User blog:AustinDR/Last Jedi (Review)

So...Last Jedi. It was honestly an okay movie. Not great, but I did enjoy it. Namely, what I did love about the movie were the action scenes. They were flashy, very creative. I also did like how Poe was almost like a surrogate son for Leia after Ben was seduced to the dark side. Though those are some of the few things that I legitimately liked about the movie.

Now on the subject on the plot line...I honestly had no issue with following the plot. Well, there was that one scene with Rey going into a hole that leads to some surreal imagery. Maybe there was a bigger point to it all, but I do not know. The only real plot points I can think of that made me pause was when Luke first meets Rey. He asks her about the whereabouts of Han Solo, but it seemed odd to me that he wouldn't know as Leia herself felt his death through the Force. That, and with the Force itself, it was really suspending disbelief for me. I get that it's some mystical energy field, but the Force is used in one way that prevents a certain character from freezing to death in space. I won't say who it is, but not only did it really push my suspension of disbelief, I also felt that it was disrespectful towards the person who portrayed this character. If anything, I felt that this character should've died because the real life actor or actress is unable to reprise their role due to circumstance.

While the film was good, I was pretty disappointed in it. Number one: Supreme Leader Snoke. Andy Serkis had described Snoke as being a master manipulator who had been orchestrating events even before Ben was born. Theory after theory had been proposed on who Snoke really was ranging from the downright silly Jar Jar Binks to the Legends Universe's Darth Plagueis. After someone like Emperor Palpatine, you would think that he would have a big role to play. And the way that he gets defeated.....While it is awesome, at the same time given the circumstances, there might not be a chance to further delve into his motivations or his training of Ben / Kylo Ren. And then there's Phasma. She was also underused again. While she did do something in this movie, she is ultimately done away with without much effort.

For Luke Skywalker, I had mixed feelings on. He came off as a grumpy old man because of how failed to teach his nephew and is reluctant to help Rey at first. While he grew gradually better throughout the film, he is definitely a far cry from his original self. As for new characters....Rose. Rose is Asian in this film, which isn't problematic in and of itself, if she contributed anything to the film. Really, while I do favor some diversity in films, I feel that there should be a reason for it rather than out of any "self guilt." Is she annoying? Well, she didn't get on my nerves when she was first introduced, but she did feel like a stereotypical fangirl especially when she met Finn. I don't buy the bond that the two characters have for each other either. To me, it feels undeserved. There is hardly any development between the two that makes me feel that they had grown closer in the film. Really, I felt that Rose didn't really have much of a crucial role in the film to speak of. She has a backstory - that being that she lost her sister - but if she were to be written out and with a few alterations to the final draft of the script, nothing much would change.

Overall, I am slightly disappointed by The Last Jedi. It's not that I hated it, but at the same time, there wasn't really much that I genuinely liked from the film.

Final score:

7 stars out of 10