The Last Jedi

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.