant killer of a ship referred to as a Dreadnought class. I also loved it that a prominent character, Kaydel, is played by Carrie Fisher’s daughter, Billie Lourd, and sports a small but obvious bun hairstyle.

I am still ambivalent about the comedy piece between Poe and General Hux, as Poe pranks Hux to play for time while he powers up his engines to speed towards the Dreadnought. It was jarring and hilarious at the same time. It does continue Poe’s irreverent attitude towards First Order lackeys and underlines a real contempt for them – he just won’t take them seriously. But in this scene and throughout the rest of the movie I am astounded by the unbelievable natural acting of one, Adrian Edmondson, as General Hux’s aide on the bridge. Seriously, Adrian (Eddie Hitler , Vim Fuego and Vyvian Basterd) was absolutely superb and his almost imperceptible facial expressions spoke one thousand words as he stood silently. And it was such a beautiful moment when he turned to Hux and said some of the most immortal words in Star Wars history, “I believe he’s tooling with you, General”. He was one of the most believable characters in the movie (and that’s not a slight on the movie). I could almost see the faint Force ghost of Rik Mayall smiling  just behind his shoulder.

There was a lot of tension built with the bombing run on the Dreadnought – maybe a little bit too much – as the Resistance fighters entered into a desperate dogfight with the TIE fighters. But it still kept me going right to the moment the bombs dropped as the ultimate sacrifice was made. One of the little points here that was poignant was the destruction of at least three bombers due to a heavily damaged TIE fighter spinning out of control hitting one and setting off a chain reaction of destruction.

The whole futility of of it all is underscored once the Dreadnought is destroyed and the Resistance escape to Hyperspace when General Leia physically slaps Poe and knocks him down from Commander to Captain to start to make him understand the meaning of a pyrrhic victory. All the bombers were destroyed. He calls them heroes for what they did, and Leia retorts “Dead heroes. No leaders”, slapping him verbally this time.

Hux is utterly degraded once again in front of his men as Snoke force pulls him along the floor berating his failure to destroy the Resistance. It continues to underscore Hux as an odious creature and despicable toad who is full of his own verbosity until he is in the presence of somebody of great power. His absolute cowardice is brought to the fore again when he finds Kylo unconscious after the battle in Snoke’s throne room, though i did enjoy the reaching for the sidearm only to quickly move his hand away once he realises Kylo is waking up. The Supreme Leader is dead, Long Live the Supreme Leader.

Just as the Resistance think they are safe after exiting Hyperspace, the First Order arrive having tracked them. Some of the characters highlight what some Star Wars aficionados are mouthing – ‘That’s impossible’. Leia once again slams us back into belief of the plot by simply saying “And yet they did.” Almost as if Rian knew a lot of flak was going to come about the plot that ran through the movie – “Look its a movie. This plot device moves it on. Just go with it.” Though tracking through Hyperspace has been hinted at before.

The whole movie split between the First Order after the Resistance, Rey and Luke and the trip to Canto Bight seems to be a ‘bait and switch’ deconstruction of not just Star Wars but of what we older generations think of Star Wars and how stuck our rose tinted views of Four Five and Six are in Carbonite.

It undermined the whole Star Wars hero trope by very blatantly showing how the new heroes are very flawed and they still have a lot of lessons to learn, and to learn those lessons here is how badly they have to screw up. Poe not only continued an attack, when he didn’t have to, he mutinied and delayed the escape plans of Holdo long enough for the First Order to find them and start firing on them as they made their way to previously ignored planet. This is all compounded by Finn, Rose and DJ ‘almost’ making it but are a big reason the escaping ships are found. In fact, Finn and Rose went off on a side-quest that inevitably was utterly futile.

Rey is once again mysterious in the sheer power she wields in the Force. Her combat skills not so surprising as she grew up on Jaaku and we have seen her fighting a number of times before she even knew Lightsabers existed. She is no wilting flower. It is interesting that she is unaffected by the Dark side, almost immune. And her Luke-esque quest through the Dark side cave ends with her facing herself – a little less violently than Lukes confrontation with himself on Dagobah. The little bit of trolling Luke does, when he eventually gives in to train Rey, was nicely done and I finally got to see Mark Hamill act. I am not a fan of Luke Skywalker as he always felt too winey in A New Hope, too full of himself before he got owned by Vader in Empire Strikes Back and too much of perfect hero in Return of the Jedi. Here on Ach-To we see Luke as a battered, cynical and world weary man who is to blame for Kylo Ren. He follows in Obi Wan’s tradition so while new roads are being taken in the movie, there are still familiar landscapes along the way.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi Official Teaser on Disney Video

Luke gets to say one of the greatest self aware pieces of dialogue when he says to Rey “This is not going to go the way you think it will” – warning us, the audience, that we should not have any particular expectations that any setup may go the way we think will. Luke’s flippant casting aside of the Skywalker lightsaber was just a moment that took me completely of guard and, while shocked at first that we waited two years just for Luke to be a dick, on thinking more about it Luke’s actions immediately set his position on how this Skywalker was going to roll. This was a Jedi who had lost hope through the experiences he has been through.He is tired of being Luke for such a long time and just wants to die on the island. His food gathering took him down another notch, especially that ‘milk’ scene. It was uncomfortable, but it was meant to be. He was surviving, not thriving.

The movie also finally shows that Leia knows how to use the power she has. Remember, she is just as powerful as Luke and the ‘Mary Poppins’ moment (Force Pull), while one of those jarring moments, works well. And when both Leia and Kylo sense each other creates another little ‘will he, won’t he’ moment, showing that he is still split early in the film.

More bait and switching happens in Snoke’s throne room. The lead up to it is pure Return of the Jedi when Luke talks to Vader about the conflict he senses in the Sith Lord and that he will turn. The cloaking Kylo employs to hide his intentions from Snoke are well played out turning his own lightsaber whilst using the Force to turn the Skywalker sabre. Until Snoke realises too late that he has a lightsaber sticking right through him. Kylo hass from this point become the Master and is no longer the apprentice. And the fight scene right after was worthy of ‘Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon’. It was beautiful and shows once more that Rey is a very powerful Force user with a lot of martial prowess. The tense ‘will they, won’t they’ moments where Kylo and Rey stand at the edge until they resolve the paths they will take, were powerful. I found it interesting though that Kylo does not consider himself as Sith. His speech to Rey really cleared the whole thing up of his view on this when he emphatically says ‘Let them all die’ that includes sith, jedi and resistance. He wants to throw off the shackles of the past and try to cling to them. The end part of the scene where Rey acknowledges her parentage puts me in mind of not Luke but Anakin. Is this the creation of a new bloodline of force users that have nothing to do with the Skywalker lineage?

The visuals of the movie are stunning and put me in mind of the likes of ‘House of Flying Daggers‘. The sumptuousness of the reds used in this movie is beautifully artistic and works very well. Especially at the end with the attack on the rebel base and the skimmers flying across the salt plain to meet the oncoming AT-M6s and AT-ATs. The sacrifice of Commander Holdo by engaging Lightspeed to take out most of the First Order fleet was beautifully done and really cuts into raw emotion as the movie fades to pure silence for about 10 seconds.

Of course, we have ‘that moment’ on the island after Rey leaves and Luke goes to the Jedi tree to burn it down and one of the greatest surprises is well implemented with the appearance of that little green Jedi Master. As Luke once again fails to resolve to do something Yoda laughs at him as he, not Luke, destroys the tree. Luke is aghast whilst Yoda says that the texts weren’t page turners and that Rey already has more than what is contained in the tree. Which is true because you may or may not have noticed that Rey has already swiped the texts. They are in the drawer Finn takes the blanket from. Yoda also teaches Luke another pearl of wisdom, failure is the greatest teacher, not success.

The Porgs are actually quite a nice addition and are used lightly for a little bit of fun here and there. Or at least they seemed more plausibly used than little teddy bears taking down the Empire’s finest on the forested moon of Endor. Chewbacca may now also be a vegetarian after trying to eat a Porg, a posible reverse after the Ewoks tried to eat him.

The ‘fight’ between Kylo and Luke is pure Spaghetti Western and just made me smile the whole time. Overall, it is the most clever Star Wars movie yet with so much emotion and poignancy. It is put forward in such a way as to keep you spinning from one scene to the next wondering where its all going to go next. Rian also leaves clues during the fight that Luke isn’t actually there – no foot prints in the salt.

It may jar a little here and there (especially the continuity screw up of Finn and his magically moving backpack in the escape pod scene when he is trying to shoo off Rose) but no more than any other Star Wars movie. One of the biggest is from A New Hope where Luke is being hidden on his father’s planet of tatooine, with his fathers name (Skywalker) and with his father’s relatives – totally under the radar there. Rian, i feel, was clever – maybe sometimes a little bit too clever in parts – and knew he was up against it and just decided to roll with it. Also i was slightly confused that ‘God Speed’ is used not once, but twice in the movie. That felt very out of place. Its the Force, not God, that is all powerful.

My one big concern is that there is about half an hour stripped out that will likely be placed into a special DVD edition. Concern, as this seems to be becoming a trend with the cinematic movie giving one version of the story while the DVD content may give a very different version due to the film being given a different dimension with the extra content. The extra scenes should maybe add a little colour but should not be there to fill plot holes.

It was also quite tough knowing that this is the last time Carrie Fisher would be our favourite Princess.

This is the longest Star Wars, coming in at just over two and a half hours, so it is little a bit of a marathon. There are a lot more comedy, fun moments than any other Star Wars, though it wasn’t too heavy handed. Close but Rian doesn’t quite jump that shark. It has poignant moments, heart warming moments, and edge of the seat moments.

For me The Last Jedi was, is and will continue to be well worth every moment of that two and half hours.