THE LAST JEDI - Just as Good as I Remembered!

[AndyDursin]

3/10

I was forced to sit through this again for the third time -- first since it came out -- since Theo is all STAR WARS all the time and we've nearly reached the run of the movies. Tried to go in freely again, hoping it wouldn't be that bad. Stayed off my reviews and old posts of it, just to clear my head.

Let me be charitable: this film is an unmitigated disaster. And the fact the film doesn't feel like anything related to STAR WARS is a big part of the problem. After scores of STAR WARS movies in a universe that had been well established, characters start talking in a way they never had before -- like they were in a snarky Joss Whedon screenplay. The quipping humor seems totally out of place, the interaction between them comes out of an entirely different aesthetic, like Rian Johnson hadn't even watched the previous films. The new powers of Princess Leia that manifest in her galactic resurrection remain an incredible WTF moment that my wife rolling on the floor this time (she didn't even remember she had seen it before -- either that or she fell asleep on it). "THIS is Star Wars?" she asked at one point. Which shows you this film failed with CASUAL viewers, not just hardcore series nuts like most of us here. Weird subplots like "rescuing the casino animals because they're funding the sales of guns!" smack of a plot line that belonged in some other franchise together -- or the bizarre "Jedi Kids" final scene, which now seems like something that would be right at home in one of the misfired Disney+ series that bear the franchise moniker. (Perhaps it says something this movie feels like a "Disney+ product", as Kennedy's fingerprints are all over it).

From the bloated-ass run time to cringe worthy scenes like Laura Dern dressing down Poe Dameron -- speaking of that, this movie's feminist agenda is laid on with a troth -- Rian Johnson stumbles on nearly every conceivable level. Conceptually it's a dud, beyond even framing Luke Skywalker as a fuddy duddy "Old White Guy" jerk turning his back on everything he stood for. Why was there a need to introduce new characters? John Boyega's Finn wasn't a strong enough character to carry his own water? People hated Rose Tico not because she's a "woman of color," but because this movie couldn't stay on the narrative track of the 1st movie. There was no need to start adding new characters and pull apart the group dynamic that FORCE AWAKENS established (which Abrams would reconnect in the still-flawed yet infinitely superior follow-up, which tried to correct all of Johnson's missteps here). No wonder why Boyega was pissed at his character's arc through this series -- like the other males in this film, he's relegated to secondary status for another female lead shoehorned in undoubtedly at the insistence of Kathleen Kennedy and her transparent political agenda.

Williams' scoring, as we've said before, can do little to elevate this film. The constant "motion"/pacing of these modern Disney STAR WARS means his scoring is basically reduced to the level of a cartoon -- going up and down with "sad" or "heroic" flourishes in sync with what's going on in the film. There's no room for grand themes (listen to how simplistic his "First Order Theme" is compared to the Empire March), just a lot of frantic "action" that someone else could have written. But to be fair, some of his scoring is inferior here -- the "Casino Planet" is just a painful sequence in its execution as well as the scoring -- and the hysterical rendering of Leia's Theme is some of the worst dramatic scoring of his career, one where he seldom performs a misstep.

The Rey/Kylo scenes don't really work, but at least they didn't piss me off as much as the revisionist "Luke's No Hero, it's Leia Who Saves The Galaxy" narrative twerking Johnson performs here. Overall the only scene I really enjoyed was Yoda, reappearing in puppet form, and with the same personality he had before. In the film's most entertaining moment, he bonks Luke Skywalker on the head and tells him to wake the hell up. Too bad he couldn't have done the same for every creative talent involved in this sorry mess -- a picture that will rightly live on forever as one of cinema's all-time misguided sequels.

[mkaroly]

I started laughing at "unmitigated disaster", and it was all downhill from there.

[AndyDursin]

Thanks Michael. lol. And I am not demeaning John Williams. I just can't think of many instances in his entire career where his music seems a little out of place, or calls attention to itself, as it does a few times here. Not his fault, these films don't enable him to showcase his talents, which is why I wished he didn't get involved with these pictures and spent his energy -- what little of his film scoring tenure is left -- elsewhere. But I understand The Force...oh wait, THE MONEY...was too much to pass up.

[mkaroly]

The legacy of THE LAST JEDI for me will always be the absurd and unintentionally hilarious Space Leia thing - one of the all-time dumbest things I have ever seen in a movie. In addition, asking the audience to accept Leia as an advanced Jedi master (could an untrained novice have done what Leia did in the space sequence?) from out of the blue without any previous story development speaks of clueless filmmakers. Just so dumb...IMO.

[Eric Paddon]

I refuse to ever look. I have no desire to see the Star Wars franchise equivalent of Jaws: The Revenge.

[mkaroly]

I refuse to ever look. I have no desire to see the Star Wars franchise equivalent of Jaws: The Revenge.

Just for the Space Leia thing it might be worth watching once (for free) if you are able to do so...I laughed out loud when I saw it and will never forget how ludicrous that scene is.

[Eric Paddon]

Nope, I'd rather preserve my Leia memories of ROTJ.

[AndyDursin]

I refuse to ever look. I have no desire to see the Star Wars franchise equivalent of Jaws: The Revenge.

LOL it's not even that good.

[AndyDursin]

Just for the Space Leia thing it might be worth watching once (for free) if you are able to do so...I laughed out loud when I saw it and will never forget how ludicrous that scene is.

Complete with the overwrought, GONE WITH THE WIND-like Princess Leia's Theme arrangement.

The moment STAR WARS -- as we once knew it -- truly "died".

[Edmund Kattak]

Just for the Space Leia thing it might be worth watching once (for free) if you are able to do so...I laughed out loud when I saw it and will never forget how ludicrous that scene is.

Complete with the overwrought, GONE WITH THE WIND-like Princess Leia's Theme arrangement.

The moment STAR WARS -- as we once knew it -- truly "died".

That's why I'll enjoy the 1978 STAR WARS HOLIDAY SPECIAL with Kubrickian glee!!!

[Paul MacLean]

I genuinely detested this movie, which was the work of self-righteous people who seemed to think a checklist of "socially relevant" messages was more important than story and character development.

Luke throwing the lightsabre over his shoulder was a middle finger to an audience which had been hanging on a cliffhanger for two years. Killing-off Snoke (when his character should instead have been developed) was just a throwaway idea -- and it left the films with no bad guy.

As I've said in the past, episodes 7-9 were like a "tribute band", who play the same songs, wear the same outfits and sport the same hairstyles -- but just aren't the same thing. Yet nostalgia-crazed fans who long for "the good old days" eat them up.

Complete with the overwrought, GONE WITH THE WIND-like Princess Leia's Theme arrangement.

In fairness, it was actually an except from the "concert" arrangement of Princess Leia's theme from the original Star Wars album -- but I agree, misplaced and overwrought in context.

I am a defender of John Williams' scores for these films though. Yeah, they are often frenetic and not as satisfying overall as his music for 1-6 -- but they have their moments.

Honestly, I think this one of Williams' best themes for the entire Star Wars series...