User blog:AustinDR/Last Jedi (Spoilers)

So....here's my thoughts about the Last Jedi. Overall, I had mixed opinions on it. It was no means as bad as what others are making it out to be. At least, I see it that way. For the most part, as I have stated in my non-spoiler review, I had a few things that I did like about the film. For instance, the action scenes constantly had me on the edge of my seat. The best one, however, was when Holodo actually rams Snoke's flagship with lightspeed. It was visually amazing as well as haunting as it truly showed the extent of what lightspeed could do. I also found myself liking Ben more in this film. In his own twisted way, he had grown to value the bond he made with Rey via the Force, and the one scene that I personally consider the best was when Ben dissects Snoke by making Snoke believe that he was about to kill Rey. And not only that, but the fight that he and Rey had with Snoke's guards were also epic as was when Ben took over as the new Supreme Leader. Oh, and he also uses the force choke on Chris. However, that's where it ends for me. Now to get onto the stuff that I didn't really like.

For one, we do get an answer for Rey's lineage. After all the theories and speculation, we finally learn that Rey's parents...were junkrats who sold their only daughter for alcohol and were then subsequently killed and buried in unmarked graves. Yeah...honestly, this revelation was mixed for me. On the one hand, it's good to me that it wasn't going to be another Skywalker-centered trilogy, and you could say that it shows that you don't have to come from a well-known bloodline to define your self-worth. On the other, after all the theorizing, the revelation only came off as underwhelming, and it also felt like wasted potential. Though, J. J. Abrams did mention that Rey's parents weren't going to be in Force Awakens, so it should not be that surprising. Besides, it seems that Luke would've known who Rey was if he really was his father, as would Han.

Next, I didn't care for the relationship between Rose and Finn. I didn't find Rose as annoying as some reviewers had made her out to be. She's tolerable at best. However, I do not buy the bond that she had with Finn. She came off first as a fan girl before electrocuting Finn with the taser. Their subplot where they had to go to Canto Bight should've been shortened. The planet is visually impressive, but it overall wasn't necessary to the plot. One example is when Finn and Rose escape prison by freeing these horse-like aliens. Oh, and the ending I did not like: basically, it's of one of the boys that helped Finn and Rose out earlier, using the Force to get a broomstick and holding it up whilst looking at the stars. It seemed as though the film would've ended with the Resistance, but nope. Overall, I didn't find their friendship-later-romance as believable.

I also didn't like how they portrayed Luke. I get that Luke was broken because of how he had failed his nephew which led to the massacre of the rest of the students under his care, but he just came off as an old asshole. We pick up with the ending of Force Awakens where Rey holds out Luke's lightsaber. The scene builds up as being poignant...and Luke takes the lightsaber and throws it over his shoulder off a cliff. For the rest of the movie, Luke came off as a whiner rolling around in his failures. I understand why he felt so strongly, but at the same time I was like "Dude, suck it up!" What makes it worse is the reveal that when he was teaching Ben, he sensed that he leaned towards the Dark Side. So, he contemplated killing Ben in his sleep. It came off as a what the hell moment for me, and it quickly leads to Ben defending himself by destroying the temple, and burying Luke in the rubble. Of course, Luke does get better gradually, and the one epic scene is when he uses all of his life force to project a hologram of himself to fight off Ben and the remainder of his forces. But then that alone brings more questions to the way the Force is used. That one scene where Leia actually uses the Force to bring herself back onto the ship felt like they were pushing the limits to what the Force can and cannot do. I honestly wished that she died in the attack with the First Order out of respect for Carrie Fisher, but I can't really hate on that scene too much.

There were also some contrivances that I had small issues with. For example, when Rose and Finn are thrown into prison, they happen to meet a man named DJ who so happened to be a "master" hacker. Wow, that didn't come off as coincidental! And I did eventually grow to hate that piece of Wookie dung the moment he sold the two out to the First Order, which leads to them killing several Resistance members. I wanted him to be this continuity's new Han Solo in a way, but again that is a minor issue.

Now, for the issues I had with the most. I felt that some of the characters were grievously underused. Supreme Leader Snoke. This alien humanoid who had seduced Ben to the dark side. Who had practically planned everything from before Ben was even conceived. This enigmatic figure that thousands of fan theories were supported to. And how is he dealed with? He's swiftly killed by Ben without much effort. While I said that I loved the scene because it led to that awesome battle with the guards and Ben making himself the new leader, I felt that it undermines the threat that Snoke was. I really wanted to know more about Snoke like where he came from, what his big vendetta was with the Skywalker family. What his ultimate goal was other than conquering the galaxy. Now, we may never know. If you thought how they treated Snoke was bad, Phasma didn't fare any better. While she does actually do a tidbit more than in the first film, she is once again easily defeated with minimal effort on the others' part. And then she gets engulfed in the flames of the flagship. Both Snoke and Phasma had a lot of potential but were wasted. At least there is the substantial material that goes into Phasma's backstory more.

Overall, those were my major gripes with the film. It's far from hateable for me, but at the same time, it had its fair share of issues that made no sense to me.