A NEW HOPE?
Before I begin, I'd just like to pay my respects to our princess, Carrie Fisher. It's been a year since she left us. Rest in peace, Carrie, and may the Force be with you always.
Well, here we are, folks. Two years after the monumental success both critically and financially that was 2015's The Force Awakens, we have the tonally darker, deeper and much redder follow-up, Episode VIII: The Last Jedi.
Right from when the trailers and posters were released, you knew that they were taking an incredibly bold approach to this movie. People were commenting about how dark the imagery was, and especially in the red font for the movie's titles that just screams out Dark Side-evil.
I'm glad that the tone that was promoted was what we actually got in the film, and as for boldness in direction, wow. Boy was this bold.
I give mega plaudits to writer and director Rian Johnson. It is already a mammoth task to take up directing a movie of this scale and royalty. To be confident enough to make such a bold statement with this film with the risk of splitting an enormous worldwide fanbase in half is on a completely new level.
And that's the thing about making bold changes to anything - You're never going to appease everyone.
From the get-go, the movie wastes absolutely no time with placing you right into the heat of the action with a mega set-piece. Thinking back to all the Star Wars movies, I don't think any got started just as quickly as this one, and I absolutely loved it.
I was just sitting there rooted and completely engrossed in the visual and emotional spectacle that lay before my eyes. This movie really benefits from being watched on the largest screen possible.
Paired with yet another magnificent score from the living, breathing genius that is John Williams, it made for a truly memorable sequence (one of many throughout the film) and another memorable score from that incredible human being.
If you want a taste of just what I'm talking about with regards to Williams' score, try the first track of the film's score - "Main Title and Escape".
You're welcome.
On to the characters, and right from the start, you already get a lot more of Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) than we did in the whole of The Force Awakens, and if you ask me, he cemented his place as my personal favourite character of the sequel trilogy.
I mean, you weren't expecting me to say that it was the bloody useless Captain Phasma (Gwendoline Christie), were you? Speaking of useless, she was even worse in this one due to just sheer complete and utter uselessness yet again. They should've just left her in the trash compactor.
There really isn't much more to say about her, so let's get back to Poe.
I just really liked the character and his charisma and coolness. He's got the scoundrel-badassery of Han Solo and the flying skills of Luke Skywalker, all merged into one awesome package. Once again, he has great chemistry with Finn (John Boyega) and with his droid BB-8, which is no easy feat considering how he's acting with, what is essentially a rolling metal ball.
Who Finn does not have great chemistry with, however, is newcomer Rose (Kelly Marie Tran) whom I thought was a completely redundant character who never should have been in the movie in the first place. More on her later on.
I really liked Rey (Daisy Ridley) in this one, who has noticeably matured and has become more at ease with her abilities. It's much the same for the actress, as Ridley put in a far better performance this time around compared to her frankly wooden acting in The Force Awakens.
Undoubtedly the character I was most looking forward to seeing again was Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), with whom J.J. Abrams trolled us with in the last movie with his silly mute cameo.
Mercifully, he actually talks this time, and it's just so surreal to see Luke go full circle with his character - from lost young lad to becoming a Padawan under Obi-Wan and Yoda, defeating Vader and now as Jedi Master.
I thoroughly enjoyed his performance as a much older and weathered version of Luke. Well, I say "version" because I'm certain that many fans weren't happy with his depiction, especially when it came to the climax of the movie.
Personally, I liked it. It was different, interesting and it added more depth to his character. So, instead of a "What would Luke Skywalker do?" moment, we see his character forgo those ideals to a large degree and do things in a more unorthodox manner from what we're used to with Luke.
The same can be said about General Leia (Carrie Fisher), whose unfortunate Mary Poppins memes will never get old.
Let's talk about some bad guys, and Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) delivers yet another chilling and tortured performance which truly makes you feel for him as a person struggling with his beliefs.
His interactions with Rey were some of the most awesomely dramatic and gripping character scenes in the entire series. And come on, THAT lightsaber battle.
Chills.
As for Supreme Leader Snoke (Andy Serkis), well, I was left utterly disappointed with the character in this one. All he seems to do is just talk big and use the Force to levitate or choke people every now and then.
I guess the disappointment stems from how he was teased to be some super badass villain with a story from the previous movie, only to have none of that promise delivered in The Last Jedi.
Such a waste.
Let's get into the really negative stuff now, of which there are some.
For one, if I wanted to see a film about animal cruelty, I would watch a movie/documentary about animal cruelty.
What I would never want to do is find a documentary about animal cruelty with undertones of political corruption within a Star Wars movie. That's exactly what I felt about the whole Canto Bight sequence and everything to do with it, the character of Rose included.
It was such a drastic detour from the fast-paced and super gripping "main" storyline and all it did was screech the whole movie to a shuddering halt. As such, the pacing was all over the place in that middle sector of the film, and I firmly believe that the film would have been far superior if the entire Canto Bight sequence along with the characters Rose and the silly codebreaker DJ (Benicio del Toro) were cut out of it entirely.
For one, the movie wouldn't have been 152 minutes long, which would've benefitted literally everyone unless you actually gave a shit about the Canto Bight scenes.
I also didn't like the character of Rose at all. I felt that maybe she was a last-minute addition to the movie because of the whole Canto Bight bit and the need for a character to deliver the lines written by the animal rights authorities. It may not have been the case but well, that's the vibe I got.
Why oh why did she have to be introduced? Now Episode IX is forced to include her in it in some capacity. Ugh.
That just about wraps up my issues with the movie. Moving on to the technical side of things.
The cinematography is stunning. There are about four clear moments in the movie which I want to screen grab and make my laptop wallpaper.
There's this one mesmerising shot which is so breathtaking that its deliberate use of no sound at all left audiences literally gasping at how epic the shot was. Incredible stuff. Never seen anything quite like it before.
The sets were all magnificent (as you'd expect), as was the amazing CGI work which makes for so many different and new things they could do with space battles. Even the Canto Bight casino set was so extravagant.
I don't normally pick out things like sound design to comment on but I just had to for this one. The sound was awesome and really makes you feel like you're right there in and amongst all the action. Plus, the mixture of old and classic sound effects with the new stuff is all very lovely to see come together.
All in all, Star Wars: The Last Jedi is a fittingly epic second entry in the sequel trilogy.
It takes extremely bold ideas and implements them seamlessly into a very nicely-packaged movie. A job very well done by director Rian Johnson.
However, the film does shudder to a halt with the entire Canto Bight sequence which does ultimately ruin the movie a bit. Pair that with a bunch of seriously useless characters and you have a movie that had all the elements to be a great Star Wars film, wasted.
Having said that, the movie is still a thoroughly entertaining time which leaves you laughing (quite a bit), having them nostalgic feels as well as crying (quite a bit as well).
What does it leave for Episode IX to unfold? Well, after seeing this, I think it's easy to say that the future is a blank canvas.
I just can't wait to see what direction they take with the next one.
8/10.
Well, here we are, folks. Two years after the monumental success both critically and financially that was 2015's The Force Awakens, we have the tonally darker, deeper and much redder follow-up, Episode VIII: The Last Jedi.
Right from when the trailers and posters were released, you knew that they were taking an incredibly bold approach to this movie. People were commenting about how dark the imagery was, and especially in the red font for the movie's titles that just screams out Dark Side-evil.
I'm glad that the tone that was promoted was what we actually got in the film, and as for boldness in direction, wow. Boy was this bold.
I give mega plaudits to writer and director Rian Johnson. It is already a mammoth task to take up directing a movie of this scale and royalty. To be confident enough to make such a bold statement with this film with the risk of splitting an enormous worldwide fanbase in half is on a completely new level.
And that's the thing about making bold changes to anything - You're never going to appease everyone.
From the get-go, the movie wastes absolutely no time with placing you right into the heat of the action with a mega set-piece. Thinking back to all the Star Wars movies, I don't think any got started just as quickly as this one, and I absolutely loved it.
I was just sitting there rooted and completely engrossed in the visual and emotional spectacle that lay before my eyes. This movie really benefits from being watched on the largest screen possible.
Paired with yet another magnificent score from the living, breathing genius that is John Williams, it made for a truly memorable sequence (one of many throughout the film) and another memorable score from that incredible human being.
If you want a taste of just what I'm talking about with regards to Williams' score, try the first track of the film's score - "Main Title and Escape".
You're welcome.
On to the characters, and right from the start, you already get a lot more of Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) than we did in the whole of The Force Awakens, and if you ask me, he cemented his place as my personal favourite character of the sequel trilogy.
I mean, you weren't expecting me to say that it was the bloody useless Captain Phasma (Gwendoline Christie), were you? Speaking of useless, she was even worse in this one due to just sheer complete and utter uselessness yet again. They should've just left her in the trash compactor.
There really isn't much more to say about her, so let's get back to Poe.
I just really liked the character and his charisma and coolness. He's got the scoundrel-badassery of Han Solo and the flying skills of Luke Skywalker, all merged into one awesome package. Once again, he has great chemistry with Finn (John Boyega) and with his droid BB-8, which is no easy feat considering how he's acting with, what is essentially a rolling metal ball.
Who Finn does not have great chemistry with, however, is newcomer Rose (Kelly Marie Tran) whom I thought was a completely redundant character who never should have been in the movie in the first place. More on her later on.
I really liked Rey (Daisy Ridley) in this one, who has noticeably matured and has become more at ease with her abilities. It's much the same for the actress, as Ridley put in a far better performance this time around compared to her frankly wooden acting in The Force Awakens.
Undoubtedly the character I was most looking forward to seeing again was Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), with whom J.J. Abrams trolled us with in the last movie with his silly mute cameo.
Mercifully, he actually talks this time, and it's just so surreal to see Luke go full circle with his character - from lost young lad to becoming a Padawan under Obi-Wan and Yoda, defeating Vader and now as Jedi Master.
I thoroughly enjoyed his performance as a much older and weathered version of Luke. Well, I say "version" because I'm certain that many fans weren't happy with his depiction, especially when it came to the climax of the movie.
Personally, I liked it. It was different, interesting and it added more depth to his character. So, instead of a "What would Luke Skywalker do?" moment, we see his character forgo those ideals to a large degree and do things in a more unorthodox manner from what we're used to with Luke.
The same can be said about General Leia (Carrie Fisher), whose unfortunate Mary Poppins memes will never get old.
Let's talk about some bad guys, and Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) delivers yet another chilling and tortured performance which truly makes you feel for him as a person struggling with his beliefs.
His interactions with Rey were some of the most awesomely dramatic and gripping character scenes in the entire series. And come on, THAT lightsaber battle.
Chills.
As for Supreme Leader Snoke (Andy Serkis), well, I was left utterly disappointed with the character in this one. All he seems to do is just talk big and use the Force to levitate or choke people every now and then.
I guess the disappointment stems from how he was teased to be some super badass villain with a story from the previous movie, only to have none of that promise delivered in The Last Jedi.
Such a waste.
Let's get into the really negative stuff now, of which there are some.
For one, if I wanted to see a film about animal cruelty, I would watch a movie/documentary about animal cruelty.
What I would never want to do is find a documentary about animal cruelty with undertones of political corruption within a Star Wars movie. That's exactly what I felt about the whole Canto Bight sequence and everything to do with it, the character of Rose included.
It was such a drastic detour from the fast-paced and super gripping "main" storyline and all it did was screech the whole movie to a shuddering halt. As such, the pacing was all over the place in that middle sector of the film, and I firmly believe that the film would have been far superior if the entire Canto Bight sequence along with the characters Rose and the silly codebreaker DJ (Benicio del Toro) were cut out of it entirely.
For one, the movie wouldn't have been 152 minutes long, which would've benefitted literally everyone unless you actually gave a shit about the Canto Bight scenes.
I also didn't like the character of Rose at all. I felt that maybe she was a last-minute addition to the movie because of the whole Canto Bight bit and the need for a character to deliver the lines written by the animal rights authorities. It may not have been the case but well, that's the vibe I got.
Why oh why did she have to be introduced? Now Episode IX is forced to include her in it in some capacity. Ugh.
That just about wraps up my issues with the movie. Moving on to the technical side of things.
The cinematography is stunning. There are about four clear moments in the movie which I want to screen grab and make my laptop wallpaper.
There's this one mesmerising shot which is so breathtaking that its deliberate use of no sound at all left audiences literally gasping at how epic the shot was. Incredible stuff. Never seen anything quite like it before.
The sets were all magnificent (as you'd expect), as was the amazing CGI work which makes for so many different and new things they could do with space battles. Even the Canto Bight casino set was so extravagant.
I don't normally pick out things like sound design to comment on but I just had to for this one. The sound was awesome and really makes you feel like you're right there in and amongst all the action. Plus, the mixture of old and classic sound effects with the new stuff is all very lovely to see come together.
All in all, Star Wars: The Last Jedi is a fittingly epic second entry in the sequel trilogy.
It takes extremely bold ideas and implements them seamlessly into a very nicely-packaged movie. A job very well done by director Rian Johnson.
However, the film does shudder to a halt with the entire Canto Bight sequence which does ultimately ruin the movie a bit. Pair that with a bunch of seriously useless characters and you have a movie that had all the elements to be a great Star Wars film, wasted.
Having said that, the movie is still a thoroughly entertaining time which leaves you laughing (quite a bit), having them nostalgic feels as well as crying (quite a bit as well).
What does it leave for Episode IX to unfold? Well, after seeing this, I think it's easy to say that the future is a blank canvas.
I just can't wait to see what direction they take with the next one.
8/10.
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