A Reasonable Discussion of The Last Jedi - Part 10

            At last we come to the final act.  All the stories have come together and landed on Hoth... I mean, a completely different planet because Rian Johnson made it clear we are supposed to let go of the past.
            To be fair, it is a very clever world.  I once filmed my own movie in a ghost town just off the Salton Sea.  The sea had overflowed into the town, then dried up, leaving only the salt behind.  Just beneath the surface was a soggy, blood red clay.  It gave off an ominous, semi-horrifying appearance.  This could really make for an interesting environment.  Rian Johnson and his cinematographer make the best of this location, creating some of the most beautiful images ever put into a Star Wars movie.

            Unfortunately, the story doesn't live up to it.  First, it continues to copy Empire by having literally the same AT-AT's walk slowly toward the rebel base while a line of infantry fire useless shots at them and a bunch of air speeders fly out to defend it.  Again, I'm less offended by this series of choices than I am by the fact that Rian smugly told us to let go of the past while he clearly clings to it like a safety blanket.

            When Fin lined up to sacrifice himself for the cause, I felt a little bad because I wanted to see John Boyega do more than they had let him do in this movie.  But it would be a truly heroic death scene.  When Rose ran into him, I at first was a little relieved.  He'll be able to do something more.  But when I found out it was on purpose... and her reason...

            Basically they turned her into a little girl talking about war.  Her views are naive and immature.  This belief that you fight for what you love, not kill what you hate is admirable, the type of thing we all go "awww" when a five year old says it.  But adults understand that unfortunately, when evil people are set on killing us, we have no choice but to try to kill them before they can continue to kill us.

            I'm sure all those people who stormed Normandy Beach would rather be saving those they love back home rather than trying to kill the ones they hate.  But they understood that this was the only way to stop the killing, and they sacrificed themselves for the greater good.  Rose's naive line is a slap in the face to anyone who made that sacrifice.

            And what makes this line so particularly crazy is the fact that she says it literally as the big gun shoots the front entrance, thus dooming the ones they love to death.  It's almost like Rian Johnson realized his own hypocrisy at this moment and pointed it out, but he didn't do anything more about it but add a kiss.

            At last, with all hope lost, Luke Skywalker enters to save the day.  This gave me hope that it would all wrap up with something amazingly memorable.  It was incredibly touching to see Luke and Leia together at last.  This literally brought a tear to my eye; not just because of the Luke and Leia reunion, but because Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher were such good friends.  Seeing them connect one last time was absolutely special.  For a moment I was glad they didn't kill Leia off on the ship.  Story-wise, it would have made a lot more sense, but that was such a beautiful scene between the two that I no longer gave a damn.

            Then the music starts marching triumphantly to the beat of Luke's feet walking out to face Kylo Ren.  It is on, and the boy in me is getting pumped up.  The shots of him striding out on the field to meet those AT-ATs are spectacular.  We have waited decades to see what the Jedi are capable of.  The originals had mere shadows of the Jedi.  The prequels showed us the Jedi, but now Luke is supposed to be the chosen one, the height of what the Jedi could achieve.  Vader had said in the original that the power of the Death Star was insignificant next to the power of the force.  That's saying a lot, that a literal planet killer is nothing compared to a force wielder.

            Now we're going to see why.

            Then the AT-ATs fire.  I'm not going to lie, it looked cool because of all that red thrown up from beneath the salt.  And as the dust settles and Luke comes out dusting off his shoulder, again, I have to be honest, I laughed.  I laughed because I was excited.  This is the power of the Jedi, something more powerful than a planet killer.  Kylo's going to have to go down and face him.  This is going to be awesome.
            Now, to be honest, I did see an idea later that would have worked better.  How it Should Have Ended did this scene with Luke freezing all the laser bolts in the air, then he deflects them back at the AT-ATs, destroying them.  This not only would have been an awesome show of power, but it would also have brought something around full circle from Force Awakens.  The first power we see Kylo use is to freeze a laser bolt in the air.  This would have harkened back to that, shown that Luke can do it with a lot more laser bolts, thus showing his dominance over Kylo, and it would have revealed that Kylo learned this skill from Luke, the man who was about to kick his ass.

            But oh well, now we get to see this duel between two titans, great sword play and force powers to be used against one another.  This is going to be great.  Inside the Resistance base, not much made any sense.  They had to figure out that they needed to get out, even though Luke could have told them he was stalling the bad guys.  And for some reason they can't find the back exit, even though they're the ones who freakin' built the damn...

            Okay, back to the battle between the two force wielders.  It looks great.  The cinematography is awesome.  They could be using their powers a bit more, but whatever.  The lines are a bit cheesy, but it's the two best actors in the movie, so whatever.  Then Luke looks like he's going to sacrifice himself as Obi-wan did.  Well, I wish I'd had more saber battle, but whatev...

            Luke turns out to be projecting himself.  Okay, that made this fight a bit more lame because the personal stakes were gone.  But it means Luke will be coming back in the next movie.  That's the one positive element to him not actually being there.

            Then he dies anyway.  What... the... fuck.

            Look, if you're going to kill someone off, you might as well do it as dramatically as you can.  Think of when Obi-wan died right in front of Luke.  He screamed in horror and chaos broke loose.  Think of when Han died and Chewy screamed in agonized sadness.  Imagine that same sort of thing but Leia is watching; all of the Resistance is watching.  That could be so dramatic.

            But no, he instead just fades away on some rock.  It literally reminded me of a joke my girlfriend and I had been telling where we'd see a movie, and then during the credits we'd say, "And then he died of a staph infection."  Here is one of the most iconic characters in cinematic history, and they literally have him, as General MacArthur said of old soldiers, just fade away.

            Ugh.

            And with him fading away, so too did my interest in Star Wars.  I was left depressed, realizing that the guy who created this would be doing the new trilogy, and the guy who set up all the problems in it would be completing this trilogy.  The Last Jedi made more than two billion dollars and was the most well reviewed Star Wars film of all time, so why should they care what I thought?  It was like the commercials for Abrams' Star Trek atrocity, "This isn't your father's Star Wars."  It certainly isn't.  I held a torch for this series for decades, hoping it would one day live up to the potential it always had that I feel was never realized.  And now I won't ever see it.

            Oh well.  I'll just have to tell my own version through RPG games and fan fiction.  Plus, the first two original films and Rogue One can always inspire me to make great stories of my own.

A Reasonable Discussion of The Last Jedi - Part 6

            So begins the longest slow speed chase since OJ Simpson in the Bronco.  Somehow the resistance ships are able to pull just a little ahead of the First Order ships, but they're not able to gain any more space than that.  I'm not sure how that works, but that's what they claim is happening.

            They're also steadily running out of fuel.  Now, a lot of people have pointed out that this is the first time fuel is mentioned in the Star Wars universe.  That's not true.  You see ships being fueled up in several movies, and you can pretty much assume in any film that ships need fuel.  That's not the problem.

            The problem is, why would they not have taken more fuel with them?  Even if they were escaping in a hurry, you'd imagine that, these being republic ships, they're going to be pretty well fueled.

            But the really baffling part comes when Rose sees Fin.  First, I'm not sure why Rose would be a fan of his because he didn't do anything on the Star Killer Base that would have warranted attention.  But that's beside the point.  What's truly baffling is what she's doing there; keeping people from escaping.  But... that's the whole point of what they're trying to do.  Leia even says later in the film that if at least one person escapes, they can be the spark that reignites the rebellion and restores freedom to the galaxy.  Well then, why not jam the escape pods full of people, launch them, and send them all in different directions.  For that matter, why not have the capitol ships all fly in different directions.  They also apparently have a transport ship that has enough fuel for several jumps as Fin and Rose leave and return on it.  I can't imagine that would be the only one of those transports on board, so use another one.  They could also call Rey back and fill the Falcon with people and have that fly in yet another direction.

            You might be countering this with two things.  First, that the escape pods don't have jump drive ability, which I would be with you on, but if that's the case, why did four people and Fin try to use them to escape in deep space?  Clearly they have hyperspace capabilities.  Second, there are enough First Order ships to follow each of them.  But they make it very clear that only one of them can track them.  So if the resistance just split up, the First Order could only follow one of them.

            But then comes one of the most face palming elements of the entire movie, and it baffles me that I haven't heard anyone else talk about this problem.  So apparently they can only get through the First Order shields with a code breaker, and in the entire galaxy, only two people can do it, Maz, and this person she knows.  Maz tells them she can't do it because she's involved in a labor dispute.  She says this while she's exchanging gunfire with someone.

            So... Let me get this straight.  Maz is... shooting at her employees, and they're shooting back at her.  Seriously.  This is one of the good guys, the owner of a bar who is literally shooting at her employees because of a labor dispute... Huh.  I'm afraid to ask what she does to an employee if they arrive five minutes late.  Also, supposedly she could break this code, but she's too busy to do that because of this labor dispute.  Nice to know that an employee strike at a bar takes precedence over saving the entire galactic republic.  Used to be a time when the rebellion versus the Empire meant something.  But now, it's all about who wants a day off or a raise.

            So Rose and Finn are off to the casino planet where they wax poetic about slavery and cruelty to animals.  Now, I relate to their plight for animals.  My girlfriend and I foster cats and are big into animal rescues.  It's an important issue to us.  But if Nazis were about to take over the world, I think I'd be a little more concerned with stopping them than whether or not someone was whipping a horse.

            In fact, when Rose sets one of the animals free and it runs into a field, I couldn't help but think of how it would look in an episode of The Simpsons.  It disappears into the tall grass, then we see a ship come down from above and scoop the animal up.  You see, setting the animals free in that moment wouldn't do anything.  All they accomplished was to inconvenience the slavers for a little bit.  The way to stop them would be to restore the republic and have that republic make these activities illegal.  You know, that republic that Rose and Fin are supposed to be saving, but might not because they're temporarily setting a few horses free?