Post Hype Impressions: Star Wars - Episode VIII: The Last Jedi

This is the first edition of a new feature analysing major releases, whether it be in film, television, music or whatever, after the dust has settled. More often than not this release will have been the subject of considerable hyperbole prior to it arriving for our consumption, discussion and dissection.

This time around we’ll be looking at one of the biggest film releases of 2017; Star Wars - Episode VIII: The Last Jedi.

The Star Wars franchise has been riding the crest of a seemingly unstoppable tsunami for what now seems like forever but there have been some major missteps along the way.

For example: The Prequel Trilogy (not least Attack of the Clones - still my most hated Star Wars movie), Darth Vader dancing to Metallica’s Enter Sandman during one of Disney’s Star Wars Weekend Events (look it up, it’s ball shrivellingly awful) and who can forget the constant tinkering of George Lucas (Han was the only one to shoot, dammit).

So, despite the ongoing strength of the franchise in general, a lot of faith had been lost that new Star Wars could still be good Star Wars.

The Force Awakens, the first new Star Wars release since Revenge of the Sith all the way back in 2005 (a decade prior - holy funky sheet), went some way to reminding us that we should never underestimate the power of the force. To be honest I left the cinema after seeing The Force Awakens feeling a little underwhelmed. I knew I’d enjoyed myself but it recycled a lot of material from previous films, featured some really dumb moments and, at times, very awkward humour.

Not exactly a glowing review but it served its purpose and I was excited for the next instalment in the new trilogy.

Before we got to that though there was the intermediate distraction of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, the first of what will become many (read MANY) standalone spin-off films. The hype surrounding Rogue One was off the charts as it was set just before A New Hope and would feature more of that Original Trilogy aesthetic we know and love. It was also reported to have a much darker story which intrigued many of the older fans raised on The Empire Strikes Back.

Unfortunately the hype descended into debacle as the film was ultimately subject to heavy re-writes and re-shoots late into production. Whether this was due to studio meddling or that the film just didn’t work and needed rescued is subject to much speculation.

Ultimately what we finally got was a bloated unsatisfying mess with more recycled ideas, forgettable characters and long, boring, poorly connected scenes. It also implemented CG versions of beloved characters Grand Moff Tarkin and Princess Leia that looked just plain awful. The technology isn’t there yet, like a mirror-verse Nike “just don’t do it”. If you absolutely have to then at least try to make it subtle and limit its use to momentary glimpses or reflections (that said, they did do that with Tarkin before the full reveal but it still looked terrible).

Don’t get me wrong, Rogue One does have some good moments and special effects but as an overall viewing experience it certainly dampened the fire that The Force Awakens did so well to rekindle.

It seemed though, that for many, Rogue One had been the best thing since jalapenos on everything and the hype gremlin had been fully wetted and well and truly fed after midnight with the prospect of seeing Luke (for more than 10 seconds), finding out more about Rey’s past, getting a proper reveal of the mysterious Snoke: Supreme Leader of The First Order and discovering who exactly is or are The Last Jedi.

When the film released, initial reviews were mostly positive with many likening it to The Empire Strikes Back and some (obviously idiots) going as far as to say it was actually better than the film I consider to be the series’ pinnacle. Personally, at the time, I thought Episode VIII was just OK. It had some good ideas and fun moments but again I felt there weren’t enough, the story was stupid and the awkward comedy was back with a vengeance (right from the very start as well).

I’ve recently re-watched The Last Jedi; could I have been wrong first time around? Would I warm to the film with a second viewing? Is it actually better than Empire? Lets discuss.

The Last Jedi opens with a long, epic, unbroken shot zooming into an ongoing battle between The First Order and the last remnants of the Rebel Alliance. So far so good then. Sadly that initial good is quickly ruined by Po Dameron launching a daring (read idiotic) single fighter attack on a First Order Dreadnought (that’s right, another super weapon). Apparently this act of misguided bravery was to clear out the surface cannons on the Dreadnought so Rebel bombers could move in to destroy it. It should also be noted this was contrary to direct orders from General Leia. In the midst of all this, the cheeky Po has time to make a really awkward transmission to General Hux aboard the ‘just-another-super-weapon’ in a sequence where the humour falls uncomfortably flat.

Following this sequence I found myself genuinely annoyed at being thrown out of the movie, especially at such an early stage.

Moving on it is quickly established that the surface cannons have a great deal of trouble taking out a single fighter piloted by a wise-cracking psychopath; I don’t seem to remember the surface cannons on the first Death Star being quite so ineffective. Couple that with the fact that The First Order are such buffoons that they don’t scramble any of their own fighters to intercept the aforementioned wise-cracking-psychopath and all of the cannons are quickly destroyed.

Once the cannons are disabled, the bombers move in and try and take out the Dreadnought, however many are still eliminated by the now deployed enemy fighters as they are slow, fragile and carry massive payloads of actual bombs. We get a somewhat tense moment where the last surviving bomber is destroyed seconds after its last surviving crew member triggers the release of its destructive bowels upon the Dreadnought, completely obliterating it. This sequence is a throwback to some of the original movie’s influences such as classic WWII air-warfare films which is a nice touch.

A nice touch, that is, until you remember Star Wars is set in space and a space-bomber with a gravity-based delivery system simply would not work. I understand Star Wars leans a little more on the fantasy side of science fiction but this is a step too far.

The destruction of the dreadnought gives the remaining Rebels enough time to “punch it” and escape through hyperspace.

So there we have it. In the opening sequences alone, all of the things I dislike about new Star Wars are present: awkward out of place humour, the recycling of old ideas (and a poor execution thereof), stupid new ideas, idiotic logic and a failure to understand what made Star Wars great in the first place.

The constant reinforcement that The First Order are complete idiots is another real complaint. Sure, The Empire made mistakes but they were genuinely believable as mistakes and not overt, outright incompetencies.

From this point on the film starts to jump between multiple parallel story-lines. Rey’s meeting with Luke Skywalker on the planet Ahch-To (god bless you) continues on from the end of The Force Awakens as she tries to persuade him to train her. During these sequences Rey and Kylo Ren are somehow connected by the force and their relationship is explored in quite an interesting way.

Meanwhile, the Rebels are further pursued through the galaxy by The First Order who employ a new technology able to follow a fleeing ship through hyperspace. With dwindling fuel resources, our heroes have a seemingly singular hope of Finn (alongside new character Rose) locating a mysterious code-breaker who can help to disable the tracker aboard the lead First Order ship allowing the last remnants of the Rebel Alliance to make one last jump to hyperspace and escape to safety.

Along the way we get the proper reveal of Supreme Leader Snoke (and later on, his demise), the return of Captain Phasma (who cares, am I right?), the story of how Luke failed to train Kylo Ren and fan splurge moment: LOOK IT’S EFFING YODA AND HE’S AN EFFING PUPPET AGAIN NOT AN EFFING CG ACROBAT!!!!!!!!! Be still my beating heart.

The movie draws to a close with a stand-off between The First Order and what's left of the Rebel Alliance on Hoth, sorry I meant new planet: Crait - “it’s salt”.

There are actually some decent standout moments in this film but they are present alongside more of the niggles and flaws I’ve already mentioned. Let’s explore some of these in more detail.

I’ve mentioned a lot of negatives so far but there are positive aspects to this film. Some of the cinematography is just stunning, especially during the scenes on Ahch-To (gesundheit!) which were filmed on the island of Skellig Michael off the south-western coast of Ireland.

The special effects, for the most part, are also excellent due in no small part to the use of expertly crafted real sets and props. The CG is generally decent (that light speed crash effect during the FIrst Order / Rebel chase is very cool) but at times it can look a bit video-gamey.

Another thing this film gets right though is that “used universe” aesthetic and whilst they were poorly designed I do like the shonkyness (no, I’m not sure if that’s a word) of the old sand skiffs on Crait. The moment where Po Dameron puts his foot through the bottom of his rusty old skiff is also one of the few times the comedy is done right.

Other comedic moments I enjoyed were Luke tossing away his lightsaber after it’s handed back to him by Rey and THAT milk scene. I know a lot of people hated these moments but Luke tossing the saber (steady now) is a good way of visually revealing his current frame of mind and his milking of the Thala-Siren is just a joyous moment of old-school Star Wars Universe grossness.

Talking of new creatures, the Porgs (fluffy owl-like creatures on Ahch-To - I asked for the news not the weather) aren’t that bad in isolation. As background creatures they look good and fit well with the Universe but unfortunately there is a tendency for them to be rammed down our throats in forced comedic and cutesy moments which pretty much ruins them.

Kylo Ren continues to be the most interesting new character in the franchise and the new dynamic of a mysterious connection between him and Rey through the force (an idea I like to call “force chat”) really pulled me in. The turmoil of choosing the light and dark sides of the force has always been fascinating and this was a really effective way of exploring that. Unfortunately even this is sullied somewhat by one “force chat” which features a jarringly awkward shirtless-Kylo reveal.

Despite that, the relationship between Kylo and Rey is generally handled well and it’s telling that Rey chooses to confide in Kylo, not Luke, following her experience in a bizarre hall of mirrors style scene where she hopes to find out more about her parents.

We get a couple of decent reunions with Luke and R2-D2 (“hello old friend”) and also Luke and Leia which are both handled fairly well.

New character Holdo, whilst not being very interesting, at least looks cool and befitting of the Star Wars universe.

The story of how Luke failed to train Kylo Ren and the different perspectives from each character is treated quite well and I like the moment where Luke finally meets his shame head on and admits that Kylo did not turn on him, Luke went to Kylo’s quarters with the intention of killing him but couldn’t go through with it and was caught in the act by “a boy whose master had failed him”.

Some of the fight scenes such as those between Luke and Rey, the moment where Rey and Kylo team up against Snoke’s guards and the final fight between Luke and Kylo (including the revelation of Luke’s “force projection” and his subsequent death) are also fairly enjoyable.

Ok so those are some of the things I found to be positives but I can’t mention those without also mentioning the negatives. What’s that? I’ve already mentioned the negatives? Well there’s plenty more to discuss…

As already stated, there is a lot of forced comedy and also a tonne of dumb, awkward moments in this film and I just can’t help but find them extremely jarring with the comedy, rather than complementing the story, just completely taking me out of the action.

Some of the worst offending moments are our first introduction to Finn where he wakes up in some kind of bizarre medical treatment suit (for some reason it reminded me of the scene in Star Trek 2009 where Kirk has giant hands), Leia slapping Po for his continued and flagrant disobedience of direct orders, Chewbacca and the sad Porg (there are a few other ridiculous Porg moments), THAT scene where Leia flies through space (and indeed her subsequent hospitalisation where she’s done up like a Hammer horror mummy) and Po creeping on new character Holdo; “not what I expected…”.

I could go on…so I will: space horses, space nuns, Captain Phasma and Finn fight (“let’s go chrome dome” - I’m seriously beginning to hate Finn), *oh look it’s BB8 in that AT-ST and he’s come to our rescue* (the effects here are terrible), FIRST ORDER STEAM IRON DROIDS!? (Is this a parody? Are we being trolled?). I still haven’t covered everything but do I really need to go on?

Other than cringe inducing comedy there is also quite a lot of bad acting in The Last Jedi; Leia and General Hux are both pretty terrible, Holdo’s speech is the least rousing call to action I’ve ever seen and what’s with the code-breaker’s weird tick? Who’s idea was that?

Luke has his moments but even he misses the mark regularly. Rey continues to disappoint and despite a few standout moments is fairly wooden throughout (as she was in The Force Awakens). Even Yoda doesn’t sound quite right and don’t get me started on Rose or those darn slave kids!

Whilst there are some interesting new ideas, much of what happens in The Last Jedi feels recycled both visually and from a story point of view. There are a lot of things thrown in from The Empire Strikes Back and Return of The Jedi in a similar way to how The Force Awakens rehashed much of A New Hope.

We get a big stand-off between the Rebels and the First Order with something that looks like an AT-AT (but crossed with a gorilla - I absolutely hate this design) on a planet that looks suspiciously like Hoth, the Millennium Falcon flies through an underground chasm that looks suspiciously like the reactor core of the Death Star II and the whole pursuit of the Rebels through the galaxy is ripped straight from Empire but with all of the tension and exciting set pieces stripped out and binned.

This story thread ends up being very boring as The First Order just can’t quite catch up to the Rebels (there’s an uninspired explanation for this) and the power struggles between Po and Holdo (whilst Leia is incapacitated) suffer due to the lack of any real urgency. At times I caught myself actually willing the Rebels to JUST RUN OUT OF FUEL ALREADY.

Many other scenes are also long and boring for example: some sections on the island with Rey and Luke go on for way too long, the explanation of how the hyperspace tracker works and how to disable it contains far more information than we actually need and the social justice scenes (BORING!) and space horse chase scene through the Casino (TOO CARTOONISH!) on Canto Bight (I canto bight my tongue) are really tedious.

Presumably in an effort to be more Star-Warsy we also get a number of recycled phrases from the classic films such as “punch it” and “I’ve got a bad feeling about this” but they have been drained of all the drama and excitement present in the original films they are taken from.

The music, part of what I love about Star Wars, is a big let down too with much of the score ill fitting and uninspired. I can imagine John Williams finds it increasingly difficult to be excited by these films and I’m not surprised he’s confirmed he won’t be scoring any of the future films.

Before I draw this to a close I’d like to discuss a few missed opportunities that might have brought a little more excitement to this film.

When Holdo sacrifices herself by turning the Rebel Frigate around and setting a crash course for the lead First Order ship I can’t help but feel this should have been Leia. It would have been a much more emotional moment as we actually have a connection with her character.

We’ve just met Holdo and haven’t been given a chance to develop any connection whatsoever and consequently what could have been a really huge moment loses all of its weight.

We almost got one of these moments with Finn attempting to sacrifice himself to save his friends by “doing an Independence Day” and flying directly into the giant laser battering ram (miniaturised Death Star tech - sigh) in order to destroy it and save his friends. However, this is again ruined by another new character as Rose decides to rescue Finn and we have to endure another scene devoid of any emotional connection between us, the audience, and the characters on screen.

The Last Jedi uses up a lot of the big moments that should probably have been stretched out into the final film in the trilogy. A big example of this is Supreme Leader Snoke being killed off (why didn’t he see Kylo’s betrayal coming?) before we’ve really had a chance to get to know him and for his death to actually mean anything. I also think it would have been fascinating if Rey had been drawn over to the dark side by Kylo Ren.

One of the few scenes I was really pulled in by was Kylo’s “let it die” monologue where he tries to convince Rey to join him and tells her that she came from nothing and WAS nothing but not to him. However, that didn’t happen and as a result I feel there is nothing to look forward to in the next film except maybe for some slave child Jedi flying around on their broomsticks or some other bullshit.

So, is The Last Jedi better than The Empire Strikes Back? If you like your Star Wars films to be long, boring, stupid, badly acted and with a story that leaves nowhere for a sequel to go then yes, yes it is.

Roll on Star Wars - Episode IX: Luke’s Ghost Strikes Back.