Saturday, January 13, 2018

Star Wars: The Last Jedi Review # 3 With Spoilers - Wrapping Up

Another cool review of "Star Wars: The Last Jedi."

Because I kept feeling that something was missing from my own review published a couple of days or so ago, so I went back and watched another video. This one had the narrator dissect some of what he considers the biggest blunders with the new movie.

Predictably, his number one seems to be the thing that bothers everyone about this movie, and that was the Flying Leia through space, which I actually did discuss in my spoiler-filled review.

But there are other things in here that he mentioned, including the lack of seeing Rey progress with the force. I mentioned that there was not much development of Rey's character, and this could easily have been remedied with scenes clearly showing her growing stronger with the force, under Luke's guidance.

Instead, we just kind of have to take it one face value that she is growing stronger, getting better. Indeed, now, we have seen her in a fight using the force twice, and she has more than held her own each time. There was the time when she beat Kylo Ren, a supposedly incredibly gifted warrior trained in the ways of the force, even though she had never held a lightsaber or shown any kind of talent with the force at all.

Then in this movie, she and Kylo team up (temporarily, as it winds up being) to defeat supposedly elite guardian warriors of Supreme Leader Snoke.

How did she get that strong, though? Is that truly believable, that she finds the strength to win these incredible battles against very experienced warriors - multiple warriors simultaneously in this movie? And later, she managed to move a large cave full of big boulders out of the way, and they just float there, while she smiles and seems quite content with herself. This, compared with Luke struggling to move some small rocks and other odds and ends after long training with Yoda, even though both Obi Wan Kenobi and Darth Vader suggested that the force was unusually strong in him? 

Come on!

Now, let me mention a few things that I did not quite get into in either of the two previous reviews of the movie:

Snoke's dies, like he was very weak and insignificant with the force. We are supposed to believe that he is a master of the dark side of the force, that he is virtually Emperor Palpatine's equal, if not even his superior, and then we watch him get cut in half, just like that? No back story about who he is and how he got to where he is? 

Also, I did not completely like how Made Hux looked completely weak and moronic in this particular movie. How could he possibly have climbed to such a high position if he was this weak, and this much of a clown, frankly? The movie opens with him getting tricked by Poe, then being humiliated for it by Supreme Leader Snoke, to the point that he's bleeding. He pursues the fleet, only to eventually see most of them escape, and to allow the one remaining ship to almost wipe out the First Order's fleet, including Snoke's own master ship. Then, he gets bossed around, effectively becoming Kylo Ren's whipping boy? Where was the frightening and seemingly competent general from the previous movie? Again, if he is that much of an imbecile, how did he manage to ascend to such a top spot within the First Order? 

Even worse is Captain Phasma, who looks like she should be a big deal in terms of marketing, but who did not get much screen time in either movie, and who does not really advance the story along in any serious or significant way. Maybe she died, maybe she did not, at the end. But if they saved her for another couple of largely insignficant moments in the next movie, what's the point?

One thing that the reviewer in this video below mentioned, which I largely missed, were the timeline inconsistencies. First, the one that I did notice. Indeed, Rey is on the island, but she has already offered Luke the lightsaber, so why do it again, from another position. For that matter, how realistic is it that Luke would take the saber and simply toss it over his shoulder, as if it means absolutely nothing to him, even through all of the issues that we find out he has endured? 

The other time inconsistency - this is the one that I missed completely - which is General Hux being told to get Kylo Ren, who will receive more training in the ways of the dark side of the force, while Hux himself awaits instructions. Yet, in this movie, we see him in the middle of a battle with Rebel forces. It just does not really follow from where the last movie left off.

I already mentioned the chase on Canto Bite, as well as Rose saving Finn from his suicide mission. Frankly, it would have been darkly exciting, and added a dramatic level of unpredictability, for one of the major heroes of the new trilogy to be killed like that, only for Rose to save him in the last second, rather unrealistically.

This guy's number one beef with the new Star Wars movie, though, is of course the flying Leia, which just seems ridiculous. It was unnecessary, and frankly, I still think that she should have died in this movie, probably being in the place that Holdo actually was in, flying the ship at hyperdrive into Snoke's fleet. Now, that would have been both a dramatic and a heroic way for her to go out!

Well, that likely wraps up my thoughts with the newest Star Wars movie. Sorry that it kept going on and on, and that it took me forever to finally get around to finishing the spoilers review, which as it turns out, was not all that finished after all (hence this blog entry). 



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