Guilty Pleasures #51 - Star Wars Episode VIII - The Last Jedi

I haven’t even said anything yet!

OK, this is going to be a controversial one, but it’s time to talk Star Wars again. The Force Awakens was initially popular, but soon a backlash began to set in with people complaining that, amongst other things, it was too similar to the original Star Wars movies. An opinion that has some validity, in my opinion; whilst it does perhaps play it too safe with certain elements, I believe it does have enough differences that it stands on its own

There was no such wait for the Last Jedi backlash, people were divided on this from the start, with critics giving it glowing reviews and audiences…. Not so much. There are many complaints people have about this film, some of which I feel stem from the general direction of the Force Awakens, some that are genuine and some are… bullsh*t. Life tip: use the words ‘Social Justice Warrior’ (or SJW) in your argument and you’ve already lost it.

Fair warning, I don’t think this movie is perfect, although I have praised it in the past, so I’m gonna bring attention to the faults of the movie. But I’m also gonna point out when people are just making sh*t up!

With that out of the way, let’s get into it…

The opening text crawl is surprisingly useless this time around as we basically pick up where we left off at the end of the last movie. Basically, the First Order is on its way to the Resistance base after Starkiller Base was destroyed. Makes you wonder if the Empire did the same thing after the destruction of the original Death Star.

The evacuation has begun, and shuttles are heading to larger ships already in space. But they’re having to dump a lot of their resources in order to get everyone out and made matters worse when General Hux arrives with his fleet. A new ship comes out of hyperspace, a dreadnaught that’s capable of wiping out the base. Before they fire they see a single ship approaching in attack formation. It’s Poe Dameron and BB-8 and we get a joke that… in all honesty falls a bit flat.

Let’s start with one of the first points of contention with this movie, the humour. I did think the Force Awakens had more comedy than you generally see in a Star Wars movie, but this one cranks it up again. I get the intention, this movie has a pretty high death toll, and rather than brushing it aside like most Star Wars movies do, these significant losses are essential to the story, with such dark elements, the humour is there to balance it out, stopping it from depressing young children. However not every joke lands, and this one in hindsight really doesn’t. It never goes full on immature, but I do worry Rian Johnson thinks he’s funnier than he actually is.

It doesn’t help that it goes on for 20 seconds longer than it should’ve done. Hux eventually realises what he’s up to, but Poe has bought himself enough time to make a charge for the dreadnaught and begins taking out some of its turrets. Hux tells General who gives a sh*t to do something, and since they can’t fire upon him directly, as they’d most certainly hit the dreadnaught, they decide to scramble fighters.

Poe is hit and his weapons are damaged, thankfully BB8 does a Looney Tunes sketch to get the weapons working again. The dreadnaught fires on the base, but apparently the evacuation was completed just in time and Poe’s distraction had been successful. Unfortunately Poe wants to engage further and destroy the dreadnaught, something Leia objects to.

Leia telling C3PO to wipe the nervous expression off his is face is the first joke I actually laughed at and for the sake of not covering every joke in the movie, I’ll stop here. I’ll make up my own jokes from now on. With the last turret taken out by Poe, a bombing fleet approaches the base, with several fighters there to protect them. I swear the rebellion had bombers that were faster and less slow than the ones we have here but here we are.

More TIE Fighters are launched and the bombers sustain heavy fire, making matters worse the dreadnaught has begun aiming its heavy cannons at the fleet. And the bombers are falling like flies. Only one bomber remains and the bay doors are jammed and the pilot dead from something. It’s up to the gunner to finish the job. It’s a really well executed sequence. Rian Johnson knows how a direct a space battle to look really cool, and clearly lessons were learned with the praise Rogue One got for its space battles.

She launches the bombs and destroys the dreadnaught but at the cost of her life and her ship. Leia is saddened to see every bomber and several fighters are down. The remaining fighters regroup with the fleet and head into hyperspace. Snoke contacts Hux and apparently can use the force in his hologram, because of course he can.

So, we’re 12 minutes into the movie and since Rey and Finn were the main characters in the last one, it’s kind of odd we haven’t seen either of them yet. Well, that changes here as Finn wakes up from his nap after the events of the last movie. Poe spots him and they reunite but before this scene has a chance to actually go anywhere we cut to whatever planet it was Luke was on, as we continue where we left off.

Rey hands Luke’s lightsaber back to him and he anti-climatically throws it away after their long moments of staring at each other. She runs after him as he barricades himself in his house. Next complaint, the Porgs, blatantly there to sell toys? Absolutely, worth noting in any other aspect? Not really, they don’t contribute enough to the narrative for it to be necessary to even mention them in this synopsis, they don’t speak which is always a plus and they’re used relatively sparingly, all things considered.

Rey recovers the lightsaber and sees his sunken ship. Rey gets Chewbacca to bust the door down and Luke asks where Han is but before this scene can go anywhere, we cut to Kylo Ren. I know a lot of people say Kylo Ren is whiny, and that’s not inaccurate, he’s honestly one of the most complex and interesting characters in Star Wars. The elements were all established in The Force Awakens but they’re really brought to life in this movie.

He goes up to see Snoke, who has decided between scenes that he’s actually not p*ssed off with General Hux, in fact he’s quite happy with him. Kylo is still wounded from his battle with Rey, we get a bit of exposition as to why Snoke chose him. I’ll spare you the details, they’re not important, what is Snoke being unimpressed with Kylo Ren. His killing of Han Solo left him split and unbalanced which is why he had trouble fighting Rey, that’s… actually a decent enough explanation that I’m willing to buy it, although you could argue whether it was even necessary given that he was fighting her with a massive wound.

Ren being berated and compared to Darth Vader is the crux of his character. He will never escape Vader’s shadow, and it works beyond the 4^th wall as we, as the audience, will constantly compare him to Vader. Snoke orders Kylo to take off his mask, allowing Adam Driver to show his face (which incidentally looks like it’s been patched up with sticky tape, maybe the makeup budget ran out there) to show that Snoke no longer holds the belief that he’s a new Vader.

Kylo processes this well, destroying the mask in a violent temper. Back to Rey and Luke, Rey begs for Luke’s help but he refuses. It’ll take a while before I can address the direction they went with Luke’s character and why I’m OK with it but for now I’ll say that I can see why this might be frustrating to audiences.

We see Luke’s routine of lots of hiking then milking a thing and drinking the blue liquid straight. He then pole-vaults to a cliff edge to fish and walks some more. The next day, she tries to follow him again but hears something calling to her. She follows it into a hollowed out tree containing ‘the original jedi texts.’ This planet is supposed to be one of the original Jedi Temples which begs the question of why the Empire didn't destroy it symbolically but... 

Luke asks why she of all people, came and she explains that there’s a part of her that’s awakened and she’s scared of it and needs help to control it. She asks him to teach her, but he refuses, refusing to teach another generation of jedi. Rey demands an explanation but before we can get it, we’re cutting back to the resistance fleet.

It’s fairly obvious at this point what they’re setting up for Poe Dameron. Poe was a fine character and all in the Force Awakens but there wasn’t much to him, he had no arc and was very much a side character. This movie puts him into the spotlight, and we see that his trigger-happy attitude cost the lives of an entire bombing squad and earns him a slap and demotion from Leia. 

Unfortunately, things get worse as the First Order have tracked them through lightspeed. Now, this might’ve been cleverly set up in Rogue One, as hyperspace tracking was one of the projects on Scariff, but in my opinion it’s a bad idea for anyone in Star Wars to have this technology because it means there can never be a break in the action, without an immediate plot-hole. This was also a problem with the Interdicter in Rebels, that could pull a ship out of hyperspace, which is why it wasn't used after the season 3 finale, outside of EU material. 

With no choice to engage, Poe heads back to a fighter but Kylo Ren and a squad are up and making attack runs, destroying their fighters before they have a chance to take off. Poe takes an explosion to the face and is absolutely fine. With fighting no longer an option they have to move out of range of the Star Destroyers, apparently without their cover, the fighters will fall back. They’re pussies compared to the Empire in other words. Leia and Kylo Ren briefly connect, and he stops his attack, but his entourage do the work for him, blowing up the bay and sucking everyone into space, including Leia.

Now for something rather confusing, the First Order ships can’t go fast enough to catch up with the rebel fleet at their current speed. This is dumb because the ships are capable of going to lightspeed but it’s the only way to allow any break in the action. Of course, with the Resistance low on fuel, it’s only a matter of time before the First Order catch up with them. They’re also down to 3 cruisers, with all their smaller fighters destroyed in the initial attack.

So Leia, floating out in space, decides, screw it, I’m Superman now and uses the force somehow to fly her way back into the ship. I can understand Leia being a bit more skilled in using the force but it also looks really silly and with the current status of Carrie Fisher, it’s also a little discomforting. Anyway, she drops the beacon she was using for Rey and Finn picks it up.

Luke sneaks his way on board the Falcon and finds R2-D2, he sees a pair of dice in the cockpit and takes them, R2 shows him the hologram of Leia begging for Obi-Wan’s help and this makes him decide to give Leia 3 lessons, although in part to demonstrate why the Jedi order needs to end. With Leia unconscious and the rest of the leadership dead, command is passed to Vice-Admiral Holdo. On one hand, I wish we’d known her a little more before she took leadership. On the other, our lack of knowledge about her feeds into the mistrust paramount to Poe’s arc.

She immediately puts the count of Resistance members at 400, keep this in mind when we get to the final total at the end of the movie. She states that the mission is for the resistance to survive at any cost. This does not put comfort in Poe, even more so when she brushes him off. Doing this is a mistake that costs a lot of lives, but it’s believable that she’d do this, she doesn’t know him and doesn’t think he deserves intel that she isn’t sharing publicly, especially after the stunt he pulled at the beginning.

Finn heads towards an escape shuttle and we’re introduced to Rose, who’s still mourning the loss of her sister, the gunner in the bomber that destroyed the dreadnaught. Finn tries to sneak by her but no, she’s having none of that and knocks him out.

Because of confusing techno-babble it turns out they’re only tracking the ships from the lead ship for some reason. So they could do a hit and run on the ship, disabling the tracking and buying them time to jump to light speed. Finn has knowledge of where the power breakers are and Rose is smart enough to pull of the job. The pitch the idea to Finn who decides to do it behind Holdo’s back, but they need to get way onto the ship undetected and with particularly advanced encryption codes, they need a code-breaker. They call Maz Kantana, but she’s engaged in a union dispute and can’t come to their aid. . Go to her and recruit her, it’s sure to be much more interesting than where they end up going. I get the feeling Rian Johnson had no idea what to do with Maz so just decided to have her sit this one out

Anyway, she says she knows a codebreaker, who she also knows is at a casino on the planet Canto Bight. Oh joy, Canto Bight…

Back with Rey, the sun has risen and she begins to connect with Kylo Ren, who no longer looks like he has tape on his face. They begin to communicate but Rey is still angry over Han’s death and Kylo isn’t able to influence her, only discovering that Luke is where she is too. But enough about that, it’s time for her first lesson, they head up the mountain and she’s told to reach out with her mind, and it’s actually a really good introspective on what the balance really means. She sees a dark side of the island and hears it calling, Luke has to forcibly snap her out before she can succumb to it.

The lesson, that the force doesn’t belong to the Jedi and they are not the key to light is a good one, in concept. We also find out that Luke has somehow closed himself off from the force, and that Rey has the raw power equal to Kylo Ren… OK… Finn, Rose and BB8 head off to Canto Bight as Rey gets to have another conversation with Kylo Ren. Not much happens in it, so let’s cut to Canto Bight. Oh f*ck, Canto Bight.

Love or hate this movie, just about everyone hates Canto Bight. I also hate Canto Bight and I’ll do you all the favour of skimming through this scene. Rose hates the place and we see animal cruelty, and slavery. And everyone makes their money selling weapons, to both the First order and the Resistance, they’re soon arrested for parking violations.

Rey practices her control, first with her staff and then with Luke’s lightsaber. Whilst she starts well and almost gets Luke’s attention, she soon loses control, slicing through the rock and Luke walks away. So the second lesson is a bit odd, the legacy of the jedi is failure. This plays heavily to the themes of the movie but it’s forgetting that the jedi have a history spanning thousands of years. With regards to hypocrisy, you could easily argue they embraced the dark side fighting in the Clone Wars, something Yoda acknowledges in Star Wars Rebels, so that works.

Regarding Luke's story, it makes a lot less sense in this category, the story of how Kylo Ren came to be, he claims he failed because he was a legend? We are missing a vital detail in this backstory we’ll see later on, but the lesson feels a little odd without it. I’ll explain the full backstory when we get it. One of the resistance ships, the medical frigate runs out of fuel and is soon destroyed. The crew is successfully evacuated but the pilot dies. Holdo tells them they are to maintain their current course, even with fuel reserves running ever lower.

Inside the prison cell on Canto Bight, they meet a guy who claims to be able to perform the task, and proves his worth by unlocking the jail cell. He encounters some guards but BB8 has taken them out. Finn and Rose head through the sewers into the stables somehow. Rose shows the slave kids they’re with the resistance and arrange an escape of all the animals in the stable. Man, those kids are gonna be beaten tomorrow but at least the animals are free.

A chase ensues where the casino is destroyed, their ship is also destroyed before they can get to it but thankfully BB-8 and the thief arrive with a stolen ship and bail them out. Luke begins bringing the force back into himself and manages to awaken Leia, I think. Time for another conversation with Kylo Ren and this time he’s shirtless, because why not? When people said they wanted to see more of Kylo Ren, this is not what they meant! They meant his penis…

Kylo doesn’t think Rey has been shown everything and shows Rey Luke standing over with his lightsaber drawn and Kylo acting in self-defence. Again, we’ll get back to this. Kylo’s speech about letting the past die is kinda ironic coming from Star Wars, but is a key component to the general direction of this story and where it goes forward. 

Rey heads to the ‘dark side’ of the Island, a hole leading into a cavern which she falls into, she swims to land and sees a mirror, it’s another really interesting visual but it’s maybe a little too subtle as I have no idea what any of this means. She asks to see her parents but all she sees is another reflection of herself.

She relays this to Kylo Ren for some reason, and now seems to be under the belief that she can turn him, reaching her hand out to him, but is ultimately interrupted by Luke. They two briefly fight with sticks and Luke reveals the truth. He sensed darkness in Kylo Ren, and went to confront him as he was sleeping, he had a brief inclination to kill him and lit his lightsaber but ultimately not something he followed through on, except Kylo Ren saw him over his bed with lightsaber drawn and reacted badly, knocking Luke out and destroying his training temple

OK, time to talk about Luke’s character. People perceive that this movie ‘ruined’ Luke’s character. A belief sadly brought on by Mark Hamill saying he didn’t believe Luke would act this way. I know a lot of people wanted to see Luke as an active character. But the way the character was set up in the Force Awakens rather eliminated this as a possibility. At the very least there’d be some kind of block to him becoming an active character. If there weren’t, he would already be an active character.

This limited their options with Luke considerably, either he had a purpose on the planet he was on or was in self-imposed exile there. The fact that Luke hadn’t contacted his friends rather favours the later over the former. With regards to the map, there's no indication that Luke created the map, it was the map to the original Jedi Temple, breaking the map in 2, placing half in a robot that was inactive and the other in a place in the galaxy he literally describes as 'nowhere' feels like he's covering his tracks, not wanting to be found. But to the event itself, Luke drawing his lightsaber on Ben, and I refer you to a quote from Yoda:

“A battle life-long it is, not to turn fear into anger”

Just because Luke resisted his anger and didn't kill his father, doesn't make him a paragon of virtue, he's still capable of the fear and anger that lead to that moment. Especially in a space of several decades between the Return of the Jedi and this movie. People can and do change over that time, it’s hardly a new angle for an older version of an established character to be disillusioned over what he once worshipped and borderline suicidal, you want a prime example, look at Logan. Optimism in film tends to be a trademark of youth and cynicism tends to grow with age.

Him cutting himself off from the force is a bit of a head-scratcher, given he went to a planet so strong in the force. Perhaps his original intent was meditation and his conclusion is what lead him into exile (although that’s just a theory.) Long story short, Mark Hamill is not an expert on Luke's character, he's just an actor who played him. 

OK, I think this bit is covered, let’s move on. Rey is convinced she can turn Kylo Ren, something Luke tells her will not work. Seeing it as the only way to end the conflict, if Luke won’t act, she leaves. As she does, we get... Oh hey Yoda, I was just talking about you. Luke acts as if he’s to burn the texts but can’t bring himself to do it, so Yoda, the force ghost, makes lightning strike it. Yoda’s had an upgrade. Yoda gives his advice and ultimately sums up one of the themes of the movie ‘the greatest teacher, failure is’ bear this in mind when we get to everything happening with the Resistance and particularly Poe’s arc.

After a lecture about war profiteering, we cut back to the resistance fleet, or single cruiser as it now is, Poe confronts Holdo, wanting to know what the plan is, he sees that they’re fuelling transports, unarmed and unshielded transports, and are going to abandon ship. Poe sees this as cowardice and accuses her of being a traitor. With Finn saying they need a little more time, Poe offers to buy it. Rey launches herself in the Falcon’s shuttle onto Snoke’s ship and is quickly captured. Thanks to the code-breaker, Finn and Rose sneak aboard Snoke’s ship undetected.

Poe explains the plan but Holdo isn’t having it and orders the transports loaded. Poe organises a mutiny to take control of the cruiser. Finn and Rose are aboard but it seems like a BB-unit has already uncovered them. In taking Rey to Snoke, Kylo Ren says he saw who Rey’s parents are. Holdo escapes her guards and soon someone’s breaking down the door in the Resistance ship. Speaking of doors, Finn and Rose are captured by stormtroopers and making a return a full hour and 31 minutes into the movie, Captain Phasma.

Turns out it was Leia who got through the door to the bridge and she stuns Poe Dameron, forcing the others to surrender. They load him onto the shuttle and Holdo expresses her intention to stay behind and cover them. Leia is saddened by yet another loss, believe me when I tell you we’re not done yet. They cloak the shuttles to keep them out of the First Order’s sight and begin to launch.

OK, another complaint which might be meaningless but I’ll say it anyway, I don’t like how Snoke looks, I don’t like that he spends most of the movie sitting in a chair and I think the gold robe is a bit much. Snoke reveals that it was he that bridged their minds and stoked Kylo Ren’s conflicted feelings to lure her here and locate Luke.

Poe wakes up and is told, finally, that there’s a planet they’re heading to called Crait, home of an abandoned but heavily armoured rebel base. Leia remarks that she was more interested in protecting the light than appearing to be a hero and yes, this is what Poe’s character arc was. But unfortunately the consequences come home to roost, the thief has sold the First Order the cloaking codes, and now the First Order is bearing down on them, wiping out their transports.

Snoke has what he needs from Rey and orders Kylo Ren to end her life, his slightly blurred vision doesn’t see that he’s actually going to kill him instead.

OK, let’s talk about Snoke. I actually think it was kinda clever to have Kylo Ren do this on his own, and not train an apprentice to do it together like the usual method. It show’s he’s not using the Sith way of thinking, part of his ‘let the past die’ motif. But Snoke himself has no real character. One could say the same for the Emperor, though (before the prequels) so I don’t judge it as harshly as others.

After this is the closest thing we get to a lightsaber fight in the entire movie: Kylo Ren and Rey against the crimson guard. This fight shows fairly clearly that Kylo Ren is the superior fighter, even if he ends needing to be saved by Rey at the end. Rey asks him to spare the fleet but he refuses. He offers Rey a chance to join his new order.

And we finally get the reveal of who Rey’s parents where: they’re unimportant and they’re dead now. And much like a lot of things, I know this has sparked some ire amongst fans but let me try and justify it, reasonably they could’ve gone down 1 of 3 routes with this

Option 1: Have Rey be a descendant of an original cast member – this was the most common theory but leaves open the question of why they would abandon her on Jakku, you would most likely have ended up angry if any of them had done this

Option 2: Have Rey’s parents be new characters – this requires introducing and developing new characters, this film already has too many as it is, and there’s little new that can be gained from this

Option 3: Brush the question aside – maybe they do this with a lot of JJ Abrams’ questions, but that’s because they were badly set up in the first place, which is why I think this was the best option for the movie to go with. There was also fair hints in the Force Awakens that Rey's parents weren't good people, the whole speech Maz speech about accepting that they weren't coming back now speaks to the audience as well.

The inclination that Rey and Kylo harbour romantic feelings to each other is a bit awkward, but to business, Holdo begins turning her ship around, Rey makes a grab for her lightsaber and Finn and Rose are about to executed. Holdo jumps to lightspeed and passes through Snoke’s ship and several Star Destroyers behind it in what I consider the best 10 seconds or so of the entire movie. I count 6 ships left, down from the 30 that left. The explosion interrupts their execution and Finn and Rose make a break but are stopped by Phasma and stormtroopers, help arrives as BB8 has taken control of a walker and fires on them.

Finn and Phasma fight and honestly there’s a deleted scene here that really shouldn’t have been cut out. And Phasma dies, presumably. Is it too much to ask to have her do something? I have no idea what the intention was for her character but nothing really came of her. Finn and Rose escape and apparently Rey took Snoke’s escape craft off-screen. Hux sees Snoke’s body and almost draws his gun to kill Kylo Ren. Kylo chokes him and makes himself the new leader.

On Crait, the resistance close the heavily armoured shield door, and Finn and Rose make it in just in time. They’ve got shields to prevent any orbital attacks and now plan to send out a distress beacon using whatever power they have left. And the hits just keep on coming, the Empire have a battering ram cannon that uses miniaturised Death Star tech and will crack open their big shield door. Needing to buy time, they decide to make a run for the cannon.

The planet’s ground is made of salt, which makes for an interesting visual as their speeders skim the ground and bring up a red dust. TIE Fighters make their approach and take out some speeders and most of the base’s outer defences. The resistance have one last bit of help with the return of the Falcon, with Rey acting as the gunner and Chewbacca as the pilot, the TIEs all pursue the falcon, drawing them away from the speeders.

They draw the TIE’s into the caverns and use Chewie’s superior flying to destroy them. Seeing that the they’re being picked off, Poe decides to call off the attack, seemingly having learned his lesson, but Finn is less interested in doing that and is willing to sacrifice himself to do it, Finn’s charge is stopped when Rose charges from the side. Her reasoning for doing this is rather dumb, all things considered, and the two kiss before she passes out.

Though the signal’s been received, no-one appears to be answering it, and as Leia is about to give in to despair, a cloaked figure walks into the base, it’s Luke, making his return to the story. He tells her he’s here to face Kylo Ren, they hold hands and he passes on the dice. Remember this for me. Luke walks through the burnt exit of the resistance base and right into the sight-lines of Kylo Ren, he orders that every gun they have fire on Luke, and the effect of the red dust is that it cleverly hides the fact that there's no blood. Hux stops the shooting, thinking they must’ve got him but as the dust settles, Luke is just fine.

Kylo drops down to face Luke. Poe realises he’s buying them time to escape. Luke draws his lightsaber and you might notice it’s blue, the colour of his original lightsaber. Seeing that the crystal wolves have escaped somehow, they begin to follow them. Rey notices the wolves from above, squeezing through rocks. Rey arrives and has to move them. During the fight between Luke and Kylo Ren, Luke never actually strikes him.

Luke gives the whole ‘strike me down and I’ll always be with you’ line and Kylo strikes him down, except Luke isn’t really there, he’s a force projection from the planet Luke’s still on. That is really powerful, but why eb up the concentration to project the dice? That’s kinda dumb. Luke collapses from the effort and as the sun sets Luke disappears. If there’s one thing I agree on with regards to Luke’s character arc, is that him dying ultimately adds nothing.

Kylo Ren, Hux and the stormtroopers storm the cavern but they’re already too late, he sees Rey one last time as she shuts the door on him. Rey and Poe finally meet, Chewie and Leia finally hug and Rey and Leia discuss Luke’s death and him being at peace. And from 400 at the start, they now only have enough that can fit in the Falcon.

Back on Canto Bight we see some of the slaves re-enacting something with Luke, and one of them looking out at the sky, wearing the resistance ring, hope may yet return. Yup, that was worth it…

And this was the Last Jedi and…

I get what people mean when the think this isn’t like a regular Star Wars movie. There are multiple subplots, a larger cast of characters that are focused on and less time spent with them all together. Rey is not active part of the Resistance plot-line until the final battle. The lack of lightsaber duels is also a factor here.

At nearly 2 and half hours, it’s too long, it needed to be trimmed down. Star Wars has always been comfortable around the 2 hour mark, this should’ve stuck to that I think.

Writing-wise there are some definite flaws, most notably the stupidity of the space-chase that became the crux of the Resistance plot. Rian Johnson wrote and directed this and he’s much better a director than he is a writer. That said, he was tasked with writing part 2 of a series he didn’t start, and that comes with its own issues, especially given the mystery box JJ Abrams left us with. A lot of the flaws people perceive from the Last Jedi can be traced back to the Force Awakens

I’ve avoided talking about Rose, because anyone who harassed her on social media can go f*ck a statue of Donald Trump. But her character is underdeveloped, and her relationship with Finn is rushed at the end.

The movie is visually gorgeous, it’s one of the best-looking movies of the same year that had Blade Runner 2049.

For me, I like this movie a lot, and can see past a lot of its flaws. Rian Johnson is still poised to helm a new Star Wars trilogy and I’m curious to see what he comes up with.

Rating -300%

Alright, I'm sure if I get comments there are going to be plenty that tell me I'm full of sh*t, which is fine, but I'm not replying to comments on this and I will not reference the Last Jedi in any non Star Wars review.