Here are two links from the same critic. The first discusses weaknesses in RJ’s story, and argues that TLJ’s biggest weakness is, that the story doesn’t go anywhere. There are no consequences.
Short summary:
"In The Last Jedi, a lot happens. But not a lot happens for long. Leia’s sudden and unexpected death only proceeds her jarring return to life.
Kylo Ren’s betrayal of Snoke, which leads to a team-up with Rey and himself against Snoke’s guards, implies his redemption… But it isn’t long lasting as his actions hardly reflect his intentions. After the fight, he has to explain himself to Rey, and how they still aren’t on the same side.
This is a classic break from “show, don’t tell.” Kylo has to tell us his motives for the scene to make sense. He essentially retcons the entire sequence, because it might as well not have happened. The scene ends up telling us nothing new. Kylo Ren is a bad guy. But we were already aware of that. Actions should speak for a character, but in the most powerful scene of the film, they don’t.
Lastly, when Luke finally faces Kylo, there’s a moment where we’re meant to believe this is the end for the Jedi Master. It seems as if Luke has accepted his fate as Kylo runs toward him with his blade drawn. Luke literally tells him something similar to what Ben Kenobi tells Darth Vader: “If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.”
Luke seems fearless. But then, we realize Luke has nothing to fear after all. He’s not even actually there. This scene is meant for us to anticipate Luke’s death, only for it to be revealed he’s fine… Only for it to be revealed a moment later that he dies anyway."
Both these points seem incredibly pedantic and overinflated to me.
In the first instance, “show don’t tell” does not mean either that dialogue is redundant in cinema, or that actions and dialogue always have to be in perfect concert, especially regarding villains (who are often by nature duplicitous or unstable). The entire point of the throne room sequence is to set up an expectation (Kylo will side with Rey) that is then upended; in much the same way as the action at the end of ESB sets up an expectation (Vader wants to kill Luke) that is then contradicted by dialogue (“I am your father”) rather than action.
On the second point, he’s just being incredibly literal. The entire subtext of the dialogue is not that whether Luke will literally be struck down - Luke has already made it clear throughout the film that he does not fear death - but that in opposing him, Kylo ensures Luke’s reputation will echo throughout the galaxy and that thousands will be inspired by his example, which we see happen in the final scene.
To say there are no consequences to the events in the film is absurdly reductive, and frankly typical of the wilfully and uncharitably misreading “criticism” I’ve seen so much of about this film.
I think what the critic was trying to get at is that the story does its best to deflate its own most interesting ideas. There are obviously consequences and character progression, it’s just that these moments are ultimately not as consequential as we are first led to believe.
Leia is blown out into space, presumably to her death! But wait, she’s using the Force in a way we’ve never seen from her before! Has she had substantial training in those thirty years? Has the Force suddenly ‘awakened’ in her as well, making her the ‘new hope’ for the galaxy that Luke suggested in ROTJ?
No, sorry. It was just an instinctual reaction to her impending death and her Force powers will not be a big factor in the rest of the movie.
Kylo kills Snoke! Now he’s teaming up with Rey against the goofy red guards! Will he really turn to Rey’s side and will they strike out together in a new direction in order to prevent a repeat of Rebels vs Empire that we got in the previous trilogy?
No, sorry. Kylo’s still a bad egg and Rey still has a deep loyalty to the Jedi ideals (despite her teachers hating them) and the Resistance (despite knowing them for maybe a day at most). And it will be a Rebels vs Empire situation quite explicitly until the end of the movie.
You get the idea. The movie goes in some interesting directions, but it seems to make a point of teasing these truly interesting directions and pulling it back to something much more tame.
No, one of the points of this film is that anyone can use the force. Not everyone is powerful enough, but people who are powerful enough can come from anywhere. This is implicit in the PT Jedi code - attachment is forbidden and by extrapolations, so is procreation. That means that none of the powerful Jedi we see came from a long line of Jedi in the family. So if being powerful only runs in the blood, where did all the PT Jedi come from?
I don’t see what this has to do with my point. I don’t really care about Leia’s Force powers, since they don’t really affect the story, but the movie spends its time showing this impressive feat with sweeping wide shots and powerful music as if it has totally changed the game in terms of Leia’s role in the story, only to drop that and have nobody speak of it again. Cut from the bridge explosion to Leia unconscious and nothing is lost from a story perspective.
The movie does go in many interesting directions, but this is the middle chapter and we did not see a resolution to any of them. This lack of resolution leads to this erroneous conclusion that this movie did not further the story. It furthered the characters and changed them. It tackled grander things than the Resistance/Republic/First Order conflict, which it left mostly in limbo.
Are you mistakenly talking about ESB, where the larger war was in limbo? Because in TFA, the First Order was treated as a sort of terrorist fringe organization, whereas in TLJ it all-but rules the galaxy.
Besides, this is again missing the point. The critic is saying that we are first given a very interesting direction which is quickly undermined in favor of a far less interesting direction. It would be like Vader saying ‘I am your father!’ and Yoda later saying ‘Messing with you, Vader was. Your father, he definitely isn’t’ and that being that.And we know from ROTJ that Leia is strong in the force and like her brother in TESB (who grabbed his light saber with no known training of doing that) she grabbed a ship and in keeping with the laws of physics, she moved not the ship. Rey, Leia, and the boy at the end show us that anyone can use the force, from a Skywalker to a stable boy.
That’s all very nice, but again, what does it have to do with anything? We already assumed that Leia had the capability of doing what Luke could do (even if it was left undeveloped). Why would Rian bother to show us what we already assume unless these powers are called upon later in the movie? Luke and his lightsaber is a set up for the duel with Vader, where he is now able to pull himself up out of the Carbonite pit. It shows the progression of his skills. Leia’s ability is one-and-done.
My point, which you seem to have missed and which is in answer to your previous post is that this movie is showing us that you don’t have to be trained to use the force. And it only makes sense. I an a galaxy of trillions of beings, no every force sensitive will end up being a Jedi. In ROTJ Leia recognizes she is too old (she already has her calling - one that if you look at it closely relies on the force). Now she is even older but when the need arises, she is able to tap into that power. She does something she must have seen Luke (and maybe Kylo) do hundreds of times. The main thrust of the saga has been the Skywalker line, but this movie gets back to showing the wider picture. If anyone can be strong enough to be a Jedi, and if basic training doesn’t take that long, it won’t take generations to rebuild the Jedi order. While Leia using the force doesn’t impact her story, it has a huge impact on the greater story, as does Rey and the stable boy.
And the First Order is far from just a terrorist organization in TFA. It is shown to be a large and formidable threat. That threat comes to the forefront when they use the weapon to destroy the Hosnian system. That is not a random terrorist attack, but a targeted first salvo in a war aimed at takeover. On the First Order side, this movie starts off being a simple mission to wipe out the Resistance base and they first loose the Dreadnaught and then Snoke’s ship (not to mention Snoke himself). Then Kylo has a very embarassing encounter with Luke. But the larger invasion plan is not furthered at all, just like in TESB the Rebellion’s cause is not furthered at all. And what Kylo told Rey about her parents is a very key part of the story. How he told it isn’t, but the details are. He used it to put her down and then try to lure her to the dark side. But the essence of what he said is that a anybody can be a Jedi. It is a reminder that the Old Republic Jedi were nobodies. All pulled from their families as children and raised in the order to be a Jedi. None born to it. No great Jedi families. Just nobodies. Rey doesn’t have to be a Skywalker or Kenobi or anything else. Who were these other student’s of Luke’s? They were not Skywalkers, just Ben. So an underlying message of TLJ is that you don’t have to be a Skywalker to be a Jedi and you don’t have to be a Jedi to use the force. Leia’s use of the force is part of that. The rest of her story isn’t impacted, but the greater story is.