Star Wars: Episode VIII – The Last Jedi – Parent Review

Dad's Take

As I did with the Force Awakens, I watched The Last Jedi with an open mind. Maybe it would be better than it’s predecessor that basically just rebooted A New Hope. My initial thought was it was not that bad of a movie. 

But then I re-watched it again. And again. Then a few times more with my daughter, whose first introduction to the Star Wars universe is The Last Jedi. Sadly, rather than appreciating it more, I found it less and less appealing.

Sure, there is the crap that most people point out, including myself in an article I wrote over the summer, such as Leia floating though space, the rather pointless subplot, Luke’s character being out of whack, and so on. And there was the fact that the movie is basically a rehashed, watered down version of The Empire Strikes Back in reverse. But there just wasn’t much redeeming about the movie either to help me look past those things.

As I naturally do, trying to be a low budget film critic and all, I began to pick The Last Jedi apart. Mainly, I had trouble suspending disbelief about a lot of the film, including:

• slow moving bombers in space – why not use missiles or other projectiles? why World War II style bombers?
• why call back the TIE fighters? they could have decimated the remainder of the fleet
• why have the subplot in the first place? it really served no purpose
• fuel? I get that it’s now “cannon” but intergalactic space ships that run on fuel? how the hell you gonna fill up a moon size space station or a gigantic space ship? and how many parsecs to the gallon do those things get?
• and so on… 

Its not to say the film didn’t have some highlights. I just can’t really think of many. Rey and Kylo’s light saber battle wasn’t bad. And Poe’s humor wasn’t necessarily bad, but it also highlighted part of the problem.

The First Order lacked a true sense of evil in The Last Jedi. General Hux is portrayed as a bumbling idiot with no real malice. Kylo Ren is an emo/goth kid who does not instill any sense of fear or dread. And Snoke just sort of dies off.

Gone are the Empire, Emperor, and Darth Vader, all of which invoked fear, loathing, and a general sense of darkness. You could empathize with the Rebels because you could feel the stakes were there. The Empire was evil so the Rebels had to win. You also could feel like the Rebels had a fighting shot.

By the end of The Last Jedi, the First Order has effectively snuffed out the known Resistance. The remaining 10 or so Resistance fighters can literally fit into the Millennium Falcon. Let’s face it. The First Order actually won. At least the Rebels still had several large and small spacecrafts left at the end of The Empire Strikes Back – enough to mount an offensive. 

What does the Resistance have? Literally nothing. 

Oh, that’s right. They have hope. Hope that maybe The Rise of Skywalker may redeem the last trilogy in the newly dubbed Skywalker Saga… that killed off Skywalker in the previous film.

And what the hell is up with Luke literally drinking blue milk straight from the tit of some animal? Did we really need to see that? It’s bad enough he is a recluse on a random planet. Did you have to show him milking a bizarre ass cow thing and drinking it fresh?

Then there is Rose. This generation’s Jar Jar Binks. Seems most people who didn’t like the movie also really hated Rose. Assholes have attacked the poor actress who portrayed the character as if it was her fault the poorly written character was terrible. But for the love of god, stop harassing the actress, it’s not her fault the character was poorly written.

She didn’t do a bad job with what she had to work with. It’s not like Hayden Christensen’s wooden acting in Episode II. The boom mics had more personality in Episode II than he did.

Still, I’m not sure exactly what purpose the character Rose served, but I gather it was supposed to be to give Finn a reason to fight and to define for the audience what heroes are. All I have to say is: Thank you Rose. Now we all understand. Heroes good. They are not greedy. Bad guys are bad. They are greedy. Check. Got it Rose.

Still, even there were no major highlights, it’s not the worst movie I’ve ever sat through. I literally cringed at The Grinch and almost walked out of that one. The Last Jedi is just ‘meh. I won’t say it was great or even good, but I won’t say it was the worst Star Wars movie out there either. I actually really couldn’t stand Solo: A Star Wars movie, and of the main saga, I’d have to say Episode I is probably the worst.

But if you are going to watch The Last Jedi with the kids, just be prepared. You might want booze. And unless you are one of the people who blindly like Star Wars just because it is Star Wars, you’re probably going to need the booze to get through it. It’s really just about as bad as Episode I with its pod race, Jar Jar, and an eight year old kid hitting on a teenager.