A painting of me

The Last Jedi

   31 December 2019, lunch time

I watched The Last Jedi on Christmas Day the year it came out. I didn’t write about it at the time, because I have become much lazier about keeping this site up to date with the movies I have watched. Something I should address in 2020, perhaps. I watched the film again with Mythilli a couple days ago, in preparation for watching the final film in the new trilogy. A lot of Star Wars fanboys dislike Rian Johnson’s entry in the new trilogy, but I think it’s easily the best of the three new movies. The Last Jedi continues the story started in the Force Awakens, and opens with the resistance doing a bombing run against a fleet of Star Destroyers. This opening sequence is shot beautifully. There are a lot of really lovely shots in this film. (Something I think all the movies have done a good job with.) The Last Jedi feels like a fresh entry in the series, and doesn’t feel like a retrod of The Empire Strikes Back. (Unlike The Force Awakes, which feels very much like a reboot of A New Hope.) Johnson throws away a lot of JJ’s “mysteries”, which I think rubbed people the wrong way. I’d argue his reveals in this film are much punchier than what Abraham’s ended up giving us. Still, this movie feels like it exists as a ‘fuck you’ to the previous movie, which isn’t what you want from a sequel. There are two things I dislike about the film: much of the movie is a chase in slow motion. I think you could likely tell the story in a way that didn’t feel a bit silly. The casino sequence feels like a strange non-sequitur. A criticism of capitalism in cowboys in space movie for children. The actors continue to be super charming, which will get you quite far anyway. I’m looking forward to Johnson getting his own Star Wars trilogy to direct. I suspect he’ll produce something really compelling.

 

Comments

  1. I really didn’t like this movie. The slow motion chase sequence was silly but also all the characters are kind of dumb. In the first movie I liked Po’s character a lot but in this movie he was just an idiot. And so much of the movie is because the admiral and Leia don’t bother explaining why they are doing what they are doing. Rey’s portion with Luke was interesting but more than half the movie felt immensely unnecessary. Of all the star wars things Disney has done I think my favorite is still Rogue One. I still haven’t seen the latest movie though.

  2. I like Rogue One the best as well. It’s a movie that really understands what it’s trying to do, and does it. The Mandalorian is also excellent. This trilogy will likely always feel like a bit of a let down.

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