See updated version of this article here.
April 10, 2018 – It’s difficult to put into words just how disappointed I was over Star Wars: The Last Jedi. Going in, I had seen several movies from SW8’s director and liked them well enough. I wasn’t a huge fan of SW7 (The Force Awakens), and was hoping SW8 would somehow make SW7 stronger in retrospect. That didn’t happen.
And now the director of the smaller disappointment by comparison (SW7) has been hired to do SW9. The problem is, it doesn’t seem like there’s a way to fix the damage done by the humongous disappointment (SW8). What a mess.
This was also the year of Justice League’s Superman facial cgi debacle (making a rewatch of the movie a no-go for me and millions of others). 2015’s Fantastic Four comes to mind as well. How can such high-budget projects be so botched? How were they released to a hopeful public in such a form? What were they thinking?
Below are some of the more disappointing moments of SW8…
Prior to this point in the film, there were some unlikable moments but no deal breakers. Then we get the first signs of major trouble for the film: Luke tosses the light saber over his shoulder. As a friend astutely pointed out, Luke discarding the light saber is the equivalent of SW8’s writer/director discarding everything that came before – in terms of storyline – to do things how he wanted to do them. This is a huge contrast to SW7’s writer/director, who obviously wanted to be respectful of what came before – so much so that SW7 was considered an homage to SW4.
Recall how SW7 ended. Just look at the pictures. They tell the story. Both Luke and Rey are spewing out major pathos. Now take a look below at how SW8 reimagined things. Rather than pathos, Luke is angry and Rey is confused.
This may have mimicked what the actors were feeling. Hamill was upset over the change in direction for his character – a character which had already been established in four major motion pictures. And Ridley just looks confused, or completely without emotion. Whatever the faults of SW7 were, most admit the ending was a corker, and both actors really “brought it.” Not here in SW8, which is obviously telling a different story.
More could be said of the bewildering direction taken for the relationship between Luke and Rey. But we’re trying to make this a short article, not the tome it could be. So we’re moving on.
Shortly after the saber is pitched, we get our first non-holographic look at Supreme Leader Snoke. Again, SW7’s rug is swiped out from underneath us. In SW7, Snoke was large and looming. Here, not so much. His wimpy stature is not a deal breaker, but it is a letdown. In SW6 (ROTJ), the Emperor wasn’t large or looming, but all we saw were his face and hands. He was heavily cloaked. This helped give a more ominous feeling than how Snoke is presented in SW8.
And then there’s the red room. The last time I saw this much red was... never. And it’s practically an empty room. Maybe they ran out of ideas for set design, who knows. Again, this is not a deal breaker, but it is another “What were they thinking?” moment, which were many in this film.
And if we never discover more about Snoke, and he really is dead, that’s another letdown. With the Emperor, we saw his beginnings as Senator Palpatine and learned of his relationship with Darth Plagueis. We got quite a bit. For Snoke we may get nothing.
Possibly the least silly movie of the SW franchise is SW5 The Empire Strikes Back. Probably uncoincidentally, it’s also considered by many to be the best one. When silliness was heavily introduced in SW6 Return of the Jedi (ewoks), people weren’t happy about it in the long run, even if they initially giggled in the theaters. And SW1, the worst of SW1, SW2, and SW3, was also the silliest – young Anakin, Jar Jar, Gungans, the pod race crowd, etc., etc.
In SW8, unfortunately, the silliness abounds. Silly is okay, if it’s actually funny. When it’s not, it’s just bad. Silly moments in SW8 that weren’t actually funny:
When something is genuinely funny, it stays funny forever. But cheap gags lose more and more of their power over time – keeping people from re-watching a movie or liking a movie in the long term.
SO MUCH MORE could be said in analysis of this film. But let’s end by addressing the issue of Rey’s parents. It’s not a requirement that her parents be anyone known or special. However, that IS what we were strongly led to believe by SW7. Recall Rey’s conversation with Maz Kanata:
MAZ: “That lightsaber was Luke’s. And his father’s before him. And now it calls to you!”
REY: “I have to get back to Jakku.”
MAZ: “Han told me. Dear child. I see your eyes. You already know the truth. Whomever you’re waiting for on Jakku, they’re never coming back. But... there’s someone who still could.”
REY: “Luke.”
MAZ: “The belonging you seek is not behind you. It is ahead.”
The implication is that Luke is a father figure of some sort, or her actual father. The lightsaber was Anakin’s, then Luke’s, and now it calls out to Rey. There’s someone who could still come back for you, namely, Luke. It was in SW5 (the second in a trilogy) that we learned who Luke’s father was. It would have been symmetrical for Rey in SW8 (another second in a trilogy) to learn who her father was.
But SW8’s director decided to go in a different direction. This is fine IF it turns out that Kylo Ren was lying to Rey, OR some explanation is given for Rey in SW9 that fits with the narrative of SW7. Otherwise, we were led astray. Not by SW7, but by a decision made for SW8. The theme of Rey’s parentage was undeniably baked into the plot of SW7. If all of that narrative turns out to be meaningless because of SW8, that’s a real problem. It’s the equivalent of Luke chucking the lightsaber in the beginning of the movie. It’s a disrespectful discarding of what came before. It’s as if the attitude were, “Who cares about continuity. I’m doing what I want.” And the audience is left to pick up the pieces.
Maybe SW9 can somehow fix what was done in SW8, but I don’t know if that’s even possible. Here’s hoping. Otherwise, R.I.P. Star Wars 1977-2017.