This review has nothing to do with being a Star Wars fan, and certainly nothing to do with any particular, long-cultivated theory about some character. To be honest, I was old enough when the first Star Wars film came out that its take on the old “farm boy discovers he’s secretly the prince’ theme didn’t hook me, even with some post-production arm waving about Campbell.
Alien’s best-ever haunted house that just happens to be in space? Yeah, that worked for me, as did Blade Runner’s world-rewriting combination of bleak and beautiful. And okay, I admit I’ve always liked Star Trek. But I think … Star Wars somehow missed me.
That said, that first film is certainly not a bad film. Not at all. Even if most of Lucas’ nods to The Hero with a Thousand Names were tacked on after the fact, there’s a reason why that story has worked so well for so long, and the original Star Wars isn’t a bad take. Add in aliens, robots, spaceships and the evil Dark Father (learning geology in the 1970s pretty much required that you learn at least a little German) and it wasn’t hard to see why it grabbed millions then and generations of kids since.
And, though the opinion is so universal as to be boring, The Empire Strike Back is quite a good movie. It expands on the characters. It expands the scale and reach of the conflict. It wrings better performances from its leads. It uses its fantastical elements to enhance the plot, rather than decorate it. And it does a fine job of smearing the sharp edges from the first film’s too-clean-by-half storyline.
Even Return of the Jedi isn’t an awful film. Yes, yes. Dancing teddy bears. But it’s the end of a trilogy, and let me tell you, bringing a long story to satisfactory conclusion is hard work. With as many balls as the first two film put in the air, Jedi really does a pretty admirable — if a bit by-the-numbers — job of bringing things to a close. It could be worse (see The Stand for just how “worse” looks when forcing a conclusion).
And now … have I stalled long enough to scare off both those who were just here to talk about those furry penguin things or waiting to scream “spoiler”? Then come inside.
The Last Jedi is an awful film first and foremost because it’s a bad story. I have nothing but admiration for the cinematography, the costumes, the hardworking puppet people. The sound is good. I’ll bet craft services put out some killer spreads. But all of them were let down by the writers and directors, who beat this movie to death with an ugly stick.
Of course, Last Jedi’s problems are not all its own problems. The first film in the new sequence (which was forgettable enough that I quite literally don’t remember its name) was so intent on giving us a blow by blow remix of the original film, with a healthy slathering of fan service and nostalgia, that it didn’t leave much room for anything like building character, plot, world … that stuff.
Even so it’s still not a … no, really, it’s a pretty bad film. Boyega and Ridley are both good actors, as they’ve demonstrated in other works, and they do their best with the brief skit-level material they’re provided. But since the instructions for this film were apparently “check every box from the original, but do it bigger” they really don’t get much. By the way, someone hates Oscar Isaac, because every moment of his character is just painful.
Finn rebels against his life as a soldier, but we get only the critical moment of that decision, with none of the backstory that might give it impact. Rey is lonely and gets cheated out of food packs … and is also a kickass fighter, supreme mechanic, and ace pilot who no one in her town apparently wants to employ. She’s also a miraculously powerful force user. For some reason.
Han Solo dies. That’s pretty much the film.
And then … it’s time for Last Jedi. Which is well-nigh infinitely worse. Because the Cliff Notes for this movie were apparently “Take everything, and make it smaller.” Make it mean less. Drive down its import. Make it all as meaningless as possible. Sorry, more meaningless than that.
Most of the movie is essentially two movies — The Rebellion Runs Away plays in Theater 1, while Rey and the Old Man is running over on Screen 2. But no matter which one you watch, there’s not a moment of satisfaction.
In The Rebellion Runs Away, our rebel leaders, who have always demonstrated an inability to play even two dimensional chess, manage to get themselves embedded in a two hour chase scene. They are “faster” than the bad guy ships on some mystical measure of “faster” unknown to the rest of reality, one where “faster” means we never gain a single inch. The two fleets are forced to plod along within visible range of each other, waiting for the rebel fuel tanks to run dry. It is a set up that makes no sense technically or logically. You would get exactly the same level of dramatic energy from this setup if the two sides just sat still. Exactly.
The only real drama during this whole have-you-people-never-watched-a-chase-scene chase scene is when an internal rebellion boils over within our rebellion. The reason for this? The leaders haven’t bothered to tell everyone that they actually have an end game for this sucky footrace. Why haven’t they told anyone? Because then there would be no reason for an internal rebellion and we all might die of boredom. Duh. It’s one of the better examples of filling In time by having your characters behave like idiots and hide information from each other that you will find on film.
But wait! There is something else that happens. After an embarrassingly clunky insert of the animated character voiced by Lupita Nyong (who really, really deserves better than this) we discover that it’s possible for a ship to leave, travel many light years away, and return ... in the middle of the chase scene where we can’t gain a freakin’ inch. And did I mention that the entire “we can outrun them but never get away” chase scene makes absolutely no logical scene nor technical sense? Now I’ve mentioned it again.
How about the idea that if we can get a ship away, maybe we should use that ship to get the leadership and critical members of the resistance out of harm’s way? How about that? If we can escape in one ship without the bad guys getting us, could we do two? Three? Exactly why are we sitting here in ships that can’t get away if we have ships that can get away? And …
Nope. We’re going to visit planet casino racetrack. Why? Because the planet is populated by the following: Cute horsey things that will definitely be action figures. A lot of people and aliens that have no names in the movie but definitely will have names when they are under plastic as action figures. And we get some weepy-eyed kids on screen to symbolize that the resistance is important. We need those kids, even though they probably won’t be action figures, because no one has bothered to write one lick of dialog to give us any reason to care about any of this. Their weepiness will have to do.
Also set up of this planet, where everyone is a slave-owning arms dealer selling weapons both sides of the war makes no sense logically or technically. I think I need a macro.
We get back from the little side trip which proves to be completely pointless. Except that there will definitely be a Benicio del Toro action figure. Oh, and as it turns out there really is a reason that the plan dreamed up by the princess and Laura Dern was a secret. it was a secret because Laura and Princess apparently didn’t bother think past “step one,” when it was obvious that “step two” was “everyone dies.”
And that’s a wrap on The Rebellion Runs Away. I don’t even want to talk about frost kittens.
Over on the set of Rey and the Old Man, there is angst. The end. Wait, there is also nihilism. See these sacred books? Worthless. The sacred tree? Sucks. See these fury penguin things? They’re pretty good with BBQ sauce.
Basically Luke has been waiting around all this time so he can reveal that in 30+ years his emotional growth has been nil. And… that’s pretty much it. Oh, and there’s intelligent life here, but we’re not going to mention that until Rey pretty much kills them. The End.
And now we head off to bring these two movies together, for the big conclusion, where ...
But honestly, all this is getting too long. You want the short version?
Here’s the mysterious Snoke, leader of the whatever-we’re-calling-it-now. The guy who took over from the guy we beat last time. What’s his backstory? He doesn’t have one. What’s his purpose? Nothing, he dies.
Here’s the mysterious Laura Dern character, apparently second in command to the Princess even though we’ve never seen her before. What’s her backstory? She doesn’t have one. What’s her purpose? Nothing, she dies.
Here’s the mysterious Captain Phasma, apparently a very special bad guy with super shiny armor. What’s her backstory? She doesn’t have one. What’s her purpose? Nothing, she dies.
Here’s the mysterious Rey, who not only knows how to do everything but has more mojo than Dark Father with Obiwan on his shoulders. What’s her backstory? She doesn’t have one. What’s her purpose? No one has a flippin’ clue.
If this is a movie about how life is full of huge disappointments, then by God, it nails it. Only it’s not even a good movie about that.
Look, the one thing we knew about Rey — the one thing — was that she valued her family so highly she was willing to bypass adventure and what amounted to having her dreams being dropped in her lap just to go back to eating cardboard so she wouldn’t miss them. And then, when we’re told that there never was any family to wait for… when we get this revelation that the center of Rey’s being is an illusion, that the only thing we’re been told about her was a lie, it’s given less importance, and way less screen time, than the fact that rolly-droids now come in two colors.
That’s not a complaint over how the answer to these questions didn’t fit some fan theory. It’s a complaint over how the answers to every important issue in the film are the same: Sorry, dude, we didn’t bother to put one second’s thought into that.
The real horror here is it didn’t have to be this way. If the point was to make a movie about how the powerful character can be anyone, not just the secret prince from the “right” family, then fantastic. If the point was to say that way too many people put their trust in old prophecies and archaic philosophies rather than just opening their eyes and taking action … that’s a great idea.
But this isn’t that movie.
It’s easy to imagine a story where Rey finds Luke only to have them both work through the illusions that have warped their lives. To have Luke finally realize that he can’t always live in that moment of triumph where everything is golden, including the medal around his neck. To have Rey confess that she hasn’t been waiting for her parents, and that her own fears have held her back. Let Luke tell her that he no longer feels that he understands the force, and that her appearance out of nowhere terrifies him. Let the two of them work with each other, and against each other, to find some meaning in the puzzles that are at the center of the film. Let them part with a sense of resolution, and give us a sense that we’ve seen something of import.
It’s a shame no one made that movie. Or any movie, really, that showed the least touch of affection for these characters, this world, and the factors that make up a story.
What’s that you say, defense? This is basically just a summer kid’s movie? It doesn’t have to all make sense? No. I can see by the box office that it doesn’t. I can also guarantee you that Pixar spent more time thinking about the pattern on Woody’s cowboy boots than Bad Robot did in working out the entire backstory for their main character. Or anything else. Because they just don’t give a damn.
Which is just a shame.
Because a fun, popcorn movie doesn’t have to be a bad movie. And just because Michael Bay has been getting away with this crap for years, doesn’t make him a role model.
Special note: This is not in any sense an “official” post. Just me blowing off steam. Now, go watch the first Indy Jones film.