I’ve talked about The Force Awakens, so it’s time to continue with my retrospective on the Star Wars sequels and move onto the next movie, The Last Jedi.

After seeing TFA, I was unsure what to think of the story being told here, but thought that its follow up might help straighten things out now that the groundwork had been laid. It didn’t.

I don’t know if there’s ever been a more polarizing Star Wars movie, as there only seem to be fans who love it and fans who hate it, and I have to say, if I’m in one of these groups, it’s definitely the later. So let’s get into it.

The Last Jedi picks up more or less straight after The Force Awakens. The First Order is apparently in control of the galaxy now that the New Republic is destroyed, yet we never get any indication of how this plays out or just what it means for the galaxy. In fact, we barely get to see anything of the galaxy at all. In Empire Strikes Back, it was clear from the way Lando was treated that the Empire had no problem taking over Cloud City, and this was backed up by what we see in A New Hope. Sadly there’s no such worldbuilding in these two movies.

Not All Heroes are Heroes

There’s so much about this movie that I could go into detail on, but seeing as I don’t think anyone wants to read a full book on it, let’s start with one of the most contentious: Luke Skywalker. I hate the way this movie treats him. As I watched him on Ahch-To, I kept expecting him to change his mind and become the hero that everyone knows. He throws away his lightsaber, gets pestered by Rey, sees Chewie, learns Han is dead, watches Liea’s message. Nothing makes him even considering doing what any hero would do: help others. I don’t know if Rian Johnson thought this was a clever way to ‘subvert out expectations’, but it isn’t. Just completely turning a character on their head isn’t enough, there has to be a solid reason for why a character would undergo such change, and that isn’t here. I know Luke is human and can, even should, have doubts, but he’s also a hero, and heroes are meant to be the best of us. They do what we would like to but probably don’t have the strength to do, and they inspire us to be better versions of ourselves.

The thing is, Luke has chosen to isolate himself from the rest of the galaxy. If he had been trapped on the island because his X-Wing crashed, and in the years of exile come to realise that maybe the Jedi needed to end with him, it might have made more sense, but the fact is that Rey gives him a chance to do the right thing, rather than just leaving the galaxy to the fate of an evil no one is able to resist. I know he gets some redemption at the end through his Force-projection fight with Kylo Ren, but it comes after two hours of Luke being as miserable and cantankerous as a rancor.

Should we even bother to talk about how he decides murdering a teenager in their sleep might be a good idea? Have Ren make the first move at least, then it wouldn’t be such a total character assassination. How can this be squared with the young man who risked everything because he believed their was good in his father? It’s fine for him to have doubts, but why have his years of Jedi training not taught him anything about dealing with those who are going to the Dark Side?

The way I see Luke Skywalker is as the ultimate good guy. The protagonist in every sense. While many of us might want the cool, laidback, dangerous persona of Han Solo, we all hope that there is something of Luke in us. A true idealism to believe in the best of everyone and to fight for what is genuinely right. A difficult character to follow, perhaps, but one we should at least try to emulate. The way this movie treats him is an insult to the character, to George Lucas, and to the millions of fans who cheered for Luke through three movies forty-plus years ago.

As for what Rey does, there really isn’t much to say, as here character progression is minimal and her effect on the story is minor. She doesn’t go through the same trials as Luke in Empire Strikes Back, and doesn’t suffer anything for going to save her friends. She’s meant to be the main character here, but is almost on the sidelines as the real story unfolds aboard the Raddus.

The Holdo Manoeuvre

Now on to a terrible character: Admiral Holdo. One of the most contentious people to ever step onto the bridge of a starship. To put it simply, she’s one of the worst military commanders you could ever imagine, and makes Admiral Ozzel look like a genius.

Every single decision she makes is a bad one. She berates Poe Dameron and treats him with disrespect. Yes, she was obviously annoyed with him, which makes sense considering he’d lost their entire squadron of bombers (see below), but a good commander should put aside personal differences for the greater good, especially when you consider the situation they were in.

The Resistance has fled their base and is being hunted by the First Order. They only have a few ships left, can’t jump to hyperspace, and are running out of fuel; Leia is in the medbay, and all the veteran commanders like Ackbar are dead. Into this mess comes Admiral Holdo, who doesn’t seem to be highly regarded by the Resistance. Indeed, they are willing to mutiny against her. When she came into this role, she should have gotten her top officers, including Poe, together in confidence and told them of her plan, then they could have reassured all the crew that there was a plan of escape, even if they couldn’t reveal it, and also give their own opinions on what should be done. Instead, she has shouting matches with him, which only erode trust in her more than him. Even if she didn’t like Poe, she should have realised that most of the crew looked up to him, and they needed his reassurance that things would be OK. It’s always up to the top ranks to take control of a bad situation and quickly calm everyone’s fears. Sometimes it’s entirely possible for them to rule just through force of personality, like the Duke of Wellington who was famously coy with his strategies, but there’s nothing to suggest that Holdo has the confidence of her crew to do that.

I’ve heard suggestions that there was a spy aboard (something not brought up in the film), but even if this were true, it’s clearly not Poe. He destroyed Starkiller Base, and is trusted by Leia, the most important person in the Resistance. There’s no reason not to trust him. Fair enough, he likely wouldn’t have thought it a good plan, but maybe if she was open with him, he would have been open with her about the Canto Bight plan.

The animosity between them creates a toxic leadership that eventually ends in mutiny. In another situation, this could have been disastrous. She’s an arrogant and poor leader who would be a nightmare to serve under, and even her final sacrifice doesn’t do much to save her character. There also seems to be an odd flaw with her plan.

Did the shuttles used to get to Crait not have hyperdrives? It might be the case, but clearly the one that Finn and Rose stole did have, so could they not have used this to get people away? Clearly the FO didn’t track them, and they could have made short jumps to any nearby planet. The Raddus also would have hade enough hyperspace fuel to make multiple jumps if they drained it into the shuttle. Wouldn’t that have been a better plan?

Bight Worse Than Its Bark

The next point of contention is the eventual use found for the hyperdrive-enabled shuttle, which really isn’t necessary and could have cut that particular plot hole, the whole side quest involving Finn and Rose Tico.

The whole journey to Canto Bight was a waste of time. DJ was just a common thief and yet he was able to hack into the ship, so why did they need a master codebreaker in the first place? Couldn’t they just have picked up anyone from a backwater like Mos Eisley?

The whole thing with Canto Bight is a rather silly detour. The fact that Rose frees the horse-creatures even though they’ll just be captured again, while at the same time she doesn’t try to help the stable kids, who might well be slaves and are certainly child labour. At least Broom Boy got a ring.

The whole point about the people on Canto Bight getting rich through selling weapons to the First Order is a tired cliché. There are many ways to make money: shipbuilding, hyperdrives, droids, mining. It’s the same old trope as used in Marvel, Jurassic Park, and Alien, where everything has to be turned into a weapon of some sort, even though there are more obvious ways to monetize it. Think of the big companies now: Amazon, Tesla, Microsoft, Apple, none of these are arms dealers, but they are still big business. It’s a weird leap of logic for Rose to make, as is the tired old criticism of wealth from a billion dollar company.

As for Rose Tico herself, the biggest problem with the character is that she’s an unnecessary addition who doesn’t add anything to the movie. Here biggest moment comes near the end, when she crashes into Finn at speed to ‘save his life’. It’s a ridiculous moment as she could have easily killed him in such an old speeder, but her line of “That’s how we win. Not fighting what we hate, saving what we love” is a strange thing to say considering Finn’s sacrifice was the only logical way out until Rey showed up unexpectedly. I don’t know if they wanted a love story here with their odd kiss at the end, but this was not built up throughout the film.

“Into the Garbage Chute, Flyboy!”

As for Poe Dameron, he’s treated like a completely different character in this film. The whole exchange with him and Hux at the beginning of the film is painful to watch, with unfunny dialogue that feels out of place here and only makes the already weak Hux into even more of a joke.

Why does Poe bother to destroy the dreadnought here? They are already losing ships, and seem to only have three left. On balance, the First Order fleet before them already outguns them greatly, so what is the loss of one ship to them? Their whole doctrine is running to stay alive, and this seems like the perfect time to do just that. What does it matter if they are fleet killers if you don’t have a fleet left?

It’s fine that Poe is impulsive and reckless at times, but that should be at times when it counts, not on pointless death and glory charges that leave dozens of people dead and depletes their already low resources. It’s a stupid decision and a tactical win at the expense of strategy.

I’ve already spoken about his forced antagonism with Holdo, and this is where it starts, with an out of character scene that makes Leia demote him so Holdo has a reason to treat him as an irresponsible flyboy, but it doesn’t work because it isn’t natural.

Where Are The Villains?

Once again, Kylo Ren is still whiny and unhinged. Somehow killing Han Solo hasn’t helped him at all. He still hides behind his pound shop voice changing mask and is as frightening as a chihuahua. He screams and shouts even when he’s getting what he wants, which only further makes him laughable rather than terrifying. How this little sleemo could ever become the Supreme Leader just doesn’t make sense. Watching him face Luke Skywalker is like seeing a toddler throwing their cereal at the wall because their parents told them no.

His weakness is only exacerbated by the other villains being cliched or just outright incompetent. Hux is as weak minded as Ren and doesn’t look, sound, or act threatening in any way, and it’s only the outright firepower of the FO that’s makes them a threat, not the people in charge. As for Captain Phasma, her arc with Finn ends in nothing. If this were a Disney cartoon, they might be alright, but it’s meant to be a Star Wars movie.

This could all be saved somewhat if only there was a good big bad, what I call a ‘Big Chair’ villain. And there is, kind of. The mysterious, pale, deformed, evil of Supreme Leader Snoke, finally seen in the flesh. He’s super strong in the Force and somehow made the conection between Rey and Ren. Who is he? What’s his story? Who knows? He gets cut in half by Ren and that’s the end of him. Apparently he’s some puppet of Palpatine, as we’re told in Rise of Skywalker, and that’s it.

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My criticisms of the movie don’t end there, and I could make an entire series of blog posts going into more detail on every one of the points above, and more, but I think I have to wrap it up somewhere or else this would be an entire textbook.

If there’s one positive thing I’d say about the movie, it’s that it looks good. Not necessarily in a Star Wars way, but just as a movie in its own right, particularly with its cinematography, and there are some shots that are genuinely stunning.

I’m not sure how we ended up with The Last Jedi. I’m no fan of J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek movies, but at least they made him box office proof when it came to rebooting classic sci-fi franchises. Who thought Rian Johnson would be a good fit for Star Wars, and why did he replace J.J. for the middle movie when having the same director make all three seems like a better idea? I’m never going to be convinced there was any plan for these movies, as everything built up by The Force Awakens is undone here. All the characters have lost their development and any momentum going into the third film has been killed. This was a point of no return for the sequels, and possibly for the entire franchise.

It’s a bad movie in almost every way, but I really think it believes it’s good, expertly subverting your expectations. That’s not a bad thing in itself. Compare the ending of Empire Strikes Back to the ending of A New Hope. There’s a clear difference, and anyone expecting the ‘yahoo, we did it!’ ending to be repeated would be surprised. The difference is that ESB gave a satisfying payoff where characters wrapped up the arcs they were going through in the movie, and the ‘I am your father’ reveal is a genuine surprise that doesn’t seem contrived in any way. So much of how TLJ subverts things is just by smashing up the legacy of Star Wars and its greatest characters.

Anyway, what happened to Broom Boy?

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