I
think enough time has passed now to talk about The Last Jedi without fear of
spoiling people. These impressions, therefore, will have spoilers.
Though
the dust has settled after the initial shock that this film sent through
fandom, the debates are raging on. The reasons are speculative, and there’s a
huge amount of straw-man arguing from all perspectives because of it, but the
fact is that critics have almost universally lauded this film, while viewers
have been much more divided with a tendency towards disappointment. Thus the
current Rotten Tomatoes score of 90% from critics and 50% from audiences.
For
my part, I’m with the disappointed parties. I didn’t hate the film, and quite
enjoyed the spectacle and production values, but there were many flaws.
Yesterday, one straw man argument I saw was that the detractors can’t decide why they dislike the film, with the
article’s writer claiming that their personal acquaintances contradicted one
another about the negative points of the film as though that couldn’t just be
her invention, as though everyone who dislikes something has to be unified in
their reasoning, and as though as though the backlash hasn’t been remarkably
consistent.
The
things that a lot of people have complained about, some of them nitpicks, that
I agreed with: -
-
The film is too
long. It drags and several subplots don’t actually have any consequence.
-
There’s too much
coincidence, with conspicuous character shields and a lot of people just
happening to be in the right place at the right time.
-
Luke acts far too
differently from the established character, and the reasoning as to why he
became this way doesn’t make much sense. This is particularly annoying when you
remember the first film was centred on searching for him.
-
There’s no
adequate explanation how the Republic basically evaporated and the Last Order
went from remnant of an old, defeated Empire to just as big and powerful as the
Empire ever was.
-
Snoke is
badly-realised, insubstantial and dispatched too simply.
-
Rey is uninteresting,
too good at everything she does without effort or struggle, and very hard to
empathise with.
-
Concern is
expressed for captive animals but not the exploited children alongside them.
-
The Empire pays
off Del Toro’s character when they could easily have just shot him.
-
Hyperdrive-as-weapon
is cool but should have been used or at least mentioned before this if
possible.
-
The First Order
had many many other options besides slowly following and bombarding the Rebels –
who without explanation are no longer called the Resistance.
-
Leia’s adventure
in space was badly-executed.
-
Admiral Akbar wasn’t
even given a death scene.
-
Luke’s final scene
is a force projection for no decent plot reason when going in person would be
much more impressive and moving – leading to suspicion Mark Hamill wasn’t even
told his character would die.
-
Captain Phasma has
blaster-resistant armor so why don’t more of the soldiers have it?
-
Holdo should have
just shared her plans with Poe and avoided an entire overwrought subplot.
-
It’s strange that
Holdo’s sacrifice is celebrated as heroic when it seems unnecessary (droids? Autopilot?)
but Finn is prevented from doing similar, whereupon only coincidence stops that
from meaning everyone he knows and values is slaughtered.
-
The First Order
are presented as laughable, weak and ineffectual, so defeating them seems less
an underdog’s triumph than a matter of course.
-
A
heavily-merchandised symbol of capitalist film-making criticises capitalism.
But
for me, the thing that rankled the most was how small-scale this was. This
series is an epic space opera with consequences affecting life across numerous
worlds. This was just about one ship, or one ship and its small attending
fleet. It didn’t feel like there were high enough stakes, compared with past
films. It just wasn’t that exciting to watch.
There
are other things I know some people disliked that I didn’t mind. I liked Holdo
as a character and didn’t find Rose annoying. I thought the porg moments were
cute and think Kylo Ren is an interesting volatile antagonist even if he isn’t
all strength, decisiveness and aloof indifference. I like Finn and think he’s
got a good everyman touch. The irreverent humour was largely welcome, though
the opening ‘on hold’ joke maybe didn’t fit the universe that well. And if Rey
really does come from nothing, that’s fine by me as a backstory – but her
character still needs a whole lot of work, especially if you throw out what was
one potential explanation for her hypercapability. Her coming from nowhere is
fine, but her being able to do what every single other person with her
capabilities before her took years of training to do needs some explanation.
I
also think this movie is less overtly political than people want it to be.
There are undoubtedly leftist, progressive influences on this movie but I don’t
think they should fundamentally change how the audience enjoys them. I don’t
like the alt-right complaints that it’s pushing diversity in a jarring way (why
shouldn’t a fantasy sci-fi universe be diverse?), that it pushes the agenda of
wiping away the old ways to bring in the new (young upstarts actually learn
that they should listen to and even blindly trust the established authorities
here, even if those authorities happen to be matriarchs in this film) or that the
New Order is a swipe at the alt-right (Star
Wars has always been about a rag-tag, diverse crew of underdogs prevailing
against pseudo-fascist oppressors).
On
the other hand, I don’t like the Leftist narrative that if you dislike the
film, you must be some chauvinist privileged man-child neo-nazi on the wrong
side of history, that the reason the New Order work is because they’re a weak
echo of a terrible force from the past that should be mocked (that not only
means your onscreen bad guys are very unimpressive, it also makes it a bit
strange that they essentially win and dominate by the end of the film) or that criticising
arms dealing is somehow an ultra-progressive new feminist ideal this movie
presents and has never before been depicted by the (extremely patriarchal and
1%-friendly) Hollywood machine. Shoehorning the movie’s events into your own
political agenda is just as annoying as the people who feel like everything
that makes them feel uncomfortable is an attack on their way of life. And it’s
annoying to see two sides yelling that this is a huge smash hit and this is a
huge flop at each other long before the numbers can definitively back either
claim up – just as happened with Wonder
Woman and Ghostbusters before
this.
I
also don’t know how anybody can celebrate this as the end of Luke Skywalker’s
character arc. No matter your politics, I can’t see how this would not be a
disappointment, even if you accept that this is no longer his movie series and
is now Rey’s. Even no longer the protagonist, Luke is very much a positive hero
character and I infinitely prefer where his character was taken in Extended
Universe novels (not that I actually read them) to this new canon. Not to
mention how sad I feel that Mark Hamill was clearly extremely disappointed with
what happened here – I almost wish he’d refused to have any part of it.
