Now Watching: The Last Jedi

The Last Jedi features what may be the slowest and least exciting chase in cinematic history. The Resistance are on the run from the First Order, whilst Rey attempts to convince Luke to return from his self imposed exile.

But didn’t the Resistance destroy the main base of the First Order in The Force Awakens? How did the First Order get so strong, and the New Republic so weak? I was willing to gloss over the Resistance/First Order nonsense in TFA so I’d be wrong to nitpick it here, but it does feel silly that this new trilogy has already reset the galaxy to plucky Rebels vs evil Empire as if that’s the only story they can tell.

And despite seeing people say this film takes the trilogy in a new direction, or makes bold creative choices – it really doesn’t. The ‘throne room’ scene between Rey, Kylo and Snoke plays out nearly identically to the scene between Luke, Vader and the Emperor in Return of the Jedi.

Luke/Rey willingly turn themselves over to Vader/Kylo hoping to turn them to good. The Emperor/Snoke force Luke/Rey to watch the rebel fleet being destroyed, then torture the shit out of them, before Vader/Kylo turn and kill him. And the final battle on Crait is just the Battle of Hoth from the Empire Strikes Back. Not that I hate these scenes, or anything. The throne room sequence is probably the strongest part of the film, but it’s nothing we haven’t seen before.

I have very mixed feelings about TLJ. There’s some really good stuff in here, but also a lot of bad and an awful lot of dumb. Some of the creative choices in this film are simply bizarre. There are numerous attempts at comedy, some of which land, but many others which don’t and create an odd clash of tone.

The plot, despite a relatively simple set up, turns into a convoluted mess. You’ve got two threads – Rey with Luke, and the rebels (Poe, Finn and Rose) trying to elude the Imperial fleet. But when Finn and Rose fly off to an entirely different planet, it’s like stepping into an entirely different film. It also makes a complete joke of their dire predicament if they can apparently come and go as they please.

The codebreaker they’re searching for (and also find purely by luck) turns out to be such an unnecessary character. Why couldn’t Rose have been the code cracker, and we could have had a properly fleshed out and exciting infiltration mission for Finn, Poe and Rose onboard Snoke’s ship? Instead, we get another plot thread that is ultimately pointless and only serves to kill any tension from the ongoing chase. We also get left with Poe attempting a mutiny because the new admiral won’t tell him her plan – aside from ‘let’s wait to get blown up and die’ – for no reason whatsoever.

And then we have magic flying space Leia, and force hologram Luke. The Leia thing was just weird and dumb, but if you’re going to kill off Luke, why not just have him arrive on Crait in person and pull an Obi-Wan? I mean, you’ve already mirrored scenes from Empire and Jedi, so why not do A New Hope too? Instead, he just projects himself to punk Kylo and then dies because he’s . . . old, I guess?

You probably think I hated this film, but I really didn’t. At times it was dull, at times it was stupid (Poe’s mutiny) and at times it was just f**king weird (dancing Yoda). But I also found it entertaining and I can’t say I didn’t enjoy watching it. The whole film is just a mess of contradictions. It’s one of the strangest films I’ve seen – in a good way, for the most part.

Because despite all of its flaws in logic and plot, it’s a film (like TFA) that’s carried primarily by the strength of its characters. They’re the reason I didn’t check out half way through. They’re the reason I enjoyed watching this clusterf**k of a film. I’d say it’s not as good as TFA in the sense that TFA told a more coherent story, but it’s certainly far more interesting to watch.

The real problem is, where do they go from here? It’s clear they had no real plan for this trilogy, so this film just presses the big reset button ready for the next one. It ends pretty much as it began. We’re going to get another Death Star, aren’t we?

6/10