Internet Movie Database Movie Reviews
The second in the third series (7, 8, 9 in the franchise). Things look bad for the Good Guys. What will they do?
I would highly recommend that you A) see Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens before seeing this, and B) see this movie before reading this review; it’s full of
SPOILERS SPOILERS
SPOILERS
and I really don’t want you coming after me with rage in your heart.
I also wish to apologize for the length of this review, but, like this movie, it’s not as long as it will seem…
I talked to several people after I saw this, and our reactions were so mixed I’m going to make this review a kind of dialogue between C-Dub, who most emphatically did NOT love it, and me, who was not entirely happy with it, but didn’t dislike it as much.
I will say also that C-Dub and I are women of un certain age and that when I asked Maid-of-Awesome and her hubs Soccer Sam, both in their early 30s, they loved everything about this movie.
So here we go:
Otter: I liked a lot of things in The Last Jedi, but the thing that kept annoying the crap out of me was that dress that the Admiral (Laura Dern) was wearing. Everyone else was in uniform. Even Princess Leia had a black dress and a military-cut tweed cape; I actually had to look back at her costume to confirm that she WASN’T in uniform. Then there’s the Admiral of the Fleet in a full-length dress that the costume designer is happily telling everyone, It’s PUCE! like we’ve never seen puce before. The reasoning being that the director wanted everyone to ‘see her body language’ and make her look elegant. I thought at first that it was supposed to give the impression that the Rebel Alliance had to leave so fast that she had no time to change, but srsly, if it had been me, five minutes after getting on the ship, I’d be, bring me some jeans and a uniform jacket NOW!
C-Dub: Yes! Everyone is in uniform, but the woman admiral is all dressed up like she’s going to a ball, in a long gown that would trip her if she had to run. How is she an officer on duty in that get-up? The admiral’s collar bone showed through her dress, and Rei showed cleavage. Why? If you’re an action hero, or an officer, you don’t point up your sexuality, you hide it. It’s not a strength, it’s a vulnerability.
Otter: And also, I can’t help thinking, if a man were playing that part, would he be wearing a tux and shiny shoes? Would he have a form-fitting bodysuit that was cut away to show his muscles? No, he’d be in a (probably elegant) uniform, WITH HIS RANK INSIGNIA ON IT. And speaking of costumes, Rei’s arm wrappings look cool, but either she leaves them on all the time, in which case they’re going to get dirty and ratty, or she has to have someone else dress her every morning. As anyone who has tried to put a bandage neatly on their arm with the other hand knows, it’s not easy and often doesn’t look that good. Cool looking costume choice but impractical.
C-Dub: Every major action was an event I’ve already seen in a Star Wars movie, beginning with: any enemy armament you want to destroy, you do so by launching an individual toward it under heavy fire, and they have to drop a bomb down a slot. Saw that in the Death Star. You’d think they would have fixed this weakness by now, but no . .
Otter: Yup, I caught that too, and had the same thought. I think the idea is, one tiny fighter can get in where a lot of them or a bigger one can’t, but they’re beaten that horse to death. I was disappointed to see it yet again.
C-Dub: And the major plot line, chasing down the rebels and picking them off, is like a slow speed chase. All the other fractured plot lines serve to mask the fact that this one event– chase the rebels, pick off the rebels, chase the rebels, pick off the rebels– is the one main event of this story, and it is unpleasant, and unsatisfying.
Otter: It certainly seemed to take forever. And the whole ‘we can put power to the shields but then we’re sitting ducks’ just seemed to be a weak plot device to give the Rebels time to figure out some way to save themselves again at the last minute…which, btw, felt JUST LIKE the scene in the original movie (which will forever be known to those of my generation, who saw it in the theater when it came out, as STAR WARS) when the Death Star is closing in on the Rebel moon, and there’s a countdown as the Death Star gets closer and closer to being able to fire, which of course doesn’t happen. Again, been there done that.
C-Dub: Then another major plot line, hunting down the code breaker, is stupid. “We need to break in to this one place on the enemy ship, to do this we need the one guy who can break the code, to find him we have to go to this other planet, seek him out, and bring him back with us, and then sneak aboard the enemy ship and break the code to get at the device, which is allowing them to hunt us down.” It is just one thing, in one place, guarded in a way that needs hacking (not 10 guards that need fighting. It’s otherwise unguarded.) So so so so so contrived. So that they can go to the other planet (in the middle of the ongoing rebel chase).
Otter: Yup. The casino was cool, the racing beasts (Fathiers) were really great, but this made no sense, not only that they would have the time to do this in the middle of the countdown and there are Empire ships everywhere but they can get out and in again to do this? But also, I agree, way too contrived. There could have been a dozen other exciting ways to break into that part of the ship, and this was not a good one. My disbelief hit the theater floor with a thud.
C-Dub: Speaking of the Fathiers, I saw a documentary last year about child camel jockeys in the Emirates — boys as young as 2 are used to race camels. The details of the racing on the casino world was right out of that documentary, except that the camels are pampered and the jockeys are abused. It was annoying to see that modern story cut as pasted into the movie.
Otter: Well, actually I had no problem with this, it’s been done in a lot of places and times. not just in the Emirates. I liked the kids, and how they were presented; they weren’t just abject slaves, and in fact with the reaction to the Fathiers and this world and the last scene where the kid obviously shows Jedi powers, they might end up in the next part of the story. Who knows?
Otter: And (since I mentioned CGI animals), I really liked the Porgs. Awwww! so cute! but they have personalities. And speaking as someone who REALLY REALLY REALLY hated the Ewoks and everything Ewok-related, that’s saying something. And the Vulpices (the crystal foxes) were just so beautiful.
C-Dub: Okay. But cute cgi aside, I felt like the reality of the story changed at the convenience of the writer. The bad guy (Han’s son) is so powerful he can choke a person without touching them, but he had to fight really hard against the red guys.
Otter: Yes! And he CUT THEIR BOSS IN HALF! You’d think he could take care of them by waving his hand!
C-Dub: And he is SO WHINY…
Otter: I am going to partly agree with you there…I’m still having flashbacks to the ultimate whiny teenager, Hayden Christiansen as the young Darth Vader. If I could have the Death Star burn those three movies out of my brain, I would probably be glad to do so. But saying he’s not as bad as the worst example is not much praise. I do like that he’s not awfully handsome. He’s normal-good-looking, which is nice. He’s conflicted by his feelings for Rei and also his embracing of the Dark Side. I have to say, I was expecting them to recreate the Han-Leia love-hate-banter thing, and so far they have not done that, which is good.
C-Dub: Rei is — what? She has no character.
Otter: I admit, after seeing the previous movie two years ago, and only once, I had a hard time even remembering any of the characters’ names. I remembered Finn, and that he used to be a Stormtrooper, and that he and Rei (whose name I didn’t remember) were chasing around looking for something, and that she found Luke in the end while everything was blowing up and Han Solo died. So I spent a certain amount of this movie just remembering who people were and what their relationships were. But all I have for Rei is “determined Jedi wannabe”. That’s not much.
C-Dub: The death of 99% of the rebels is not a good ending. In the first set of movies that we saw, they rebels beat the Death Star and won. There was hope. In this movie, they are reduced to a small shipload of fighters. That is a miserable ending. But there’s hope, because the camel jockey boys will tell one another the story! — that’s right out of Camelot. All their major events are derivative. Even their minor events are derivative. There isn’t an original thought in this entire film.
Otter: I agree that things look bleak for the Rebels, but I’ll reserve judgement until the third movie. Remember how we all felt when Leia was a prisoner and Han was frozen in that ice stuff? and yet it all worked out. So Otter the Optimist will forget all about the three horrible prequels and give Disney the benefit of the doubt.
C-Dub: Nope, not me.
Otter: There were a few other things I liked about this movie. I did like that the older women (Leia and Laura Dern), clothing quibbles aside, were strong characters and had no trouble asserting their authority. I also liked the way they did the CGI at the end, on the salt-world, Crait; there is red under the salt, which shows up when anything disturbs the surface. Walking, flying vehicles that break the surface (and what was up with those flyers with the wierd rudders? What were they thinking?) and weapons made very visually satisfying red splashes and clouds. BUT when Luke shows up, and walks out of the fortress…his footprints don’t turn red! Huge giveaway, but so understated that many
people I talked to didn’t notice it the first time. I liked that, well thought out.
Overall, I thought it was good; the bad stuff wasn’t horrible, and the good stuff was satisfying (except for the things that made me say, Huh?) I’m hoping for better and tighter plotting next time. And I have to say, although I noticed Mr. Otter looking at his watch, I never looked at mine, I was along for the ride.
Thanks, C-Dub, for showing up as guest reviewer!
—
theotterlimits 