Star Wars - The Last Jedi

We watched the Last Jedi.

The Good

The jedi plot was good. It's not perfect, but it's good, intriguing, good character drama. It has plot twists that are actually logical and convincing. That's how the story of a good movie should be. Too bad it is only half of the movie.

Kylo Ren was my favourite character in the Force Awakens. I found it interesting to have a villain who is just at the beginning of his career of villainry. I liked his internal struggles, his desire to pose as a new Vader. Plus he is a young Snape (he not only looks, but speaks that way as well) and we all love Severus Snape :)
So I am happy how they advanced his plot. His angst deepens, his posing was mocked by even his own master, he struggles, he feels guilty about killing Han. I loved the moment when he choose not to shoot Leia. I also liked the way they conspired with Rey.
The whole "let's leave the past behind, destroy it if necessary" mindset was cool as well and it is something new in the Star Wars drama. Luke's plotline also worked into this. Thumbs up big time.

I was a bit sad about the dream team breaking up so quickly. It would have been interesting to watch the pair work together a bit longer. Especially if Rey would lean more to the dark side while Kylo to the light (as is foretold). I expected a bit more from Kylo than losing Rey by a "let's rule the galaxy together" line.
It felt like a copy-paste line from Vader. Actually it was a copy-paste from Vader :P

I also liked the reveal about Rey's parents. No, they are not Mr. and Mrs. Sue who named their daughter Mary :P

Luke's plot was solid as well. It was very well done that we first saw the events of that fateful night from Kylo Ren's PoV and later Luke explains what really happened and how Kylo misunderstood it. It was a very convincing plot turn. Cool.

There are some moderate sized problems with the jedi plotline:
* Who the hell is Snoke, where he came from, why was he in contact with the jedi pupils, why did Luke and Leia did nothing about it even though they were both aware of his existance and evil influence?
* Luke's decision to end the jedi order. It would have made perfect sense AFTER dealing with Snoke and Kylo Ren. The argument that there is force and light and hope even without the jedi is a good point, and realizing that training jedis often resulted in creating sith lords is a valid point. But to end the jedi order right after you unleashed a pair of sith on the Galaxy... it makes much less sense. It seems much more like a tantrum.
* There are still too many copy-pastes from the original trilogy. It still feels like a fanfiction. A good fanfiction, but a fanfiction. They put the descendants of the original characters into the very same situations those ones faced and then have them make different choices.
Ray goes to save Kylo Ren from the dark side, but this is exactly what the sith master was hoping she would do - that was the jedi plot of the Return of the Jedi :P Even the dialogue in the elevator was copy-pasted from the dialogue between Luke and Vader...

The Bad
The Resistance plotline... ho boy. I had quite a lot of bad experiences with Hollywood storytelling and writing in the last decade, but this surpassed it all.

TLDR version:
To paraphrase Luke: it is amazing that every single plot point was stupid and illogical.
* All the space battle situations were contradicting how space battles worked so far in Star Wars and were also illogical by themselves. And these were the foundations of all the other plots and dramas.
* The drama between Poe and Holdo was good drama, but was also retarded plotwise. Neither the situation that created their dilemma, nor Poe's nor Holdo's plan on how to solve it made any sense at all.  
* This is the year when every major scifi franchise tried to rip off Battlestar Galactica. BSG drama and BSGesque situations were appropriate for BSG. They have no place in Star Trek or Star Wars...
* Finn going away on a sidequest to a planet in the middle of a space battle to recruit someone they need to win that battle. WTF is this shit?
* Finn is still a boring character. Too bad they didn't let him sacrifice himself at the end. Sadly he is supposed to be the other main hero beside Rey. Poe turned out to be a more interesting character.
* Finn is so boring and the Canto Bight plot (30m sidequest) so pointless that the central tension there is our heroes being jailed for parking illegally. Seriously!

Skip the long version.

***

My problems started with the scroll text. The resistance is down to a single base. WTF?
The original trilogy was about how the rebellion defeated the empire and re-established the Republic. The galaxy is supposed to be ruled by the Republic. The evil ones are supposed to be the underdogs now (Check out the Timothy Zahn books on how to write good stories in such a setting). If you discard this setup, then you invalidate everything the heroes of the original trilogy achieved!

The political setup was already shitty in the Force Awakens. Why was the Republic not fighting back against the First Order when the First Order was waging a war on the republic? Why was only a hidden resistance movement fighting against the First Order?
Then in the Force Awakens the First Order blew up 5 planets, lost their Death Star and suddenly (in around 2-3 days, because that's how much time passed between the two based on Finn just recovering) the Republic is no more, the Galaxy is ruled again by an evil empire, and the rebellion is down to a single base.
W T F ??? What is this bullshit?
Have you noticed that even the characters have started to call themselves Rebels instead of Resistance, around the middle of the story without any reason at all? When logically it is the First Order which is an insurgency.

Look, I understand perfectly what is going on here. There was a Star Wars trilogy where the empire was powerful and the plot was simple: pure good fighting against overwhelming evil. And then there was a Star Wars trilogy where the republic was powerful and the plot was about the political complexities of how to lose in such a situation. And the first one was much more successful.

Disney's problem was that they wanted to write a story in the first setup, but they are at a point in the story where the state of the fictive world is in the second setup (the Republic has been reestablished and ruling the galaxy for the last 30 years).
So they decided to simply ignore it! They simply ignored the plot of the original trilogy, the one that they are so keen on copying!


It's like writing a sequel to some disney romance story which ended up in a happy marriage and then treating your heroine as if she were a virgin, who never before fell in love. WTF?


That's not how good storytelling works. If you want your story to get to a certain state you have to work on it! And that's a generic problem with this movie and 21st century Hollywood in general

***

Okay, scrolling text over. The resistance is evacuating a planet.
Hah. Of course. Empire Strikes Back started with the rebellion evacuating their base, so ofc The Last Jedi had to start the same way....

*
A single X-wing fighter stops in front of a super imperial star destroyer. Awkward.
Then we have a comedy sketch of Poe radioing over to Admiral Hux.
It was more then awkward. It was embarassing. This movie is full of jokes that are good(ish), but had no place in the movie (more on that later). This is not one of those. This is a bad joke that had no place in the movie. :P

*
Then we have that single X-wing fighter speed around and destroy all but one of the turrets of the destroyer. A ton of Tie fighters are launched against it. It dodges them all. Weapon damaged. Then we have the robot repair it while the pilot is dodging around 80 tie fighters for a few minutes and he destroys the last cannon.
Meanwhile the rest of the fleet does nothing. It is one thing that they cannot shoot at the x-wing because it is too close to the dreadnaught, but why don't they shoot at the rebel fleet waiting 5km ahead of them???

We were only like 2 minutes into the film and we already had a totally retarded and ridiculous space battle scene, which seemed like it's own parody. It was actually embarassing to sit there and watch. It wasn't funny, it wasn't cool... it was just... awkward.

*
Then the bombers warp in. WITH fighter escort.
Why didn't the fighters warp in earlier and helped Poe clean up the anti aircraft guns?
Why do we have bombers with bombs instead of torpedoes?
Why does the dreadnaught has a huge circular hole in the middle with a sing "bomb me here"?
If it's armor is so strong that even a dozen bombers cannot penetrate it, then why is there a spot where a single bomber can make the whole ship explode?
Why do we have bombs that simply fall down by gravity in a space battle?
Why do we have bombers with 2nd world war tech level???
Why can ships teleport so close to a hostile fleet?
If they can teleport to the nose of the dreadnaught, why can't they teleport right over the vulnerable spot?

*
Then all the bombers except one get shot down in 10 seconds. But they can't destroy the last bomber for the next 3 minutes. Even though it's pilot is not in the cockpit :P

We started with a scrolling text telling us that they just dumped the whole plot of the original trillogy.
Then we got that very awkward scene with Poe and Hux and the dodgefight.
Then we got this super retarted space battle plot, that ignores anything established in SW about how space battles work and ignores any logical consistency.
And then they expect the audience to watch with their breaths held back how the bomber pilot is struggling to reach the manual release button of the bombs, how she kicks at the railing so the controller would fall off... and we have even Leia watch in suspense and everything.

Is it trying to be a parody of itself? Or where we really expected to feel suspense and drama here? 

Or they simply stole a scene from some 2nd WW movie they liked? That seems the most likely explanation. They did not care about being consistant about how space battles work in Star Wars. They did not even care about internal consistency (where to teleport). And the whole setup was absurd (why does a heavily armored dreadnaught has a hole in the middle for enemy bombs?). They just wanted a dramatic scene where a bomber pilot is sacrificing her life and struggles to release the bombs. They wanted this scene, so they put it in, and never cared about being unable to fit it logically into the story.
This will be a recurring theme here.


I was very close to standing up and leaving the cinema at this point.

***

The tracking device plot...
The Resistance is super surprised that the First Order was able to track them through lightspeed.

Problem #1: In Rogue One (produced by the same woman as this movie!) we have Leia's ship escape from the battle at Scarif and chased by Vader's ship... chased all the way to Tatooin.
So what the fuck is this talk about "it is impossible to track a ship through lightspeed"? The whole Star Wars story started with a ship chasing another through lightspeed!


Problem #2: We learn that they tracked them through lightspeed because such a device have been in development recently. But only a low ranking technician knows about this.
Okay, so this plot turn is based upon the assumption that nor Leia, nor any leaders of the Resistance knew about it. They were leading a guerilla army, based upon hit and run tactics and hidden bases and they did not knew about a device being developed that would fundamentally change how such things work.

I understand the intention here: let's show that every unique snowflake can be very important and they can bring something useful to the table even compared to the legendary heroes. But the problem is the same as earlier: they wanted this plot turn, but they could not fit it logically into the story. So they threw logic out.


Problem #3: Snoke's flagship was not there at the first battle. Therefore they could not have tracket them from Snoke's flagship. Therefore they must have tracked them from at least one other ship. Therefore there are at least two tracking devices. So the whole plan was stupid. And they should have known it, because they also saw that Snoke's flagship was not there.

Problem #4: How come Snoke did not know about the tracking device (Hux had to explain it to him to get off the hook) when one was (also) on his ship?

***

The space chase is the central situation around which the Resistance plot revolves. And it is Wong on so many levels!

The fuel dilemma is nonsense.
* How come fuel suddenly became an issue in Star Wars, when previously Luke went around half the galaxy in a single Xwing?
* If fuel is an issue how come that the Resistance is using such low fuel capacity ships? I mean they are waging a guerrilla war, striking from hidden bases and retreating.
* They just made a single jump since leaving their base and now we are told that they have only enough fuel for a last jump. That's two jumps altogether! WTF?
* Why the bad guys don't run out of fuel? The Resistance just jumped from their base. But the First Order had to travel to that base then follow the Resistance. If anyone, they should be the ones who are down on fuel.

The chase situation is nonsense.
* Speed doesn't work that way the writers think it works. If the Resistance ships are faster - and we are told they are - then they will be gaining distance constantly. It makes no sense at all that they were able to get out of weapons effective range in 5m but then they were unable to gain any extra distance in the next 16h.  WTF?
* Why didn't the bad guys just jumped a few ships ahead of the Resistance fleet?
* Why didn't they killed them off with TIE fighters and bombers? We just learned that bombers are super effective at big destroying ships.
** At one point they ordered back their fighters (including Kylo Ren) telling him that he is outside of the weapons range of the main fleet and they can't support him from so far. But it was just 20m ago when this very film explained to us that capital ships cannot aim at fighters anyway, so why would the tie fighters worry about that? Kylo just destroyed a big chunk of xwing fighters in the hangar bay, they have fighter superiority. Why couldn't they finish off the rebel fleet? A single fighter was able to blow up the bridge of the main cruiser!

Admiral Holdo's plan is nonsense. It is based on the assumption that the FO would not shoot on small ships leaving the fleet. But why?
* They are here to destroy the Resistance. Why ignore any escaping ships?
* Why ignore a whole squadron of shuttles which leave the only surviving and doomed ship of the Resistance? You don't have to be a genius to realize that most of their crew is escaping in those shuttles.
* Logically it would have been their top priority to kill the leaders of the rebellion, that is much more important than a single cruiser. So they would let no shuttle escape.
* They could shoot down shuttles for free. They can and they did shoot down the shuttles while they still chased the cruiser. That is because the cruiser was not outside the range of their weapons it was just outside the effective range where the guns could penetrate the heavy shielding. But the shuttles were not shielded that's why they could and they have been destroyed.

So the whole idea that FO would not shoot at the shuttles is nonsense. And Holdo's plan was based on that. And the whole BSG-style drama between Holdo and Poe was based on that.

Speaking about the Holdo and Poe drama. It was a nice drama. Stolen from BSG. Too bad it is built into a situation that makes no sense and shows us the conflict between two plans when neither of those makes any sense. But even the basic drama was quite flawed.
* The drama started with Poe's bombing plan which Leia opposed. But why did the bombers obey him when Leia gave an order not to do so?
* Why was Holdo secretive about her plan? That speech about not having to see hope was bullshit. In a desperate situation why not tell your people that you actually have a plan to save them? Why create an atmosphere that inspires despair and mutiny?
* Also remember that just 5m ago the whole senior staff was destroyed when a single hit destroyed the bridge. So if you have a plan what you believe is the only plan to save the Resistance, why keep it a super secret, so if another lucky shot gets the bridge, no one else will know about it? Why not share it with the other commanders at least?


The Ugly

The big probleme here (and with hollywood in general) is that nowadays movies are not written, nor directed, but produced.

Cinema is supposed to be audio-visual storytelling. So movies ought to be created by storytellers who tell the audience a story. A story (except special edge cases) is a chain of events happening in a fictional setting. Chain means they are linked tightly. The next event is supposed to be the logical consequence of the previous.
There is such a thing as suspension of disbelief but it should not be abused and it is never an excuse for internal inconsistencies.

So the no.1 job of a writer is to create a chain of events that are logical consequences of each other. Of course average Joe waking up, going to work, getting a bit late, getting scolded by his boss, then doing his job is very logical, but not too interesting. So the art of writing is how to make interesting situations, tensions and plot turns without breaking the chain.

The problem with modern cinema is that they do it backwise. They open the catalog and select all the plot turns and all the situations and tensions they want in the finished product. They choose several dozen of those. And it doesn't work that way.
Anyone can make a story and twist it to include one particular plot element.
A good writer can steer his story to include a few such pre-chosen plot elements.
But even the best writers cannot twist a story so much to include dozens upon dozens of pre-chosen plot elements.
And this atmosphere at Hollywood is not really helpful in fostering best writers anyway.

So we have the producers open their catalogs, assemble a series of plot elements and then there is no story. What we have is a series of forced explanations, bullshit, contradictions and characters doing illogical things and reacting illogically to things in order to get the audience from one pre-chosen plot element to the next.

*

Watching a good story with a few good plot elements compares to watching a cinema product with dozens of perfectly calculated plot elements - these two relate to each other as having good sex with a person you care for and you find attractive compares to masturbating about having sex with a dream girl/boy who has no personality.

The later can give the viewers some temporary enjoyment but will not keep them satisfied. They will not have catharsis. They will feel cheated.

The high cost of movies and the desire to avoid financial failure is what drives Hollywood to play safe and produce such masturbations instead of creative storytelling. And those who watch too many movies are in danger of the stockholm syndrome. They grew used to this bullshit, they lower their standards and after a time they no longer realize that this is not how storytelling is supposed to be. That is why so many critics loved The Last Jedi. They have been fed products instead of stories for so long that they have forgotten what is missing.

*

Disneyfication.
That's another problem this movie is suffering from.

For example it has too may jokes at inappropriate places. Most of the jokes aren't bad. But while it's okay to have jokes pop up all over a disney cartoon, they have no place in the dramatic moments of a Star Wars movie. Also the style of humor is too disneyesque. Too often do characters troll each other. Many characters make witty remarks in the moment of grave peril, even when this does not fit their established personalities.
Disney cartoons have this contrast in them because their dramas are targeted for the children. The adult audience is not really expected to be really worried about whether the princess gets the prince or not. That's why disney has humour inserted all over their cartoons, even at the dramatic moments, to keep the adult audience  from falling asleep.
But in Star Wars the adult audience is supposed to be thrilled by the central tension. So misplaced humour ruins the mood. You don't have Darth Vader and Luke exchanching jokes while duelling in front of the Emperor.

I particulary disliked the scene where Snoke force-drags Hux around the bridge. This was obvious a reference to the "Apology expected, captain Needa" scene. But that scene was great, it was a super memorable scene which contributed greatly to our perception of Darth Vader as an evil and epic villain. So putting in a scene that copies that, but then give it a humous twist was a bad idea. It felt more like watching a parody of Star Wars, instead of a sequel.

Another problem with the humour:
Hux is a comic relief. Period. Kylo Ren is not a comic relief in general, but he is a comic relief whenever he interacts with First Order soldiers. It means that with Snoke dead the First Order is lead by two comic relief characters. Which is perfectly fine for a Disney cartoon, but not at all for a Star Wars. Especially given the serious and dark tone they try to make about the war situation, all this talk about being the last spark of hope in the galaxy.

And then there are the cute animals... three kinds of them. Will they start singing as well in episode 9? We wouldn't be surprised.

These movies actually managed to make miss the prequel trilogy. As bad as it was, at least that was a creative product. It was a story. Not a particulary good one, but a story. And it tried to creatively expand the setting. It gave us Coruscant, it showed us its politics, new locations, new dimensions.

Disney is creating nothing. They are simply rehearsing the original trilogy. Instead of showing us something new, we just get reskins of old locations. A posh version of Mos Eysley. A new Hoth where there is red dust under the snow. Frak, we even have Leia stand and watch as the heavy door closes on the ice planet. And the stories are also just rehearsals of the original trilogy. The whole Republic was discarded without any explanation just so Disney can replay the rebellion - empire conflict.
Zero creativity.