Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi Review

Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi Review

We’ve made it to the month of May, which means we can say we’re getting a new Star Wars movie this month with The Mandalorian & Grogu. Today we’re talking about the most celebrated and beloved Star Wars movie of all time, The Last Jedi. In all seriousness, this is an interesting film to talk about because it’s where the Star Wars fandom split in half. There’s so much conversation as to whether or not this is a cinematic masterpiece or a cinematic dumpster fire. What side do I fall on? Let’s talk about it! 

The Good

I’ll just cut right to the chase here, I fully acknowledge the faults of The Last Jedi. The film has a few faults that we’ll talk about later, but I’m on the side that’s more positive on the film. I think there’s enough good ideas and moments that make for a solid Star Wars adventure. This film is infamous for being a film that subverts expectations and not always in the right way. That’s a completely fair reason for why somebody might not connect with this movie. I sort of just appreciate Rian Johnson’s ambition for doing something different with Star Wars. It feels like he heard the criticism of The Force Awakens for being too formulaic to A New Hope and playing it safe, so he tried to make a movie that would subvert expectations and give the audience something they weren’t expecting. I appreciate that about this movie, that Johnson wasn’t afraid to take risks. I think the outcome of Johnson’s ambition led to the destruction of the Star Wars fandom and polarized it. In the long run, was it a smart move? Maybe not. But you can appreciate what Johnson is going for. In general, I’ve never been as negative towards this movie as several other people have been. Maybe some of it was coming off the excitement of The Force Awakens and getting to see Luke back was super exciting. This is a movie that when it came out there was still a lot of excitement for it. I remember seeing this movie opening night with my dad and the audience clapping and cheering at multiple points in the film. When I rewatch this movie I have this nostalgic feeling of watching this movie with my dad and feeling like I’m a part of an event. 

As for the movie itself, the thing I don’t think anybody can deny about it is that it looks gorgeous. Johnson made the most polarizing Star Wars movie but also made the best looking Star Wars movie. There’s so many shots in this movie that just look very cool and unlike anything we’ve seen in Star Wars. One of the positives I listed about The Force Awakens, is that I appreciated that they shot on location so it makes the Star Wars world feel bigger. I think you can apply that praise to this film as well, where it feels like it’s in these big locations. A big portion of the film is shot on Luke’s island and it’s a gorgeous looking island, it’s off the coast of Ireland which is known for the scenery. When you’re getting these sequences of Daisy Ridley and Mark Hamill exploring this island it’s some of the most gorgeous imagery and locations present in a Star Wars movie. Beyond that, the cinematography and CGI are also top notch. So much so that there’s debate as to if The Last Jedi is a “great movie” but a bad Star Wars movie. I’m a defender of this movie, I’ve never described The Last Jedi as bad but I do think there’s some truth to that statement, that it’s a movie that’s better on technical levels then on an actual Star Wars movie and story level. Even some of the standout sequences of the film look very cool. For me, the throne room sequence is the best sequence of the film and it looks gorgeous. The red background and lighting makes it look more distinct amongst Star Wars sequences. The salt planet in the third act with the red dirt underneath is once again very cool to look at. Easily, I think Johnson made the best looking Star Wars movie and there’s not really a debate in my mind. 

Another thing about this movie is the characters and the performances. We’ll talk more about Luke later on, but it’s great to see him again. Luke is one of the most iconic movie characters of all time and getting to see him again is really cool. Mark Hamill delivers the best performance as Luke Skywalker in this movie. You see how he’s evolved as an actor from A New Hope to The Last Jedi. Hamill’s performance in A New Hope is one of the weakest aspects of that film. You get to The Last Jedi and you see that he’s evolved as an actor and delivering a great performance. It helps that we’re seeing Luke in a very different point in life from where we saw him in Return of the Jedi. There’s more depth and meat to Luke’s character and his arc to allow an actor to deliver a better performance. I don’t know if this is a career best performance for Hamill, but it’s certainly up there as one of his best. Our four leads, Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac, and Adam Driver are really solid in these films. I said this about The Force Awakens but I really like all of them as actors. I wish that Ridley and Boyega’s careers were better after Star Wars. I don’t really know why they’ve sort of disappeared after Rise of Skywalker. Especially with Driver, I feel like with this movie and Rise of Skywalker, he delivers a great performance. Kylo Ren is given more to do. He’s not bad in The Force Awakens, but because of the nature of the character he’s not given much to do. When you watch this film he’s given more dramatic moments as Kylo Ren is evolving. Where he’s having to play this conflicted character very much caught between these two worlds, the light side and the dark side. When he’s partnered up a lot with Ridley in the back half of the film, he’s doing some really good acting. You also get some great veteran actors in here with Laura Dern and Benicio del Toro that are of course great, they’re great in everything they’re in but it’s cool to see them join the Star Wars universe.

Finally, going back to what I’ve said earlier, this is a very thematic film. It’s a film that’s exploring all of these different themes and ideas. With the title of the movie being “Last Jedi”, the movie is exploring these ideas about failure and legacy. Where Luke is faulting himself for what went down with Ren when he was still Ben Solo. But Luke’s impact during the original trilogy means that he has this legacy of being a great Jedi knight. Even with Ren there’s some similar ideas being explored here that connect with the internal conflict that he’s going through. Where you have this character that’s a failure to the First Order, Supreme Leader Snoke isn’t very happy with him after the events of The Force Awakens and Rey getting away. But because Ren’s parents, Han Solo and Leia are these great figures in the Star Wars universe he’s being tempted by the goodness of their legacy and even Luke’s legacy through Rey. The way that the exploration of themes and ideas are explored and tied into the character arcs is very interesting. This is probably the most thematic Star Wars movie, where we haven’t really gotten a Star Wars movie that’s exploring this many ideas and connecting them to the character arcs. Even the conflict between the Resistance and the First Order is built around these ideas of failure and legacy. 

The Bad

The big thing here is that I think there’s a number of very strange character choices whether that’s from old or new characters that I don’t think really work. The big one people talk about is Luke’s character arc and I’ve heard a lot of people say that this movie destroyed Luke as a character and that’s why they don’t like this movie. I wouldn’t go as far to say that this movie ruined Luke, but I think they needed to do a better job of explaining things. The Luke that we see at the end of Return of the Jedi doesn’t feel like the same Luke we see at the beginning of this film. The film explains what happened and he saw the darkness within Ben Solo and what not. There’s an interesting idea in there that maybe could’ve been interesting and a more satisfying explanation. But the reason they gave doesn’t explain why he went into hiding for years. Sure, he failed Ben Solo but that doesn’t mean that he should’ve gone to this island and wanted the Jedi to end. They needed a stronger explanation in there to make it make sense and buy into Luke’s journey. The film introduces three new characters with Rose Tico, Vice Admiral Holdo, and DJ. Two of them are played by great Oscar winning actors and I don’t find any of them interesting. Kelly Marie Tran who plays Rose isn’t a bad actress, I’m sure she’s a lovely person. But Rose doesn’t make sense to be in this movie whatsoever. You can see what they’re trying to do with the Rose character and her relationship with Finn. For different reasons they’re mad about the First Order and evil governments so that’s something that they bond over. But when the film is trying to have urgency of trying to get information back to the Resistance and we stop to release salved animals it’s trying to prove a point that I don’t think makes sense in the context of the film. She makes some stupid decisions in the third act like running into Finn’s ship trying to save him, but with how she did it she could’ve gotten both of them killed. There’s a version of this movie where Rose didn’t need to be here. Holdo played by Laura Dern is a very frustrating character because she’s being dismissive towards Poe but in a way that makes her irritating but not compelling. She’s hiding information from both Poe and the audience for no reason, there’s no explanation as to why she’s not telling Poe or any other characters her plan. DJ isn’t a bad character but when you get somebody like Benicio del Toro to play him you want more from him. When I clicked play on this movie, I forgot that he was in the movie. When you cast Benicio del Toro in your Star Wars movie, I shouldn’t forget that he’s there. I don’t hate all of the character work in the film, but a good percentage of it doesn’t work for me at all. 

The other thing here is that while I appreciate Rian Johnson for trying something different and subverting expectations of a Star Wars fan, there’s some of that I don’t think works. Had this movie and The Force Awakens built up more to the subversion turns the movie takes maybe they could’ve worked but as is they don’t. The subversion of expectations leads to disappointment in the end. The two big examples of this come in the last 40% of the film. In the throne room sequence to which I love, they kill off Snoke. Does it subvert the expectations and surprise the audience that Snoke dies? Yes it does. But does that make for a great story or twist in the context of the film? No it doesn’t. Snoke should’ve been a much more interesting villain, he should’ve been the trilogy long villain that’s similar to The Emperor, but also different in other ways. They kill him off and they waste Andy Serkis, motion capture royalty Andy Serkis in this totally forgettable villain. We don’t know anything about him and not in a way that makes him intriguing or interesting, it makes him a bad villain. You can see what Johnson was trying to do with Kylo Ren killing Snoke gives Rey and the audience hope that he’ll turn to the good side, but you don’t want to see Snoke die in this movie. You want to see him die in the next film. The other big subversion of expectations here is Luke not actually being in the final battle. One of the things that audiences were most looking forward to with this film is Luke in an epic lightsaber battle. This movie teases that, it teases that we’re going to get a lightsaber duel between Luke and Kylo Ren and then SURPRISE…it’s not actually Luke it’s a force projection of him. Why? Because Rian Johnson wanted to subvert expectations. Seeing this movie opening night my audience was cheering during that moment. Looking back on that nine years later it’s a moment that’s incredibly frustrating because it means we never got Old Man Luke in a lightsaber duel and that’s disappointing. It’s something that audiences wanted to see.

Finally, this is something that I said about The Force Awakens and I’ll say about this movie and probably about The Rise of Skywalker. But this film is a victim of Disney Star Wars not having a plan for what they wanted to do with this trilogy. This movie is such a weird middle chapter in this trilogy because everything that was established in The Force Awakens doesn’t matter in this movie and then everything in this movie doesn’t matter in Rise of Skywalker. This movie answers the question of who Rey’s parents are, they’re nobody. I guess JJ Abrams didn’t like that answer or something. He changed it in Rise of Skywalker to give a more satisfying answer. For a lack of a better word, this movie feels pointless in the context of the trilogy because it’s the only one not directed by JJ Abrams. 

Final Thoughts: This is an interesting film because no matter what side you fall on, you have a passionate opinion about it. I’ve never met anybody that just says this movie is fine and forgettable. You either really like or love this movie or you hate this movie. I’m on the more positive side but I get why people don’t like this movie. It makes a number of very stupid decisions that rightfully angered and split the Star Wars fanbase. No matter what review I give this movie, people are going to strongly disagree with me. 

The Score: 8.3/10 (B)