Saturday, December 16, 2017

Star Wars: The Last Jedi - Ambitious. Confusing. Maddening.

So, regular readers to this blog and those who know me well, know that my love of Star Wars runs deep - 40 years deep - ever since my Dad took me to see the original Star Wars back in 1977.

I went to see The Last Jedi yesterday with my family, replicating that first excursion to Star Wars all those years ago. For my 8 year old daughter, it was a special occasion as it was our first cinematic experience of Star Wars together.



It was always going to be special. 

I came away from The Last Jedi not really knowing what to think. To absorb something set in a fictional universe you've loved for 40 years is always a challenge, simply because you're emotionally invested in it. You have skin in this game. 

So, 24 hours later, what do I think about this film?

It's complicated.



I'm still trying to process exactly what I saw in The Last Jedi. Undoubtedly, it was the most complex Star Wars film of the saga to date but, I think they were too ambitious in some aspects of the film.


So here goes...

The Last Jedi was half an hour too long. It made several attempts at comedy, some of which was good, some was not so good and some ran dangerously close to breaching that fourth wall. It was cringe worthy. Characters - both new and established - did things in this film that seemed out of place for Star Wars and, at times, it jarred badly. That wasn't something I expected.

If I'm to compare The Last Jedi - the middle act of a three act play - with it's spiritual predecessor, the Empire Strikes Back, this film should have adhered to two or three key story threads and ran with them to a cliffhanger. The Last Jedi went with around six or seven and of those, none were satisfyingly resolved or parked for the third act. They were confusing and and they detracted from the strengths of the film.

And much of the story didn't need to be there. For example, the Canto Bight sequences. For all its Bond-esque bombast and chintz, this thread was brutally unsatisfying and it didn't need to be there.

See the thing is - they had a perfect plot device that would have explained the First Order being able to track the Resistance through hyperspace. They had a black BB unit on the bridge of the Raddus, *next to BB8* early in the film! 

That Droid *could* have been the node the First Order were using to track the Resistance ship through hyperspace!

Writer/Director Rian Johnson could have dropped clues to the presence of this droid throughout out the film and dispensed with Canto Bight altogether. In the process they would've saved potentially 20 minutes of run time and kept the story more contained. 

Finn and Rose could still have had their character moments in searching for the node and it would have been a lot more satisfying. 

The whole DJ subplot - that crafty code breaker played (poorly) by Benicio Del Toro - where he eventually sold Finn and Rose out on the deck of Snoke's Super Dooper Star Destroyer - it was a messy way to get where they needed to go.

The supporting players in this film - some of them established, some newcomers - fell surprisingly flat, despite their acting chops. Kelly Marie Tran's Rose Tico was a pleasant enough but she ended up being a nothing character who felt tacked on and too obvious at times. She was there to be a love interest for John Boyega's Finn but that trajectory was way too clunky and cringe worthy at the supposedly emotion charged climax.

I did like aspects of John Boyega's Finn's arc - ie. his finding courage within himself and not running away from the fight was good and satisfying. Especially at that moment during the Crait battle. But I felt it was less than it could have been - and yet I don't know how it could have been more.

Laura Dern's Admiral Holdo was another new addition who fell flat. Her presence in the film was way too convoluted to be convincing and it became painful to watch. And I read the Journey to the Last Jedi novel Leia: Princess of Alderaan which was a good primer for the relationship between Holdo and Leia. Their relationship here and the supposedly clandestine final solution they'd cooked up off screen was flat and confusing.

Chewbacca was relegated to a second string character and I thought they treated him badly. I wanted to see moments of Chewie dealing with his grief at losing Han Solo - his best friend - and perhaps coming full circle and committing a life debt to Rey. I wanted to see more gravitas in the reunion between Chewie and Luke. There was none of that. Chewie was almost non existent, forced to interact with the worst Star Wars creations since Jar Jar Binks  - the Porgs. 

Captain Phasma...

This character has become the most useless excuse for a Star Wars antagonist ever. I don't ever want to see her in Star Wars ever again. And yet, here's the thing - I actually feel for actress Gwendoline Christie and, even the character of Phasma.

I've seen Christie's work, most notably with Game Of Thrones, and I know she is capable of so much more than what they gave her across The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi. I kept spotting places where they could've dropped Phasma into scenes but they didn't - and the character suffered that.most egregious of fates - she became irrelevant.

Now, is she dead? No. I don't think so. I think they'll bring her back because they revealed her eye in that last scene and her fall reeked of "Oh, you know we're gonna bring her back".

Now - Rey's parentage.

My wife Emily, who regards herself herself as a casual Star Wars viewer observed this in our post viewing dissection. Emily loved the The Force Awakens. She loved Rey and she was really invested in finding out who Rey's parents were. 

Lucasfilm teased us with Rey's parentage -  both in the run up to the film and within the film itself. They teased us with that whole Dark Side sink hole sequence on Ach-To - the one Rey fell into, then encountered the multiple versions of herself. 



They teased us right up to the point of threatening a reveal of her parents - only to reveal herself. It was a shallow imitation of the whole Luke confronting himself in the tree on Dagobah from The Empire Strikes Back! No! No, no, no! 

Then, to have Kylo Ren deliver that limp wristed revelation about her parentage, later, on Snoke's Star Destroyer? 

Seriously???

Lucasfilm have had two years to offer something of significance with Rey, that would truly elevate her and they allow Rian Johnson to go with something so weak???

Rian Johnson has essentially written Rey off as a nobody - a worthy nobody - but a nobody nonetheless. Despite this revelation, Rey chooses the path of the Light. It is an admirable choice on her part and it defines her character as inherently good. This actually reminded me of a similar thread from Denis Villeneuve's outstanding Blade Runner 2049. 

In that film, the protagonist K discovers that he is not the secret child of Deckard and Rachel. He is, essentially, a nobody - a no-one of significance. Yet he, chooses to do the right thing in reuniting Deckard with his long lost child - because it is the right thing to do. Star Wars does not have the luxury of doing that. No one who is Force sensitive should be an insignificant player on the Star Wars chessboard. The lore that George Lucas established throughout the original trilogy and the prequel trilogy, with respect to Force sensitive individuals does not allow for that. 

I actually suspect that the reveal of Rey's parentage by Ben?Kylo was a misdirection. If that is the case, it was a monumentally clumsy one.

Now, there were strengths in The Last Jedi - narrative arcs that ran close to being brilliant - until they weren't.

Kylo Ren's arc was among the strongest in the film. Ben Solo/Kylo Ren is pretty much irretrievable by the end of the film and his killing of Snoke illustrates just how dark he has become. Supreme Leader Snoke is partly responsible for who Solo/Ren is. So is Luke Skywalker. I found this was a compelling exploration of the Balance of The Force and how precarious that balance is.

And Ben/Kylo's twisted psyche totally feeds into the legacy of Anakin/Darth in that he craves power so that he can control events and shape the galaxy. He will do anything to achieve ultimate power to protect himself. He will manipulate Rey, destroy Snoke, confront his shame ridden Uncle.

Mark Hamill was brilliant - flawed brilliance - but brilliance none-the-less. His performance is potentially Oscar worthy. Hamill brought moments of real emotion to his role and I felt those. Any actor who can cry on screen is a genius!


I can fully accept Luke Skywalker's act in wanting to put down Ben Solo in the flash back scenes in the film. His fear of Ben's darkness and what it could mean for the galaxy was a brilliant exploration of the character and added much to the lore of Luke Skywalker. 

To apply a real world analogy to this - I consider my own experience. Sitting here, in my 40's as I am, I can buy into that sense of middle aged doubt Luke Skywalker experiences. I have doubts about the world around me, the people in it, the consequences for the future. While not wanting to actually kill anyone per-se, I felt empathy with Luke wrestling with his existence as portrayed in the film.  

What I could not accept was that Luke Skywalker remained on Ach-To safe from the events of the Crait climax. This was the Jedi equivalent of phoning it in.

Initially, I couldn't even determine whether his entrance into the Resistance hide out was  physical or not. But when that fact was revealed, it was a disappointment. 

Luke Skywalker should have made that final decision to protect the Spark *in person* - to reunite with Leia just one last time and confront Kylo/Ben on the salt flats of Crait. The resulting duel between Uncle and Nephew fell flat. It had no emotional punch - because Luke wasn't actually there. It was disrespectful to the character and his legacy.

That Luke Skywalker died alone, away from the fight, was another example of Lucasfilm copping out with an attempt at gravitas that was an utter failure. Luke Skywalker should not have died on Ach-To. He shouldn't have died in this film. 

And nor should have Snoke.

Here's where I have to talk about Snoke. 

Fuck Snoke!! 



Supreme Leader Snoke is the most egregious mishandling of a character in Star Wars - ever. Again, for Lucasfilm to manipulate us, for two years, with tantalizing ideas about the origins of Snoke -  only to *not* give us any idea of who Snoke is. Then to kill him off like that?

We have no context with which to remain invested in Snoke. Who was he? How was it that he was able to wield absolute chaos over the Skywalker family? We got none of that. The Last Jedi should have explored that. Instead, he became a throw away character - disposable and irrelevant.

I now couldn't give a shit who Snoke is in the wider arc of this story. I don't need to know his history. I don't care! Again, we have another character who should have been someone of significance in the Star Wars universe. Lucasfilm baulked! As though it was too hard. 

As the middle act of a three act play, The Last Jedi should have followed the trajectory of The Empire Strikes Back. It should have deepened the characters established in The Force Awakens and their relationships with one another. It should not have dispensed with characters so easily as it did. And it should have ended in a cliff hanger - unresolved, with us fearing for the future of our beloved heroes. It misfired on most of these, if not all of them.

Look, I did not hate The Last Jedi. The more time I spend thinking about it, the more I like what they tried to do with the story, particularly Like Skywalker and Kylo Ren's respective arcs, the nature of the Force and the precarious balance it constantly challenges those in the universe with. 

But, I have a lot of difficulty with what Rian Johnson did give us. The Snoke arc. The Canto Bight and the DJ sequence. Rey's arc and parentage. These showed a surprising level of incompetence and cowardice in the story telling and I think Johnson has damaged the trajectory of the sequel saga. It remains to be seen whether J.J. Abrams - who is returning to direct the final film in this current trilogy - can pull something together out of this spaghetti bolognaise.

The Last Jedi - Ambitious. Confusing. Maddening. 

DFA.


(disclaimer - all images are copyright of Lucasfilm/Disney).

4 comments:

  1. There no hope for this next trilogy unless they fire Johnson.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Once this sequel trilogy wraps up, I'm done with Star Wars.

      I can't see how J.J. can rescue this current story arc.

      Delete
  2. I agree wih you on all points Dean. I felt gutted during the whole disappointing experience of the film. I feel like it's over now. It wasn't like the feeling i had during Indy 4 and Alien Covenant, it was much much worse.

    I was sat there after about 20 minutes with a neutral face on me, but at times bored, at others, confused, or with a sense of loss. When we saw Finn and Rose in the prison cell, I had no idea how they'd got there. I'd already forgotten it. I actually asked myself if I'd nodded off or something.
    I think the Star Wars 'saga' has now completely and utterly de-railed and i can't see any way back, unless this movie is given a second pass and pretty much remade. I feel much the same way about ALIEN, but as I said, this feels a lot worse because I used to care about these characters.

    The level of incompetence here is actually staggering, which makes me baffled at the almost unmimously gushing response of the critics. When i saw the critics ratings vs the audience ratings on Rotten Tomatoes a few days ago it puzzled me greatly. It was somethign like 93% vs 54% or something like that. Then i heard Mark Kermode's glowing review. But he prefaced it all by saying that he'd never been a fan. "The Force Awakens was the first time that I 'got it'." He praised TLJ's script, structure, interweaved stories, and said it pulled off an "amazing balancing act."

    Now having seen the film, this difference between the critic's and general audience's reactions interests me even more.

    I don't know, I'm crest-fallen. I think Star Wars as a saga is irreperably damaged. I wouldn't be surprised if JJ backs out now. I tell myself occasionally that perhaps my problem is that I only like Star Wars when Han Solo is in it, but I loved Rogue One and can't stand Return of the Jedi. So that doesn't add up.

    Even though some of the parts of TLJ that really made me groan and drift off like the Casino planet stuff--reminded me of the Prequels, which I never enjoy--and even though I was so relieved when George no longer had anything to do with Star Wars; a part of me now, to my astonishment, wonders if it it might a actually have been better to have him onboard again. He might have treated the original characters better a d even made it feel like a Star Wars film. I'm astonished at myself. But maybe I'm just desperate, now?

    More confusing still, I think i just saw someone say that Lucas likes this film! I thought George would be simultaneously saddened at this trainwreck, and privately pleased to see how without his input this has come to pass.

    I don't know. Maybe it's time for me to move on from all of this. Last night I almost watched the original '77 film again as a remedy. I was in the same place as the British conductor Sir Thomas Beecham, who reportedy was asked by a friend why he was playing Beethoven or somethign on the piano. He replied, "I'm trying to wash that performance of Wozzeck from my mind."

    ReplyDelete
  3. I agree with you on all points, Dean. I felt gutted during the whole disappointing experience of the film. I feel like it's over now. It wasn't like the feeling I had during Indy 4 and Alien Covenant, it was much much worse.

    I was sat there after about 20 minutes with a neutral face on me; at times bored, at others, confused, or with a sense of loss. When we saw Finn and Rose in the prison cell, I had no idea how they'd got there. I'd already forgotten it. I actually asked myself if I'd nodded off or something.
    I think the Star Wars 'saga' has now completely and utterly de-railed and I can't see any way back, unless this movie is given a second pass and pretty much remade. I feel much the same way about ALIEN, but as I said, this feels a lot worse because I used to care about these characters.

    The level of incompetence here is actually staggering, which makes me baffled at the almost unmimously gushing response of the critics. When I saw the critics ratings vs the audience ratings on Rotten Tomatoes a few days ago it puzzled me greatly. It was something like 93% vs 54% or something like that. Then I heard Mark Kermode's glowing review. But he prefaced it all by saying that he'd never been a fan. "The Force Awakens was the first time that I 'got it'." He praised TLJ's script, structure, interweaved stories, and said it pulled off an "amazing balancing act."

    Now having seen the film, this difference between the critic's and general audience's reactions interests me even more.

    I don't know. I'm crest-fallen. I think Star Wars as a saga is irreparably damaged. I wouldn't be surprised if JJ backs out now. I tell myself occasionally that perhaps my problem is that I only like Star Wars when Han Solo is in it, but I loved Rogue One and can't stand Return of the Jedi. So that doesn't add up.

    Even though some of the parts of TLJ that really made me groan and drift off like the Casino planet stuff--reminded me of the Prequels, which I never enjoy--and even though I was so relieved when George no longer had anything to do with Star Wars; a part of me now, to my astonishment, wonders if it it might a actually have been better to have him onboard again! He might have treated the original characters better and even made it feel like a Star Wars film. I'm astonished at myself. But maybe I'm just desperate, now?

    More confusing still, I think I just saw someone say that Lucas likes this film! I thought that George would be simultaneously saddened at this trainwreck, and privately pleased to see how this has come to pass without his input.

    I don't know. Maybe it's time for me to move on from all of this. Last night I almost watched the original '77 film again as a remedy. I was in the same place as the British conductor Sir Thomas Beecham, who reportedy was asked by a friend why he was playing Beethoven (or something) on the piano. He replied, "I'm trying to wash that performance of Wozzeck from my mind."

    ReplyDelete