Star Wars The Last Jedi

Let’s start with one of the big three in terms of movie story: character.

Luke was by far his best in this movie. He was deeper emotionally and a more complex character than he ever was in the OT. And the call back to the first time we meet him was something beautiful. His archetype in the Campbellian hero’s journey in this movie was that of the reluctant mentor, a sub-type of the mentor archetype that Obi-Want filled in ANH.

Rey was powerful and likable, a bit too skilled in the ways of the Force, but so was Luke in the OT so it doesn’t bother me too much.

Poe Dameron had an interesting character arc going from hotshot laser brained pilot to a true leader of the Resistance.

Kylo Ren did something surprising yet totally expected at the end and creates an interesting wrinkle for the third movie.

Finn’s story and arc was by far the weakest of the main characters, but he still was well acted and likable. Good enough to get a pass, all things considered.

One of my biggest gripes though is that there were moments where the script didn’t let the characters really feel the weight and the drama of what happened, they sacrified it for the sake of a joke. It wasn’t awful, but it was a bit disappointing. They should have let those dramatic bits hit and sink in and not been taken away by an ill-placed joke. This criticism though isn’t a big one, more of a minor annoyance, like Luke’s overacting in the OT.

Story:

The A story or plot was simple, get away from them big ass ships. There was a tension there, much like you have in movies like It Follows, where the dread is always there always present, always harassing. There was a tension there of will they escape. It kept things pretty tight. Then, of course, there was the Resistance internal politicking, but that actually should have been fleshed out just a bit more.

The first B plot of Rey and Luke was interesting. Watching the young hero try to bring Luke back was fascinating and a nice twist on the Campbellian reluctant hero that Luke was in the beginning of ANH. There was a bit too much bloat in some of the early scenes, but not enough to say this movie was awful. Then the interactions between Rey and Kylo was interesting and created a balance between the two stories about what happened on the night Ben Solo became Kylo Ren.

The second B Plot with Finn was, again the weakest part of the movie, and it could have been cut without there being too much lost in the film. I would have preferred them doing something else. But to fully explain what would be too spoilery and this isn’t tagged as spoiler territory.

Third, the visuals.

This was the most visually impressive Star Wars to date. Every shot had a purpose and every shot told the story. Rian Johnson used the images to show the story and not have it told in dialogue, like what we saw in the prequels. The tension between Luke and Rey was palpable from the beginning and there wasn’t a word of dialogue for some time. You could see Kylo’s struggle, without having it be told to us. You could see, at the end, the futility of the Resistance. And the beauty of the Force vision and some of the moments in this movie, like Snoke’s chamber, was something to behold. We haven’t had a director have vision like this since Empire. ROTJ, the Prequels, even Rogue One and TFA were all over the place stylistically, this was well done.

So far as the big 3 movie items are concerned, TLJ gets a passing grade. If I were to grade it out of 100 it would be a solid 80, or a well put together movie. Were there

Now for some genre-specific reasons I liked this movie and consider it well put together.

Action:

The action scenes were very well done. You could tell who was doing what, when it was happening, the motivation for the actions, and so forth. The action was easy to follow both mentally and visually and there was nothing confusing. If you want to see the opposite of what I mean, go watch any of the transformers movies. Those things were choreographed by complete slapdicks.

The Science Fantasy Feel:

This truly felt like a Star Wars movie. There were no trade disputes or midichlorians. This felt like a space opera. The Force felt like the Force, some mystical energy field that controlled people and allowed itself to be controlled. If I may go into fantasy writer mode for a moment, magic is a spectrum on the one end you have clear magic like a Brandon Sanderson novel where if you do x y happens. In one of his novels if you consume steel you can push metal away from yourself if the metal is lighter than you or push yourself away from metal if it is heavier than you. the other end of the spectrum is the LOTR magic where it is ill explained and doesn’t do a whole lot. The Force is a middle ground between these two in that we know kind of what it does and so it can kind of be used to resolve plot problems but ultimately cannot win the day, that is up to a human choice and human action. The Prequels tried to make it too Sandersonian. The OT had it be too mysterious, and therefore made the ending of ANH be a bit too convenient that Luke used the force to change the direction of the proton torpedoes. TLJ made it fit in the middle so certain plot points could be resolved and done well.

The Ring theory of story telling:

The Star Wars narrative uses the ring theory of story telling wherein parts of the story mirror each other. Luke’s story did exactly that. His story in this movie fit within his ring that was started waaaaaay back in ANH. It was fascinating to see it, from first moments of the movie to the end.

Rian Johnson’s Choices:

I will come out and say it, Rian doing what he did and this trilogy doing what it’s doing is the best thing possible for Star Wars. It expands the universe so that it doesn’t follow a family. It makes the galaxy bigger and it gives the galaxy room to grow in different and exciting directions. I keep going back to that scene at the very end with the little kid, he’s a nobody, but he has a future in this galaxy. The way Star Wars, particularly post OT Star Wars, was set up was going to make this be a Skywalker saga and keep the galaxy small. This choice was brilliant.

Now, somethings I could have done without, the Porgs for example, and other things. But, I still liked them better than the Ewoks. they weren’t important and their actions weren’t important and weren’t movie breaking like the Ewoks.

Conclusion:

This movie is a solid 85/100. Not the best movie in the Star Wars universe, that still belongs to Empire. Not the worst (looking at you Attack of the Clones). It has some merits. It, of course, has its flaws. It is by no means a perfect movie. But its flaws are overcome by just how good this movie is. Change Finn’s b-plot and let the dramatic moments sit and this movie could have been so much better. But, even still, I find this movie to be a good movie. And I think many fans will come around after a second viewing.

Note: Every movie starts out with an “average” grade of 50 and goes up and down from there. Attack of the Clone (the worst one) gets a 30. Empire earned a 98. I haven’t seen a movie that earned a 100 yet.