A warning: It's very long, and full of spoilers.
But I want to address Episode 8 specifically in case anyone stumbles on this blog site, and doesn't want to read my thoughts about flaws in all those movies. So, here is my review of Star Wars Episode 8: The Last Jedi.
I dislike the movie a lot. I think it's terrible plot writing; terrible disrespect to the characters I actually care about; and I think it's full of useless of garbage. If I had to rate it on a percentile overall, I'd put it at about 17%, or 17 out of 100. And I'm shocked and confused that I have friends who like this movie. Shocked and confused also that it's getting good reviews in general. And I'm frustrated that my friends don't understand some things I consider glaringly obvious. I'll try to share my thoughts in more detail now that I've summarized my opinion.
~ Spoilers Follow ~
Bad: Overall Plot Concept
This movie is the middle one, and the bad guys have to make progress like in Empire Strikes Back so that there's some tension in the overall story. I can support that. But the writers screwed up hard with the use of the slow chase scene for most of the movie. We are shown the Resistance escaping from their base where presumably they just fueled up. Then we see the Resistance jump to hyperspace to escape the First Order fleet that got there just as the Resistance is leaving. Then we get the trap: the First Order can track you so jumping to hyperspace doesn't save you anymore. Then we are told that the Resistance ships can move just fast enough to keep to maximum range away from the First Order, so the shots that hit them can be handled by the shields just fine. But don't get comfortable... they have a time limit: they're running out of fuel.The plot of the movie is that the Resistance is trying to figure out how to escape from this ridiculously contrived set up. It's stupid because the writers tried really hard to keep the Resistance on their ship for the whole movie using lazy tricks that don't fit the setting. A capital ship running out of fuel when there's technology that can absorb an entire star in a matter of minutes (which is also infuriatingly dumb) makes no sense at all. And I wasn't pleased by the idea anyway. It feels like too much of a set up.
I hate the fundamental plot.
Bad: Treatment of Leia
With this dumb plot that includes Leia being stuck in a command center or medical recovery room for the entire movie, the only thing that can be considered a shining moment for her can be summed up as "I survived being blown out into space, by using the Force." What a huge let down. She had some okay lines, but for a main character, she's atrociously under-used, and her shining moment is dumb. It's an offense against the character.I hate the writers for mistreating Leia and Carrie Fisher
Bad: Treatment of Luke
I'm totally okay with Luke having lost his way, and coming back from it. I even enjoyed the scene he gets using his new Force power to stand up to the invading walkers and Kylo Ren. But why the heck would you kill Luke Skywalker? They had an opportunity to have Luke make a bunch of realizations and then be an awesome contributing character to every Star Wars movie to come. But he gets a brief moment, and then dies? What-the-ever-Christing-ignorance-on-a-stick?! This is simply infuriating! I wanted to see Luke and Leia after 30 years having both trained; both owning lightsabers; and both getting a chance to be incredible in this movie. But instead it feels like the writers hate the original trilogy, and are doing everything they can to ruin the original characters.I hate the writers for mistreating Luke and Mark Hamill
Now notice I haven't really talked about the new characters yet. Why? Because I don't care about them. I like them well enough I suppose, but they're not what I want in my Star Wars. I don't want them to be the main characters yet. I want Episodes 7, 8, and 9 to be the continued stories of Han, Chewy, Luke, and Leia, as they pass the torch to the next group of adventurers. Rey, Finn, Poe, and Kylo are all fine characters... but I don't care about them yet, and they're not what I want to focus on. However, because I love writing, I'll continue this review and talk about the other stuff in the movie too...
Bad: Finn's Story Line
As I said, I like Finn well enough as a character. In Episode 7, I like his introduction and character writing. It's entertaining how socially awkward he is because of his rather awful upbringing, and he's got a lot of good lines. In Episode 8 however... he's basically meaningless, but still takes up a bunch of time in the movie. The casino side story was a fine commentary on the immorality of business, but that's not what I want in my Star Wars movie, and it did nothing for the story. Finn accomplishes basically nothing. It might have been better if they left him recovering in a bacta suit for the whole movie.
Good: Poe's Story Line
I actually like this part of Episode 8. It's the only story/plot related thing that I do like about the movie. They show Poe being impulsive at the beginning of the movie, making the choice to attack the big First Order ship. He's happy that they destroyed a First Order ship, and then we see his first lesson. Leia scolds him for spending so many lives to do it... for making the decision to attack for so little gain at the cost of so many. And as the movie goes on we get to see Poe being hit with knowledge that leadership is a heavy burden that takes a lot more thought than he was using to that point. I like this part.
Bad: Rey and Kylo's Story Line
I think I'm okay with the communication through the Force that Rey and Kylo had. I'm okay with it being a new way of using the Force that we haven't seen yet. But it feels like super lazy writing again. They wanted Rey and Kylo to have the ability to talk without them fighting each other immediately. But I don't feel like anything important was done that couldn't have been done a different way. Yeah... I think that's it. I don't feel like much important was done with those characters; I feel like what was done, was done poorly; and I feel like we wasted too much time on them for too little benefit.
Bad: Use of the Snoke Character
I admit it was pretty cool the way Kylo ended Snoke. But I feel like the writers missed a really important set of things they could have done with Snoke. First, who is he? Where did he come from? Who is this guy that is apparently powerful with the Force? What are the Knights of Ren? With the Sith gone, where did this group come from? There's a whole chunk of the setting that could have been fleshed out, but now it feels like Snoke is a throwaway character. Now it feels like something they were setting up is just not getting used. I'm disappointed.
Conclusion
Star Wars Episode 8: The Last Jedi is a very poorly written movie with very little in the way of redeeming qualities. I hate the abuse of the original trilogy characters, and the rest of the stuff in the movie was just not engaging.
Ratings
Just to give you an idea of how I'd rate the other movies too, so you can get a better feel for my thoughts on Star Wars in general...- Episode 1: The Phantom Menace - 0 out of 100 (worst movie)
- Episode 2: Attack of the Clones - 12 out of 100 (awful movie with terrible romance writing)
- Episode 3: Revenge of the Sith - 14 out of 100 (awful movie with a special effects extravaganza instead of an emotional battle between close friends)
- Episode 4: A New Hope - 92 out of 100
- Episode 5: Empire Strikes Back - 95 out of 100
- Episode 6: Return of the Jedi - 98 out of 100 (the points are only lost for this one because of the ewoks)
- Episode 7: The Force Awakens - 40 out of 100 (too much focus on the new characters, and Han's death while necessary was dumb. It gets as many points as it does because of some of the great lines, and the awesome scene where Chewbacca goes into beast mode and ruins bad guys)
- Episode 8: The Last Jedi - 17 out of 100 (I'm really only giving it a higher score than the prequels because the prequels still seem worse to me)
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