Movie Review: Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi (2017)

Directed By: Rian Johnson
Written by: Rian Johnson
Studio: LucasFilm
Released: March 27, 2018
Runtime: 142 minutes
Availability: On DVD and blu-ray, buy digitally on Amazon, streaming on Disney+, available for digital rental

Star Wars: Episode VIII: The Last Jedi continues the story of Rey, Finn, and Poe as they try to help the Resistance escape the First Order. Rey tries to convince Luke Skywalker to return and save the galaxy.

Meanwhile, Leia's group tries to escape the First Order while trying to find a new planet to make a new base.

This movie and the story they have to tell is utter garbage. Rian Johnson had no idea what he was doing when he wrote this story. He decided he wanted to subvert all of J.J. Abram’s ideas by taking the easiest way out: killing all the good or decent characters, which is something that J.J. Abrams ironically did throughout his TiV show LOST.

While Star Wars: Episode VII: The Force Awakens walked on the nostalgia treadmill, at least it had some interesting ideas that could have been fleshed out, The Last Jedi just throws out all of it, and tries to be interesting when it isn’t.

The story that they told was trash, they destroyed the lore and the world-building for the rule of cool ideas that just end up falling flat on its face.

Rian Johnson didn’t even consult J.J. Abrams’ for story ideas, since he is coming back for Star Wars Episode IX, and since the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing, this entire trilogy is a pretty looking trainwreck, and I don’t even think that J.J. Abrams can save it!

The story is just The Empire Strikes back reedited and called The Last Jedi. This is the worst Star Wars movie I’ve ever watched, and I’ve been a fan since I was 12 years old. And this isn’t some 40-year-old fanboy stereotype the media criticizes when I say I don’t like this movie; this is a 30-year-old fangirl. When people defend this movie and they bring in the gender of the audience, they’re grasping at straws.

I’ll write a fanfic that’s better than the entire Sequel Trilogy!

The Luke Skywalker I saw in this movie was not the Luke Skywalker I saw in the original trilogy. This cranky, cynical, depressed jerk hiding away on an island wasn’t Luke; it was a crazy hobo loon calling himself Luke Skywalker!

Luke Skywalker isn’t some depressed old guy who just gives up because he failed. To turn him into what Rian Johnson turned him into this film, and erase his entire hero’s journey is just insulting.

That Luke would even contemplate killing his nephew because he might be evil; it’s just laughable and ridiculous!

Metaphorically, they took Luke out, beat him up, dragged him through the streets, then took him out and shot him; it was a straight-up character assassination!

My mom noticed this and she loves the Original Trilogy. The film never stays on one planet long enough for you to really get a feel for it, to see what it’s like and all the interesting alien creatures on each planet. We’re rushed from one planet to the next back and forth between them just to move the “plot” along.

Star Wars has so many interesting planets and George made sure we got to see them enough so we could remember them, I remember all the planets from the Original Trilogy, the Prequels, not so much outside of the one that was part of the main plot, but I still remember most of them, I can’t really remember much about any of the new planets in this Trilogy, and specifically this movie.

Star Wars: Episode VIII: The Last Jedi has terrible pacing, it was so slow, the story took forever to actually get going. The entire first and second half drags on forever, especially the eternal space battle between the First Order and the Resistance.

This movie is the most boring Star Wars movie to date. All the Star Wars movies have their slow sections, usually in the middle, but in The Last Jedi, EVERYTHING is slow, dull, and uninteresting.

This movie has horrendous pacing, on top of the ridiculous storytelling and character derailment due to atrocious character writing!

The visual effects in this movie are amazing. It looks fantastic. The effects look incredible, for the most part. There are some puppets that don’t look that great, like the Yoda cameo. But for the most part, it looks really stellar.

The movie has a lot of interesting cinematography and camerawork, but the story they’re telling is the stupidest Star Wars story ever!

John Williams score is excellent; it’s one of the nice things I can say about the music. But it relies too much on the Original Trilogy and your nostalgic feelings towards that music.

It’s a nice soundtrack is better than The Force Awakens because it has more memorable themes, and the only theme that stood out in the previous movie to me was “Rey’s Theme”.

John Williams’ score is good, but not as outstanding as the other Star Wars films.

The actors for this film are good in this film. But I don’t’ feel they gave outstanding performances. They just seemed like they were just “there”.

Daisy Ridley did fine as Rey. The problem is not her acting, it’s Rey’s character. She has no real character arc to go through. She thinks she can save Kylo Ren and turn him back to being Ben Solo again, but when it doesn’t work, she’s like, oh whatever.

The only real “flaw” they give her is that she can’t really resist the call of the Dark Side, not that it matters because she’s ridiculously overpowered and can do everything, despite having no real training and she doesn’t even really need Luke anyway.

Kylo Ren/Ben Solo is played by Adam Driver, and he’s kind of ridiculous, he’s just trying so hard in this role, but his character is the ineffectual villain throughout the entire money, who doesn’t even kill anyone and feels so very try-hard. You can definitely tell that this was made by LucasFilm to appease Disney because Kylo Ren is written like a Disney villain.

Adam Driver is all right as an actor, but I can’t take the character seriously. LucasFilm and the scriptwriters have no idea how to make a terrifying villain at all. When the villain won’t even kill people who fail him, he’s a poor villain!

Mark Hamill is excellent, even if he made it clear he didn’t agree with the direction Rian Johnson took Luke Skywalker, he did a decent job, but he sounds depressed and not because the character is, he did all right, but, this Luke Skywalker is not one that I like.

John Boyega is all right as Finn, he isn’t nearly as energetic as he was in the last movie, and his character is the only one who had more development. He was an interesting character in this movie. Although I do understand why people are annoyed with him, he really is the Jar Jar Binks of this trilogy.

Oscar Isaac is all right as Poe Dameron, but I don’t find him to be particularly interesting at all. The character has only one trait, he’s a reckless hothead, but he has no real development throughout the movie.

Carrie Fisher wasn’t that good in this movie, this may be her last performance, and fans may feel sad because she’s gone, but she sounded like she was phoning it in, she didn’t really act like Princess Leia either, and she was unconscious for a lot of the movie too.

The other actors are just all right, but the film’s not particularly outstanding in the acting department.

No matter what anyone says the writers on LucasFilm storyboard committee had an agenda, to take away all the power from the male characters and give it to the female characters, and I say this as a woman, this story was crap. You can have powerful male and female characters; you don’t have to take away from one to add to the others.

They also have tried to make the Force morally ambiguous, and the Force is not morally ambiguous, the Force is also NOT female, Kathleen Kennedy, the Force is an energy field, it does not have a gender like the Christian God or polytheistic religions that have gods and goddesses.

Taking the Force away from the moral black and white aspect it has to promote thinly veiled moral relativism is not what George Lucas had in mind when he created the Force.

Shoehorning political messages about arms dealers or how saving animals is a good thing also didn’t need to be in the movie, or how rich people are evil because they profited from the war between the good Resistance and the evil First Order, they constantly beat you over the head with these messages, and it’s annoying because these movies are escapism, I don’t want any agendas in my escapism!

What upsets me about this movie the most is that everyone acts stupid. They contradict themselves and then they just do something ridiculous.

Another thing I hate is the unlikeable characters; I don’t really like any of the characters in this movie. I found characters that I really loved in both the Prequel and the Original Trilogy. I just want to see Episode IV: The Rise of Skywalker and then be done with Star Wars, and I’d never thought I’d ever say that.

I’m done with this franchise, say what you want about George Lucas and his corny dialogue, at least the man could tell stories that were good and interesting and pulled from classic literature and mythology and spun them into something that was unique. This is just trying to win people over with Original Trilogy nostalgia, without a shred of originality.

This movie failed to do one thing and the only thing that I need to be happy when watching a Star Wars movie: Tell a good story. The story is so abysmally bad, that I could write a fanfiction story that was better than this, the only good thing that will come out of The Last Jedi is all the fix fic around it once it’s finished.

The story is nonsensical; everyone makes stupid decisions on both sides. Luke Skywalker, the greatest and best character in all of Star Wars is derailed so badly he’s ruined, especially if you enjoyed the Original Trilogy.

The Last Jedi fails to be a good movie by itself and it also fails at being a good Star Wars movie. Take away the stunning visual effects and the music and look at the story, it’s just awful.

It hasn’t topped The Last Airbender for being the worst movie I’ve watched, but it’s the worst movie with nice production values that I’ve watched. Only buy it if you liked the movie, you could totally skip this one and you wouldn’t really miss anything. I highly doubt even J.J. Abrams can save this trilogy now.

I finished Star Wars: Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker (2019) and I'm so happy I never have to watch the sequel trilogy ever again. Star Wars: Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker (2020)is the lowest critically reviewed movie beating out Star Wars: Episode I: The Phantom Menace (1999) with a 58% on Rotten Tomatoes before opening day.

The sequel trilogy could have been so good, but Star Wars: Episode VIII: The Last Jedi (2018) killed the sequel trilogy, and Star Wars: Episode IX: The Rise of Skywlaker (2020) just buried it. I'm so done with Disney Star Wars!