As I mentioned in my other review of Star Wars The Last Jedi, there would be two seperate reviews, this one is the spoiler review. DO NOT READ IT UNLESS YOU WANT YOUR MOVIE EXPERIENCE TO BE SPOILED! I will not spoil everything though, so there you go 🙂
So first thing is first, all the fans making theories about Snoke being a force vampire, Rey’s parentage, wondering what will happen with Leia due to Carrie FIsher passing away, and Luke being on the dark side of the force all get a giant middle finger given to them. Fans of shipping from the previous film get a smaller middle finger given to them and a pat on the back (even my Poe/Finn ship got a small pat on the back). Essentially though it’s fair to say each and every fan who spent the past two years trying to solve the new mysteries in the Star Wars universe got bamboozled and I’m fine with being mostly bamboozled.
The film picks up immediately after The Force Awakens concluded with Poe doing some badass flying drawing time for the Resistance to pack up and flee to regroup. However Poe believes that the Resistance should focus primarily on defeating The First Order right then and there rather than using a strategy after regrouping to continue battling the First Order, it is this recklessness that leads to The Resistance losing many resources at the start of the film and more or less spending most of the film at the mercy of The First Order.
We also see Finn recover from his injuries from The Force Awakens and his primary goals are to find Rey, save her, and go into hiding away from both the First Order and the Resistance. He goes on a secret mission to infiltrate the First Order to stop them from tracking the Resistance through hyperspace.
During all of this Rey is spending her time with Luke Skywalker trying to convince him to aid the resistance against the First Order, however Luke has grown cynical and disillusioned with the Jedi and feels it is arrogant to call the Jedi order as the sole good side of the force arrogant. And as usual Luke is a whines and complains because that’s what he’s good at.
Your Fan Theories Have No Power Here!
I’ll start things off with one that many fans had been wondering about since Rey came into the mix; her parentage! Many thought Rey was the long lost twin of Ben Solo/Kylo Ren, the obvious age difference between the two actors makes this very unlikely plus even if Leia had some weird “force memory erase” her body would definitely remember being pregnant with twins. Essentially my theory of Rey’s parents being “no one” were right. She was just a girl abandoned by her family, there are hints to her being something more than what she believes herself to be. Also no she isn’t Luke’s daughter and she isn’t the Disney version of Luuke Skywalker.
Despite what many fans believed, Leia was not killed off in this film due to Carrie Fisher’s passing last year despite Lucasfilm and Disney stating many times that the character Princess Leia would not be killed off.
#BossBitch
Leia shows us why she is in charge of The Resistance (outside of the fact that she founded it), in the event that all of the Resistance leadership was ambushed and went flying into space, Leia showed us that despite not being trained in the force as a Jedi, she knows damn well how to use it. As with The Force Awakens, The Last Jedi shows us many female characters present in the film doing heroic deeds all without screaming “woo feminism,” and once again the film passes the Bechdel test.
Another strong character is Amilyn Holdo who though gets little characterization in the film itself (for more info on her past go read Leia Princess of Alderaan). Despite serving as someone that Poe distrusts throughout the film in terms of leadership and decisions not to do any form of action choosing to flee, she shows that she can not only put an end to a small mutiny, but also delivers a strong blow to the First Order.
References to Knights of the Old Republic (the only GOOD Star Wars video games)
Oddly there are references to the Knights of the Old Republic video games with porgs infesting the millenium facon and Luke more or less becoming The Exile of Knights of the Old Republic 2.
Let the Hate FLOW Through You!
As I first mentioned many fan theories and plot lines started in The Force Awakens and heavily advertised in the marketing for The Last Jedi are thrown out the door with major villains in the previous film being defeated with ease. Rey’s parentage is treated as unimportant, the damage of the government system is not shown despite many implications that the government is in chaos due to most of the senators for many planets are dead.
Let’s be honest with ourselves, some of what was being presented to the fans were a little ridiculous at times (no one is going to take you seriously when you look like look like an aged anorexic version of Sloth from Goonies who stole Goldmember’s wardrobe).
In place of all these theories and teasing we get an actual story that I previously mentioned, the film felt more like watching a few episodes of Star Wars Clone Wars or Star Wars Rebels where in some situations flying around and blowing shit up was not the best solution to a problem and that there were alternative solutions that would have helped alot more. While I understand that fans were displeased with this, this was a better approach to telling the story rather than relying on the predictability of something along the lines of “Rey’s parents were noble people hiding her away from the First Order” or “Snoke is an evil Force vampire that awoke because Palpatine killed all the Jedi at once”.
I also felt the story was more along the lines of the 2004 scifi series Battlestar Galactica where the main goal was for the humans to find the planet Earth and start a new home and evade the cylons, which is nearly exactly what happens here actually.
I really liked this movie even if it wasn’t at all what I expected; I give Star Wars the Last Jedi four porgs out of five.
Books and Smizmars 