The Groves

The Groves

Friday, December 15, 2017

My Initial Thoughts on Star Wars : The Last Jedi *SPOILERS*

Okay, so, I've had to repeat myself a lot whilst discussing the movie with friends, so I thought it might be easier to make a blog post about my feelings after my first viewing of The Last Jedi. Consider yourself warned... MASSIVE SPOILERS AHEAD. Seriously. If you haven't seen the movie and you care about spoilers, get out now.

*

*

*

SPOILERS!

*

*

*

Oooookay, that's enough of that. Anyway, it's fairly well known within my friend circles that I'm generally a very opinionated and passionate person, and also a huge Star Wars fan (and also apparently a massive purist, which is insane considering how much I loved the Hobbit movies which according to most were "blasphemy"... whatever). So it's pretty safe to say I have feelings about this movie, and honestly... most aren't positive. *le gasp*
Don't get me wrong, it was a fun movie that was absolutely gorgeous, and had some moments that were really satisfying for me personally (I have a massive weakness for Kylo Ren and I don't even care, it's my weird Prince Zuko complex)... but it also had some insanely unnecessary moments that in a few cases had me sitting in my seat thinking, "seriously? Are they serious??" There was a shocking amount of completely unnecessary humor that not only felt really out of place in the Star Wars universe, but also felt really modern, which just feels incredibly icky to me. I've heard a few people celebrate that the new movies are "bringing the Star Wars franchise into the future" and frankly, I think that's a load of shyte. Star Wars is supposed to be timeless. It's supposed to transcend time (and space) and be relatable to everyone. Making gaggy jokes that feel really modern is not only problematic from the perspective that they'll date the movies, but also from the perspective that these movies take place in another time, a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. If you're not sure what I'm talking about, I'll list a few of the more heinous ones (in no particular order)-
1. Luke brushing off his shoulder after the walker barrage. Are you actually shitting me, Rian Johnson? What kind of bullshit was that??? You take what should be an intense moment where you're questioning how Luke just pulled that off and the astonishment Kylo is feeling... and you completely ruin it with an incredibly modern Earth silly gesture. What a joke, and I don't mean that as a compliment. It was such a simple thing, but it completely ruined the tension of what should absolutely have been an intense moment. People in the theater we watched in it were already chuckling when the dust cleared and Luke was still standing there, and I remember distinctly whispering to Brady, "Wh--why are they laughing? This isn't supposed to be funny...." (but the precedent had been set by the previous two hours of idiotic gags) and then the shoulder brush happened and I just could not. As the theater around me erupted in laughter I sat in stony, silent disbelief. So unnecessary. Please, y'all, go back to editing school.
2. The shot of Snoke's dead face immediately followed by the lower half of his dead body slumping off of the throne. What kind of garbage was that?! Can you imagine them pulling that crap with the Emperor? Ha. It would absolutely never have happened. You can't just do that to your villains! Adding a stupid gag for some laughs that will cheapen your villain FOREVER and take away his power for future rewatches is just incredibly short-sighted and disappointing. Plus... why? Why do we need to laugh?! It's Star Wars for crying out loud! Are we so afraid of being "too dark" that we've become afraid to be serious?? It's okay for a movie to be serious. We have so many silly movies with cheap humor in the world, we really do not need Star Wars slipping into that category.
Some may argue that this is comparing apples to oranges, but you look at how Peter Jackson and crew decided not to include Tom Bombadil in the Lord of the Rings because of the bit in the books where he says about The Ring, "I would not pick up this thing if it fell by the wayside." That line effectively strips The Ring of its power, and cheapens its impact and seriousness as a villain (which, sorry, if you don't think The Ring is its own separate villain, you're wrong. Fight me). There, the correct choice was made to keep The Ring as a powerful and fear-inducing force, even at the expense of excluding a fan-favorite character from the films.
I feel similarly about any silly moments including Kylo. Why do we need to cheapen our villains?! It's so unnecessary and so bothersome. A friend argued that they needed to "humanize" Kylo to help the audience empathize with him, but personally I find it completely unnecessary to do so using humor, especially gag-y humor. I feel like the scene by the fire in the hut where Ben and Rey touch hands humanizes Ben/Kylo more than any other scene in the entire series so far, and there's absolutely nothing funny or silly about it. (That's another thing where I'm so confused! That moment was so beautiful and so powerful, so it's not like Rian Johnson is incapable of writing excellent serious moments... Consider me baffled.)
3. Basically everything with the porgs. I'm so bothered by them. It's not a requirement to have cute creatures in Star Wars. It just isn't. People have made Ewok comparisons which is a load of tosh. The Ewoks had a purpose. They were involved in the story and they drove the plot. There were other cool and cute creatures in TLJ that drove the plot (the crystal foxes, the fathiers), so why on earth did we need to have porgs if not for silly comedic relief (which, still, not necessary in this universe) and toy revenue? Barf. The only scene where I wasn't bothered by their silliness was the scene where Chewie is in the cockpit of the Falcon and the porgs are messing everything up. That just seemed like an extension of the scene where Rey asks if Chewie has had any luck contacting the Resistance, rather than a scene shoved in just to lighten the mood for the sake of mood lightening.
4. Luke's wink to C-3PO, more modern language/humor, etc. Like I touched on in point 1, Star Wars is supposed to be set in another place at another time. Why on earth would it have 2017 Earth humor? Think about it. In A New Hope, Leia says to Tarkin, "Ah, Governor Tarkin. I thought I recognized your foul stench when I was brought on board." Sassy, but not something you'd ever hear someone say in normal circumstances, even in the 70s. Or how about "scruffy-lookin' nerf herder" or even "will someone get this walking carpet out of my way?" The original Star Wars movies had quips that made you chuckle, without pulling you out of the immersion of the film. So many of the "comedic" moments in TLJ just felt super cheap to me, and not well thought out.
5. Luke tossing his lightsaber over his shoulder! WTF?! My jaw literally dropped from the "wtf-ness" of that moment. Why was that the decision? Why not take it from Rey, hold it for a moment, and then forcefully hand it back to her while brushing past without a word? Or hell, just NOT EVEN TAKE IT AT ALL? We literally waited for two years for the realization of that moment and we got this little shoulder toss? This is not Yoda in the Dagobah system. Rey knows who Luke is and she KNOWS that's his lightsaber. Ugh.

Honestly, I know it seems like a short-ish list, but I can't remember all of them. I just felt like there was an unnecessary amount of humor that was also really poorly executed, and it was extremely disappointing to me. It's especially sad because those were my only legitimate gripes with the entire movie! A simple edit removing less than 90 seconds of the movie would eliminate 99% of my issues with the movie, and that to me indicates a serious problem. Especially after coming fresh off a watch of this serious gem (How Star Wars was Saved in the Edit), it was painful to watch humor break apart moments that deserved to be serious.


Another thing that REALLY bothered me was how they handled Leia's ejection from the ship and Force-wielding return. Holy shit, that upset me more than I can accurately put into words. It's no secret that I'm pretty sensitive to death (especially in this hellhole of a year), so to make me think that Leia was going to meet her end so abruptly and so violently and SO EARLY IN THE MOVIE was beyond upsetting to me. I had a minor breakdown in the theater and almost had to leave to compose myself... and then for them to almost immediately be like JK SHE'S NOT DEAD, when I know at some point they're going to have to address that General Organa is no longer with us, is unnecessarily traumatic and bordering on cruel. Honestly, I can barely even think about Carrie without getting a lump in my throat, so thinking for a horrible hot minute that she'd been blown up and that was the end and we weren't getting any closure whatsoever was horrifying. In my opinion that whole thing was in very poor taste. Sure, if Carrie were still alive and well, it would be a different thing, but leaving that bit in the movie with all things considered just seemed really inappropriate.

I also still have some gripes about Rey's miraculous rise to full Force using (especially when I've been slogging through adventure after adventure after adventure for nearly five years with my SWTRPG tabletop character who has to train extensively any time she wants to learn a new Force skill or become stronger with the Force) though I will say that the novelization of The Force Awakens helped with that. We didn't get any major Force training montages to indicate that Rey had been training with Luke for weeks, especially since we KNOW that the other storylines were on a very short schedule time-wise. (I mean, sure, I suppose that Ben and Rey's Force conversations could have transcended even time, that's not outside the realm of possibility, but as far as we were shown, the entire movie took place over less than a week. That's not enough time, especially since it's not like Luke was actively training her the whole time she was with him. I dunno. It's a silly gripe but a gripe nonetheless.)

Anyway, I'll update the post soon with the things I did like about the movie (which... Damn! Adam Driver! That's all I'm going to say for now), but at the moment I need to go back to work to make some money to go see the movie again.

No comments:

Post a Comment