The Last Jedi: A movie made for stupid people with ADHD
by The Star Wars Reviewer
Lost somewhere in the middle of this interminably long, disjointed, boring, and often cringeworthy construction of a heretical film, there was an especially poignant - if unintentional - scene. Luke Skywalker, the now grayed and bearded old Jedi master, reunites with his long time trusted droid, R2-D2 aboard the Millenium Falcon. Forty years ago, it was this duo that first met in the original Star Wars film, when the droid’s iconic hologram message from Princess Leia, “Help me Obi-wan Kenobi, you’re my only hope!” captured Luke’s attention and sent him on his way, battling for freedom against the evil forces of the Galactic Empire.
During that first meeting, Luke was a young, fresh-faced hero. He was brash. He had his entire life ahead of him, and he wanted nothing more than to leave his middle-of-nowhere existence and find adventure and greater purpose in life. The beautiful Princess Leia’s message was urgent. Her desperation was a call for immediate action, to save her, to save everyone in the galaxy, and Luke was ready and able to accept that heroic task.
Fast forward many decades to this latest abomination of a Star Wars sequel, The Last Jedi, and what director Kathleen Kennedy gives us…erm, I mean director Rian Johnson… is yet another tired retread. More calls for nostalgia. A very visibly aged, yet distinguished, Mark Hamill (Luke) looks around the set of the ship, acknowledges he wants nothing to do with the plot that these writers have drawn up, and then watches the famous hologram before telling his sidekick, “Those were the good old days, huh? Is this what Star Wars has really become?”
No, of course Luke did not say those words, but the audience could hear him thinking them out loud anyway. In the middle of another bad movie, one with so much clutter and attention-distracting junk filled all over the screen, one that felt like an unfortunate mashup of Spaceballs meets Marvel Superheroes, this one scene was the only thing that felt like Star Wars really should feel like. It was vintage, plucked from another time, from a galaxy far far away, and inserted for reflection into a highly corporate toy and game commercial. To answer the pertinent question: yes Luke, like Sitting Bull doing racist stage performances for white men in Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West show, mockery for corporate money is indeed what you and Star Wars have become. Well done.
The Last Jedi starts out with perhaps the single most mustache-twirling villain of all mustache-twirling villains, General Hux (Domnall Gleeson), commanding a fleet of the generically evil First Order as it pursues Princess Leia (the late Carrie Fisher) and her band of freedom fighters across the galaxy. The audience is treated to space pursuit shots, followed by close ups of Hux sneering one liners into the camera. Then the audience gets to see more space pursuit shots, followed by more sneering one liners. General Hux honestly feels like a parody James Bond villain, taken straight out of an Austin Powers movie–inspiration The Last Jedi returns to over and over again.
The rest of the plot continues as follows:
After the evil villains engage in off-tone comedic buffoonery (wait, what??) reminiscent of Dark Helmet and Colonel Sandurz, the less than intimidating bad guys counter-intuitively manage to blow up the protagonists’ main ship, killing (General) Princess Leia in the process. But wait…what happens next? What happens next could best be described as Leia’s Space Jesus Moment, where her dead body floats through space and then magically comes back to life. She extends her arm forward and flies across the darkness, until she reaches the safety and oxygen of another friendly ship and its intensive care unit. She then sleeps in a coma until the end of the film.
After this bizarre and awful opening, the story cuts away to a remote island location, where Luke Skywalker is hiding like a coward from his enemies, abandoning his friends, and having visions of that one time where he tried to murder a young boy. Ha ha! But if that doesn’t sound like Star Wars to you, don’t worry, the good filmmakers at Disney have so much more! There are cute and cuddly CGI animals which multiply like rabbits all over the screen. You are sure to notice them, so make sure you look in the online catalogue and buy, buy, buy! There is also bathroom humor. And AT-STs. And Yoda, there has to be Yoda. Now Disney can merchandise him too!
Meanwhile, talented Jedi-in-training Rey (played competently enough by Daisy Ridley) has sought out Skywalker’s help and instruction at his remote medieval fortress. She needs to become stronger in The Force if she’s ever going to beat that Kylo Ren bad guy (Adam Driver) who she already beat in the last movie. Or maybe she needs Luke to come out of retirement and defeat CGI monster Supreme Leader Snoke, who dresses like Goldmember from another Austin Powers movie, and gets killed with little effort by…you guessed it…the bad guy Rey already defeated before.
So much for challenging our heroines, huh?
But difficult challenges would only serve as distractions from what really matters in these movies, and that’s all of the bullshit that has been intentionally designed to sell something to every demographic Disney can possibly imagine. The days of Star Wars invoking archetypes and its stories serving as communal bonding experiences that drew people together through common struggle are long since gone. Watching these new films is like watching a series of commercials while on an amusement park ride. There is some Star Wars-y stuff here, and some things that kind of resemble Star Wars over there. But even if you come across a scene you like, there is no time to let it breath or develop on its own. The car must quickly whisk you away, because after all, there are many more attractions that must be seen and many more products that must be sold.
Just beware of the warning signs: stay off this ride!
0 out of 4 stars
(this was personally the worst Star Wars movie I have ever seen)
