Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi (2017) User Reviews

[yupman · 1/10 · 2 January 2018]

This movie was just magical.

The Force has become like Harry Potter magic, with a new spell every day or so.

Rey is just magical. With practically training whatsoever she can take on Luke and Kylo and win.

Snoke is magical. He appeared out of nowhere in The Force Awakens and in The Last Jedi has such fantastic Force powers (never before seen in the entire Star Wars Universe) and yet can't tell when his protege is scheming to slice him in two (but could fell his every throught earlier, and even manipulate him and Rey's thoughts and get them to intergalactically Skype each other and even send water through space).

Luke is magical. He can magically project himself light years away and even bring solid things (the lucky dice) with him. Then dies magically for no apparent reason.

Yoda is magical. His Force-ghost actually has more Force powers than when he was alive! Calling down lightning from the sky??? Heck, why don't the Jedi just do that when fighting on Tattooine or whatever? And if Force-ghosts still have Force powers why not the whole gang of Anakin, Ben and Yoda take on Snoke?

Rose is magical. She appears out of nowhere and just happens to go along with Finn on a completely unnecessary mission to find a code breaker, and find not one but TWO code breakers, one of which is in the SAME CELL as they are. I mean, is that magical or what?

Leia is magical. Previously in 7 movies only having the barest abilities in the Force, she now can survive in space for quite a long time and even open her eyes without getting them immediately frozen, and Force-Mary Poppins herself back to the space ship. Magical!

I could go on and on. The biggest problem with The Last Jedi is that it's one shameless Deus Ex Machina after another. And don't even get me started on the stupid feminist nonsense, the inane attempt at comedy, the stupid characters who go nowhere in their characterisation, the stupid casino subplot, the stupid "saving" of Finn who wanted to sacrifice himself by Rose who magically now has feeling for him and both of them magically survive without getting shot at by the entire First Order army. Oops, I did go on and on.

If you make a movie, you need to make sure your movie stays in the universe it came from. Not invent new rules, new powers, new super villains, new behaviours from old characters, etc. out of bloody nowhere.

[gogoschka-1 · 21 January 2018]

I didn't hate TLJ, but even if I completely ignore all the (among many fans) controversial choices Rian Johnson made with regards to his treatement of Star Wars' lore and characters, I still have a great number of qualms with the film in terms of its storytelling (sorry, this is going to be rather long):

PACING: Now that was probably my biggest issue with the film. Apart from the opening battle, the film has very little forward momentum for nearly two thirds of its running time. After the action-heavy beginning, the plot gets tangled in 3 separate storylines which unfold simultaneously. My (perhaps personal) problem was that I found 2 of those neither emotionally involving nor thrilling: the Finn/Rose subplot about finding the code-breaker on the "Casino Planet" Canto Bight as well as the Poe/Holdo storyline about the resistance' messy escape from the First Order and the universe's most sluggish space chase.

But the one story I was ready to get fully invested in - you know: the one about Rey and Luke on the island (and Kylo via Force-Skype) - not only offers very little in terms of action and visual excitement, it also never really gets the time to breathe: because the overall narrative requires the film to cut back and forth between it and the other two evolving story threads. The result of that narrative structure is 90 minutes of scenes with Rey and Luke (and a little Kylo) on a dreary, grey island that beg to resonate emotionally but get blunted each time by the film's need to cut to the (for me) somewhat uninvolving action in Finn's and Poe's part of the universe. And their two storylines lose all sense of urgency because they keep getting interrupted by the scenes on the island with Rey and Luke - which, to make matters worse, develop over several days in the film while Finn's and Poe's stories unfold over a couple of hours.

Due to that uneven structure we end up with a two-and-a-half-hour movie where the most crucial scenes of the story never get enough room to breathe and even feel rushed. It's only once all three storylines start coming together during the last third of the film that the film's pacing really works for me. But getting there often feels like a chore (and I'm really not sure a Star Wars film should feel like work).

ODD CHARACTER CHOICES: What is the purpose of having Leia in a coma for the better part of the film? Don't tell me this is all set up so Kylo thinks she's dead: she's connected to the Force, and he's about as plugged into the Force as one can be; if established Star Wars lore tells us anything, it's that Kylo would instantly feel it if his mother died (now that's something even a casual fan such as myself knows). So why not use Leia more? Why introduce a completely new character in Laura Dern's Admiral Holdo, if she essentially just functions as a stand-in for Leia?

Poe Dameron's whole arc in the film is about him learning the terrible human cost for stupid, vain heroism, and it's with Leia that he clashes, after he's sacrificed half the resistance' fleet in order to take out a single Dreadnought during the film's opening battle. And as soon as Leia's in a coma, almost the exact same conflict continues with Holdo. Nothing against Admiral Holdo, but it's hard to get invested in her character, because we only just met her; from a storytelling point of view, to make Poe's arc really resonate and raise the stakes for him (and the audience), it would make much more sense if he rebelled against Leia. Wasting her in a coma instead seems utterly pointless.

BIG MOMENTS: Unlike its immediate predecessor, TLJ shuns familiar formula. It's not all forward momentum, it's not all action - but unfortunately, it fails to provide the audience with an emotionally involving story instead. It may take characters in unexpected directions, but most of those new directions turn out to be somewhat... rather "mature" choices in terms of storytelling instead of exciting ones? Yes, there are several grand moments in the film that work great on an intellectual level, but they fail to reach us on a gut level. Whenever the film tries to build up to a big emotional moment, that moment ends up feeling, well, not very big at all - which naturally could again be a very deliberate choice by the director to subvert the formula, but to what end? Surely, the subversion itself can't be his main goal?

For example, take the scene where Rey learns from Kylo that her parents were nobodies and that they're long dead. The problem of that scene is not the reveal itself: it's the scene's execution. It's a huge reveal for Rey, and it should have more weight. It could - and probably should - be the most emotional moment in the film; a heart-felt gut-punch to our heroine, but instead it's just: *fighting* - "Your parents were nobodies, and they're dead." - "Yes, I feel it too." - *fighting continues*. I just don't get why such an important moment is treated so fleetingly.

In contrast, look how Lawrence Kasdan and J.J. Abrams staged The Force Awaken's most emotional scene: Han Solo's death at the hands of his own, terribly conflicted son. Now you can say about the film itself what you want, but that scene had a huge emotional impact on the viewer. It had weight. Imagine that scene had just happened during a fight, in a heated moment, only for the narrative to proceed without giving it any room? These are storytelling choices by Rian Johnson that don't do the movie any favors.

I would have been ready to applaud the director's (and/or Disney's) decision to try something different after TFA, but I lament this failure to develop emotional gravitas - and the film's unwillingness to ever raise the stakes for its lead characters. Until the very end, I never feel like any of the protagonists are in real danger. Nor are they ever confronted with the shocking consequences of their reckless actions on a personal level; Finn and Poe's great ideas and plans directly lead to the senseless deaths of dozens, if not hundreds of people - but those casualties are just numbers; they're just exploding spaceships we witness from afar; our heroes (and we as an audience) are never forced to feel the full weight of their loss.

As a consequence, there's just nothing there to make this war's terrible cost really resonate with us. This film needs a heartfelt punch to the gut; I'm all for challenging the protagonists morally and give them intellectually satisfying arcs, but the resulting storylines should still be exciting enough to make your heart pound. And I know I can only speak for myself, but my heartbeat hardly ever accelerated throughout its entire two-and-a-half-hour running time - if at all.

TLJ'S ISSUES AS A DIRECT SEQUEL: TFA teased a boatload of things to come, and while I'm theoretically on board with many of the unexpected directions Rian Johnson took these characters to in TLJ, I am very confused by his decision to ignore so many of the plot threads that were set up by Lawrence Kasdan and J.J. Abrams in TFA. Because due to that unorthodox approach, watching those two films back to back is a jarringly weird experience. Regardless how one feels about TFA, not even bothering to acknowledge what came before isn't just strange - it's almost offending to the many people who were fully invested in its mysteries and could hardly wait for those promised reveals.

And don't tell me they have only themselves and J.J. Abrams to blame; no - they had every right to have those expectations: because TLJ IS the direct sequel to TFA. In the same sense that BACK TO THE FUTURE II was the direct sequel to BACK TO THE FUTURE: the kind of sequel that continues only seconds after the first film ends, resulting in one unbroken storyline developing over two films. And of course the director can go into unexpected directions in the sequel - hell: as an audience we want him to. In fact, that IS part of our expectation and one of the reasons we go to the movies (and BTTF II did it brilliantly) - but pretending like important plot points and huge moments in the previous film simply didn't matter or didn't even happen comes dangerously close to playing the audience for fools.

Not that an artist (or a huge conglomerate) shouldn't have the creative licence to do that - but if you go down that road don't act surprised about the inevitable backlash. And I honestly don't get why going into new directions had to result in such an uneven transition from the first film to the second; the way I see it, even a couple of lines of dialog from characters like Luke, Snoke or Kylo-Ren would have been enough to tie some of the most prominent lose ends up or at least not just leave them dangling in the air like this. I mean, I get that Johnson doesn't want us to be interested in Snoke's story (and a whole bunch of other things that were made to feel important in TFA) because HE isn't interested in it. But as a writer he could get that point across and still address the issue (because the previous film told the audience to BE interested in it) - just to then quickly resolve it in an offhanded manner and take the story where he wants it to go.

SUMMARY: The Last Jedi is a structurally uneven and often frustrating film that almost always refuses to give its heroes - and the audience - satisfaction. It is a film that over large stretches of its running time is so concerned with subverting the formula and teaching lessons about the importance of failure, that it fails to realize how watching your heroes fail over two and a half hours may be unexpected, but frankly - it's also a bit tiring.

It may have been a gutsy and very unexpected move by Johnson to throw out most of the mysteries teased in TFA, but the question only audiences - and time - can answer is whether what he offers instead is a worthy replacement.

Favorite films: IMDb.com/list/mkjOKvqlSBs/

Lesser-Known Masterpieces: imdb.com/list/ls070242495/

Favorite TV-Shows reviewed: imdb.com/list/ls075552387/

[shoresk-37122 · 3/10 · 14 February 2018]

This didn't feel like Star Wars. Now, I know people said that after viewing The Phantom Menace, but the prequels, despite their flaws, delivered a picture of a larger and more complex galaxy than the one we were introduced to in the original trilogy. The prequel characters were poorly written, scene direction felt off at times, Jar Jar existed, but at the end of the day I'll take the prequels over the new Disney films because they painted a universe. They made me want to see more Star Wars, and I appreciated the original trilogy's story arc even more after watching them.

The Last Jedi did the complete opposite. It killed my interest in the Star Wars universe because there seems to be nothing left to care about. The Resistance is just the Rebels. The First Order is just the Empire. No end is in sight. Rey is perfect already. Snoke is dead and no one cared enough to even explain his existence in the first place. The original trilogy might as well just have never happened. We've had three death stars. No stable political structure seems to be possible in the galaxy, and if it were we wouldn't visit it in the films. For all we know the conflict could be taking place in one tiny sector of the galaxy with the rest of the galaxy completely out of the loop. Sure, some people in a space casino make money off selling weapons and a slave kid has a Rebellion ring now, but that's not enough to establish why I should care about the story anymore. "They blow you up today, you blow them up tomorrow."

The humor was cringe-worthy. Even the characters don't care. Poe's prank-call at the beginning dissolved any anxiety we might feel about his character right out the gate. Star Wars doesn't have to take itself seriously 100% of the time, but its characters should feel like they're fighting real battles. I don't even want to talk about the casino scenes. Disney has no right to lecture us on capitalism.

Much of the movie was just scenes lifted from The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, cut-and-pasted around in a different order as if we couldn't figure that out. I sense a tone of disrespect for viewers' intelligence. Additionally, it is deeply disturbing to me to see critics give this movie such a high rating and then see news outlets publish articles questioning how seriously we should take the backlash. It is not a flaw in the ratings system. Sure, casual and young viewers will enjoy. But the backlash is real, and it's not all crusty old fanboys nostalgic about the good ol' days and complaining about political agendas (not that the fanboys always have illegitimate arguments). I'm a twenty-two year old woman and I was very disappointed.

Star Wars is for everyone. That should include fans, and people who love good stories.

[rick20033 · 1/10 · 25 December 2017]

It's hard to imagine a studio being THIS stupid, THIS unwise, THIS disrespectful to a loyal fanbase that goes back *forty years*.

• Rey is even more of a Mary Sue in this one than she was before. She easily puts Luke Skywalker on his rear end. She effortlessly floats several tons worth of rocks, when Anakin and Luke had to struggle lifting much lighter things even after they had received training from Jedi masters. Rey don't need no stinkin' training! She's a girl, don'tcha know! "The Force is feminism!", right, Kathleen Kennedy?
• This movie is a 2 1/2 slow motion car chase. Allegedly, the New Order ships aren't as fast as the Resistance's, so they can't catch them at sub-light speeds. And the Resistance ships can't go faster-than-light more than one more time because they are running out of gas. Thus, we get the aforementioned 2 1/2 slow motion car chase. And yet, the whole movie has the two sets of ships stay the same distance apart. Why aren't the Resistance ships pulling away, if they are faster? And the New Order ships have plenty of fuel, so why don't they have a couple of ships jump ahead faster-than-light and head the Resistance off? Because then the movie would be over in 3 minutes. Which, to be honest, would have been better.
• There are repeated attempts at humor that fall flat and don't fit with the main tone of the movie.
• There are a string of abandoned subplots and unsatisfying answers to the teasers from The Force Awakens. It's as if someone said, "Want to know a secret about ___? Here are some clues. Come back in two years and give me some money and I'll tell you." Then, two years later you hand them your money and they say, "There's no secret, sucker."
• This movie pushes identity politics out its wazoo. We get it. There's an empire of white men who must be overthrown by women and people of color. You're so "woke", Kathleen Kennedy and sock puppet Rian Johnson. You're such heroes. You're really sticking it to the man with your "art." Now, go cash your checks for millions of dollars, written and signed by powerful white men that you happily serve.
• Snoke's quick and unlikely death was such a waste. Does Disney plan to have Thanos get stabbed in the back in the middle of "Avengers: Infinity War" so some Grima Wormtongue-like figure can put on the gauntlet? That's the equivalent of what they did with Snoke. Instead of a Luke vs. Snoke and Rey vs. Emo Ren epic light saber battle that would make Star Wars history, Disney chose...this. Rey don't need no man, right, Kathleen Kennedy?
• Leia Poppins: the dumbest thing I've seen in a movie since...since...I'll get back with you.
• There is no vacuum in the Disney Star Wars galaxy. There is, however, earthlike gravity when you want to drop bombs from bombers that travel at about 3 miles per hour (Maybe the Resistance should consider faster bombers, by the way).
• Admiral Purple-Hair's first words to Po were a snide rebuke for mansplaining to her. Did that make you giggle, Kathleen Kennedy? 'Cause this movie is all about what you like, right? Then Admiral Purple-Hair refuses to tell Po (the guy who blew up Starkiller Base a couple of days before) her plan, which resulted in the stupid casino side plot, which, in turn, resulted in the entire Rebellion (minus one small ship) being murdered as the helplessly ran away. As the ships are being blown up one by one, Purple-Hair stands watching, slack-jawed. She FINALLY decides to act when her own death is clearly an inevitability, and manages to save about a dozen people out of the entire Resistance. Way to show what will happen if "strong women" are put in charge, Kathleen Kennedy! We should definitely get right on that! Kathleen, YOU are Admiral Purple-Hair. You have been given command of Star Wars. but your arrogance and self-concern are causing everything you are supposed to be saving to be destroyed. You are a failure because you can't do what great leaders have to do: elevate their responsibilities above their own egos, preferences, and self-interest.
• The introduction of Positive Body Image Asian Fangirl was bad enough, but to then use her to attack rich people just because they have money made her even more annoying. Feel the Bern! So, is she objecting to rich people like Kathleen Kennedy? Rich people like the ones who run Disney? Hmm. If so, maybe she's onto something.
• Positive Body Image Asian Fangirl's concern about freeing a stable of animals, but not the slave kids who work in those stables, seems a little odd. Come to think of it, I guess that IS kind of realistic. There is still slavery in our world (trafficked in primarily by "people of color", by the way), but female celebrities ignore that and take their clothes off to protest eating meat...because human nakedness helps animals somehow.
• The New Order has a scanner that can detect cloaked vessels, but they only turn it on when someone tells them there are cloaked vessels nearby that need detectin'.
• Positive Body Image Asian Fangirl celebrates her sister's self-sacrifice, benefits from Admiral Purple-Hair's self-sacrifice, but stops Finn from sacrificing himself...by being willing to sacrifice *herself*...because that dumb man is doing War wrong. "Silly Finn, it's not about sacrificing yourself to save those you love, it's about sacrificing yourse....Hey, look. They're killing our friends with that cannon you were about to destroy. That's sad. Oh well, let me give you a kiss (stop looking so uncomfortable!) and then you can drag my hefty body back to the cave. Hmm. I wonder why the enemy ships aren't shooting us, since we are literally right in front of them and unprotected? That's nice of them."

I could go on and on and on.

But those things are NOTHING compared to the absolute crime that was committed against one of the most iconic characters in science fiction movie history: Luke Skywalker. Not only was his behavior completely uncharacteristic, but his fight scene against Emo Ren was a sham and his death was utterly meaningless. Kathleen Kennedy and Rian Johnson were entrusted with the character of Luke Skywalker and they completely betrayed that trust in virtually every decision that they made. Not only that, but there is good reason to believe that they betrayed the actor Mark Hamill, as well. Footage of Hamill before the movie premiere shows him happy, even giddy, about the movie. Footage of him afterward show a man who looks shell-shocked and confused, and he looks at Rian Johnson with a look of incredulity and loathing. I believe that Luke's death (a digital fadeout, remember, not an acted out death scene) was added without Hamill's knowledge.

This movie is a travesty. Rian Johnson and Kathleen Kennedy need to be kept as far away from Star Wars as possible. If we're lucky, the earth will open up and swallow them both.

[carswellkenneth · 1/10 · 21 April 2018]

This Film, was so off in so many ways, as a Star Wars movie Fan (not books) you will wonder what they were smoking. You will also feel insulted that the Characters you once knew are bent out of shape in odd ways. If you cant sit thourgh it twice you will literally start mothing "why" at loads of scenes.

1 Its not star wars, or at least the same star wars we know. Luke Skywalker was written by someone who has never watched the films.

2 Humor is awfully forced, Marvel does it good. Dont try and copy, it does not suit the tone of the film. So many times you will be taken out of the escapisim of the film and go what the hell was that?!

3 Plot holes everywhere. The ending screams WHY THE HELL DIDNT YOU DO THAT IN THE FIRST PALCE!

4 Rey... UTTER MARY SUE. Literally the best jedi the universe with literally no training. Its story breaking and annoying to watch. In the end you will dislike the character, because its like rubbing sandpaper on your brain.

If you want a real world view and not critics that have spammed the love button on this film, you need to head to rotten tomatoes to see that its in the 40-49% bracket with real viewers. Its not any where near its current IMDB rating. If i were nice i'd give it a 5 out of 10, simply due to its polish.

It certinly is less than average as a film the only thing keeping it near average is its excellent sound and visuals. Also adam Driver is excellent, shame the film around it makles no sense. It has the Lucas arts polish thats for sure.

The rest of it is a stinking mess, insultingly so. As a result I will literally never pay to watch another Star wars universe film until Rhian Johnson and Kathleen Kennedy are sacked.

Ill vote with my money, where it hurts.

[milox33 · 2/10 · 18 December 2017]

I had relatively high expectations of the Episode VIII. Unfortunately, "The Last Jedi" has so many plot holes, inconsistencies, ripoffs from previous movies, annoyingly flat and underdeveloped characters and dialogs, that it deserves many bad reviews that it receives from the public. It could have been so much better...

PLOT HOLES and THINGS THAT DOESN'T MAKE SENSE - examples: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

• Vice Admiral Holdo, for no reason at all, doesn't inform Poe and other members of the Resistance about the planet Crait and the escape plan. This creates Poe's unnecessary mutiny, just to fill the movie with some unneeded drama and to make cheap "twist" when we realize what the Leia's and Holdo's plan is.

• BB-8 overpowers and ties 3 prison guards armed with blasters, and muffles their mouths... ALONE.

• Not enough convincing reasons are shown to explain Skywalker's decision to abandon his sister, friends, whole Republic and Resistance, even if they all get killed during his exile. That decision, and the decision to kill Ben, is not in line with Luke's character from the previous movies.

• Why did Luke make a map which shows his location, and then put a map piece in R2 and gave a map piece to Lor San Tekka, if he didn't want to be found? Whole story about "The map to Skywalker" from Episode VII is now illogical...

• Not even ONE information about Snoke's background, long-term plans, source of his power, etc.? Unbelievable how they wasted that character....

• Water ends up on Kylo's glove after "Force connection" talk. That looked completely out of touch with how the Force works in the previous movies. The same problem is present in the scene with Yoda's Force ghost, when he summons real lightning from the sky and therefore directly influences events in the real world (and then he laughs about that like a lunatic).

• Why all armies in the galaxy don't use "hyperspace torpedoes" to ram spaceship fleets of the enemy, like Holdo did with the Resistance's spaceship, if that is so effective tactic?

• Also, why Resistance's ship commanders have to stay and die on their ships when all fuel is spent? We are shown that a ship without fuel is useless in any case, and so their death is also useless...

• Leia survives WITHOUT A SCAR massive explosions that killed everybody else on the ship's bridge, and she also survives vacuum of space (Jedi are not immortal, and without a space suit a Jedi / human would not survive for more than 60 seconds in space). Then she somehow moves herself through space back to the ship, while her dress is waving like the wind is blowing in space.

• Luke gives Han's golden cubes (dice) to Leia, knowing they have great emotional value to her, although he is aware that cubes will vanish in about 20 minutes because they are also "Force projection". That was a very cruel thing to do (and something that Luke wouldn't done)... A few minutes later Leia is leaving cubes behind when she escapes from the base, although our logic tells us that she would keep them.

• By the way, Leia and Kilo were able to hold dice in their hands. How? Han's golden cubes were "Force projection", and Luke showed us while he was "fighting" Kilo that Force projection is like a Force ghost - it could not be touched or held.

• BB-8 manages to disable guards by shooting a pile of golden coins at them. The BB-8 has special compartment for storing coins, and special device for shooting them? And so much coins were inserted in him in the casino? And coins are enough to disable the guards? Silly...

• BB-8 is piloting AT-ST walker alone, AND he is firing its cannons with great precision in the same time. 4 hands were needed for that in the "Return of the Jedi"...

• Finn and Rose parked their spaceship on the beach of the casino planet, where it was easily seen and reported to the police, although they came there on a secret mission and should have landed on some hidden spot. That doesn't make sense...

• Finn and Rose enter the casino dressed in their usual clothes, although they don't want to draw attention to themselves. That was so naive and stupid... Would not be a better idea if they picked something to wear similar to those rich people around them? Rose is wearing dirty mechanic clothes when they enter the casino...

• Finn and Rose are releasing "space horses" from the stable, but not the children-slaves.

• Finn and Rose are trying to escape from the casino planet as soon as possible by riding "space horses", although they still didn't completed their mission (they didn't enlist help from a codebreaker). Why? As far as they know, the fate of the Resistance depends on finding the codebraker, but they just flee...

• On the planet Crait, Rose and Finn have relaxed, slow romantic scene and they share a kiss, while army of gigantic AT-ATs in front of them are firing on anything that moves, and First Order is just about to kill all their friends. Also, their "love story" was totally unnecessary and unconvincing.

• How is Finn (who is dragging Rose's body) able to cross the great distance back to the Rebel base after that, without being attacked?

• Kilo Ren is not suspicious when Luke holds the same lightsabre on the planet Crait as the one which was split in half shortly before that, when Kylo was confronting Rey.

• Rey falls into a body of water on Ahch-To and swims easily to the shore. She has spent her entire life on a desert planet. When did she learn to swim?

• Chewie, R2-D2 and C-3PO do almost nothing during the movie, they are there only because the movie should "feel" like a Star Wars movie to the older fans.

• Too much unnecessary jokes and humor, and too much Porgs - just to please kids who will buy Star Wars toys later...

• Poe's phone-prank at the beginning of the movie was cringe-worthy. That was the first sign for me that this movie may not be so great as I hoped it would be.

• Phasma was again completely wasted character, without any purpose in the plot (other than to boost sales of the action figure).

RIPOFFS FROM THE ORIGINAL SAGA - 3 examples: -----------------------------------------------------------------------------

• Taken from "The Empire strikes back": Surface battle on the remote white planet, complete with AT-AT walkers, low flying rebel fighters, secret rebel base hidden under the surface, trenches, rebel cannons, etc. (Battle oh Hoth)

• Taken from "Return of the Jedi": Kylo (Vader) brings Rey (Luke) to the Snoke (Emperor), while Rey (Luke) is hoping that Kylo (Vader) can be turned from the Dark Side. Snoke (Emperor) shows Rey (Luke) how the Rebel fleet is destroyed while they speak. Snoke (Emperor) has Rey's (Luke's) lightsabre beside him, which Rey (Luke) wants to get by using Force. Many parts of the dialogue are almost the same.

• Taken from "Return of the Jedi": Millennium Falcon is chased by TIE-Fighters through the mines of mineral planet Crait - that scene is almost exact copy of the chase through the Death Star in the Return of the Jedi, where we also had TIE-Fighters chasing Falcon through similar tight spaces and obstacles (they just painted them red in this movie).

There are many more reasons why this movie is a failure... If you go to see "The Last Jedi", turn off your brain, banish all hopes, and just enjoy beautiful cinematography. At least they have done that right.

[hanuman-68774 · 1/10 · 20 April 2018]

This constitutes the MIDDLE FILM of a trilogy?!? More like the middle finger given to a multi-generational fandom!

I was so shocked after enduring The Last Jedi in the theater that it took me days to wrap my mind around what I had just experienced. I felt like I owed an apology to my child for subjecting them to it.

All that build-up to Luke's triumphant return...all for naught.

4 months later and we're still not given an explanation for why that film was given a "pass" as the logical, legitimate extension of The Force Awakens.

In fact, this review could be summed up thusly: The Last Jedi is illogical and illegitimate.

It will NEVER be--in my opinion--a Star Wars film. And in spite of his noble effort (Mark Hamill's) that will never be the true Luke Skywalker.

Every single character, including the remarkable Rey, was retooled and distorted nearly beyond recognition.

Clearly the actors for the new characters (Rose, Holdo and DJ) we're saying "woohoo I get to be in a Star Wars movie!" Too bad they were handed the flimsiest and most soulless script imaginable.

In my imagination it is Rian Johnson's flimsy script that Luke chucks over his shoulder, NOT his father's lightsaber.

Star Wars is dead to me. Long live Marvel--something to actually look forward to at least.

[Manu Kinder · 5/10 · 22 December 2017]

If they had congressional hearing into baseball doping...they need to investigate why reviews for this are so high. I just scoured comments here and looked at several *hundred* negative reviews...and found 2 positive ones. But it still has a 7.7? I've heard reviewers defending their reviews saying that bots account for a swath of the negative reviews...but I think it's the other way around.

There are several likable scenes...and the movie *looks* amazing....but it's not a good movie. Mediocre at best. That's the last time I will rush out to watch a Star Wars movie.

[kingjon-08903 · 1/10 · 22 December 2017]

The Last Jedi is obsessed with the fallacious idea that in order to move forward you have to destroy everything that came before. It is as if someone walked into the Louvre and said "you guys need to stop holding onto the past," and then threw a torch down, cackling as hundreds of years of irreplaceable works of art burned to the ground, and then, standing triumphantly on the ashes, drew a smiley face.

In order to make room for the new characters to shine, Rian Johnson obliterates the character of Luke Skywalker to the point that Hamill himself couldn't recognize him; in the Original Trilogy Luke Skywalker transforms from a whiny farm boy into a hero who proclaims "I am a Jedi, like my father before me" and manages to do what both Yoda and Obi-Wan thought impossible: bring Darth Vader back to the light. In this film, Luke is tempted to murder his own nephew before he even did anything wrong simply because there is a chance he may turn to the dark side, but the worst thing is that after that rather than attempt to fix his mistake he falls into a pit of despair and hides on an island as his friends are slowly wiped out by the First Order. When Rey arrives he refuses to train her or help the resistance in any way (despite having made a map to his location in the previous film), until a strange out of character pyromaniac Yoda force ghost appears and tells him Rey is perfect already and also the extremely cliched line that "the greatest teacher, failure is." Luke is not the only wasted character from the Original Trilogy either: Chewbacca serves as nothing more than comic relief and Leia is incapacitated for most of the film after a strange Mary Poppins-esque stroll through outer space. Admiral Ackbar is killed so unceremoniously you barely even notice he dies.

The usage of the force in this film is wildly inconsistent with the previous films as well. First of all, force ghosts never were able to alter physical reality, yet in this film Yoda is able to bring lightning down from the sky, leading us to the question of why the force ghosts haven't just destroyed Snoke from their impenetrable positions in the netherworld. Leia is able to fly through outer space, and Snoke can force push people from across vast distances. Rey is able to lift multiple tons of boulders with apparent ease despite how difficult it was for Luke to make a single X-Wing in the Empire Strikes Back even budge. The force projection that Luke does at the end is actually interesting, but for some inexplicable reason they decide to make it kill him.

From a critical standpoint, the film is an incoherent mess. There is little to no character development and the plot is little more than a long, drawn out series of "gotcha" moments; we are treated like dogs, as Rian Johnson dangles delicious treats above us before rapidly yanking them away. In the climax of The Force Awakens Rey finds Luke and extends his lightsaber, but in The Last Jedi Luke merely throws the lightsaber over his shoulder. Leia is sucked into outer space, only to magically force fly back to safety. Luke agrees to train Rey, but then quits after only one pathetic training session. Finn is about to heroically save what's left of the resistance, but - surprise! - he is saved at the last minute by his awkward love interest. Snoke is the most powerful sith in any Star Wars movie ever, but is anticlimactically killed by a cheap trick. The entire first half of the movie leads us to believe Kylo Ren and Rey will join forces, but after Kylo Ren saves Rey - surprise! - they're not going to work together: Kylo Ren will remain the stereotypical bad guy and Rey the infallible heroine. Rian Johnson had a chance to actually do something original and daring in this respect, but instead chose to take the safe route.

The writing in this film is atrocious. Several lines are lifted verbatim from the Original Trilogy. The humor is out of place, overused, and sounds like they took the words of a heckler writing in the margins and thought they should actually put it in the movie (Star Wars meets Rocky Horror Picture Show). We are distracted by pointless subplots that are of no consequence. The new characters have no personality and sound like modern day buffoons who were simply transplanted into the Star Wars universe. There is so much wrong with it that you really just have to see it for yourself, although I would recommend not paying money for it.

In conclusion, The Last Jedi is the worst Star Wars movie ever made. It is heretical. It is the anti-Star Wars. It stinks.

[michael_blassingame · 1/10 · 23 December 2017]

Terrible movie. So many fake reviews.

Why couldn't we see just how much knowledge and power Luke and Snoke had. They had so much mystery and potential and it was wasted!!!

Rey was a better pilot than Han. She's a better force user than Luke. She understands droids and Wookiees and can use force mind tricks... and she had no training. She made it into her 20's without doing things related to the force and now she can lift a mountain side?!

If you think about it, Luke didnt do ANYTHING the entire time. I kept waiting for something that the other movies had. Something amazing that would bring you back to the theater again and again. This movie had a few scenes that were decent: Kylo and Rey vs the guards maybe... The slow speed chase and the Finn and Rose plot line was pointless! A waste of screen time. I could write so much more, but others have covered it. I want to give it half a star out of 100 but this will suffice.

Oh, and a last thought: Walking out of the theater, I felt an emptiness. I had never felt that after any Star Wars movie. Is that what you were going for Mr. Johnson?

[zparadigm · 2/10 · 18 December 2017]

I just felt like the story was thrown together as they went, because it is some of the laziest and Deus Ex Machina reliant work I have ever watched. I personally didn't watch any fan Theories and just went opening night to be entertained by another Star Wars movie. Instead Rian Johnson serves up a good lesson that quantity is not always quality.

There were multiple new characters that had to share the screen that in essence the character development suffered greatly. Phasma was wasted again, Ackbar was killed off screen as an oh by the way moment, and Holdo was little more than a plot device to do the light speed suicide. It was never explained why she stayed on the cruiser, since the shuttle escape was a secret. (They didn't know yet they had been betrayed). In the second act when we keep shifting between the 4 concurrent plots I found myself thinking "don't swipe back to Rose and FInn please" because it was the least interesting plot line and it felt like Canto Blight only served to put some aliens into the movie to remind us we are watching a Star Wars movie.

I enjoyed three moments in the film in total, and if I am being honest and the person next to me fell asleep in the middle and started snoring during the slow space chase scenes. The story failed to draw me in and entertain me the way The Force Awakens and Rogue One did. I just shook my head at the end, and felt meh about the entry. The plot and character development were just to hackneyed. think the theme of failure that was repeated to death, sums up what I felt about this entry in the franchise.

[msattitude2 · 1/10 · 24 December 2017]

This was supposed to be the film that propelled the saga forward into a new direction??? What was wrong with honoring the direction and legends it started?! All this movie does is crucify a heroic character we all loved from childhood, and then leaves us completely unsatisfied with Rey's storyline. Are we honestly expected to believe "anyone" can be a Jedi?? Disney needs to stop controlling this ship! It's not supposed to be part of the "Disney Princess" history. What a shambles!!

[mrbenflood · 1/10 · 18 December 2017]

Hello All!

I would first like to say that I just created an account just to review this film! This is mainly because I feel so strongly after viewing this film what I think is wrong with hollywood and big block busters today... bad storytelling.

Starting off, I am somewhat a fan of Rian Johnsons past work. I recommend Brick to all of my friends and think it is a very well thought out modern Noir story. I even enjoyed Looper which I thought was an imaginative take on time travel. Though a major concern among people who have seen it and some critics is that it is filled with plot holes. Unfortunately it seems as though Mr. Johnson did not read these reviews...

I am not a massive star wars fan. I never read the books, the comics or even watched the clone wars television series. I am not a die hard fan for Star Wars. But I am a die hard movie fan. I love movies for their storytelling qualities that let the audience experience something new and different. This major quality that I enjoy most in movies unfortunately is not found in The Last Jedi.

Something that I will be referencing throughout this review is the term "Deus Ex Machina" which is a term used to describe a "God Device" or something found in a plot that arrives just as though a God put it there. I will use it very loosely to point out weak plot points that simply do not make any sense. Other reviews talk about how certain actors act and how some things don't feel right for Star Wars in general. I do not feel like I am knowledgeable enough to point out these flaws. So for all intensive purposes I would like to focus on the story just like I would for any other film.

Now to the meat of my review! throughout the film certain things happen in the story that save characters from peril or fix problems they have. Comparing this to real life, we all have had occurrences where something Lucky happens to us and are saved from something horrible. But this does not happen over and over and over again. Starting from the beginning Leia is thrust out into space and is presumed dead. Nowhere in the past films has she been able to observably use the force and mostly can feel things through the force. How is it that right when she is flung to space she manages to not only be able to use the force but can do something that has never even been seen within the franchise? The entire focus in the first act is that the rebels main ship can barely stay out of range from the First Order. How come the First Order doesn't just speed up? Use just a smidge of light speed to cut ahead and become in range? this goes beyond the realm of possibility that they would just drag along behind them and not make the first move when they know they are weak. 3. The entire Finn story line is expendable. It could have never happened and the story could have still ended where it did. When writing I would think that you would look at the story and make sure every single ounce of the story was crucial to get from point A to Point B. Looking at the Finn story it is littered with Deus Ex Machina's for instance when they get arrested. They just so happen to meet someone in the cell who can break into the First Order? Later on, Finn fights Phasma then she happens to fall and die (waste of a character). Then Rose magically arrives with a small ship to get them off the burning ship. Later they crash onto the "salt planet?" and manage to be the only ship that gets into the hanger alive. WHAT ARE THE ODDS! I don't want to talk for hours so my last point with Finn is that before Hologram Luke gets barraged with laser canons, Rose passes out. So between Rose passing out and Hologram Luke gets blown to pieces Finn runs across this "salt field", Through laser explosions? and gets Rose back to the base in less than 5 miniutes. I'm not even kidding look at the distance between the base, where he landed and the time when Hologram Luke gets attacked. Its ridiculous and makes no sense whatsoever.

There are other points I could bring up, like Finn getting rescued last minute by Rose. Snoke just so happened to get out of character and trust Kylo RIGHT AFTER SAYING HE SENSED HIS CONFLICT. Like yep... just said I didn't think you were a full Sith but now I trust you and I'm going to close my eyes. Or the rebels luckily finding an escape root from their new ice fox friends.

To conclude, the story is weak because so much happens through blind luck. This is what bad writing looks like everyone! Whenever someone sits down to write there has to be a cause and effect. There is none here. Just cause and luck. It just simply did not make any sense.This does not span to just Star Wars, but all of Disney's films. They lack good story elements that are either extremely predictable or just have random things save them right when they are in trouble. Do not be fooled by the great acting and flashy effects THIS IS BADLY WRITTEN. They say you support something with your money. So from now on I will not be paying to see a Disney owned and operated film for a long time. I am officially fed up with Star Wars, Marvel and dare I say Pixar. Please Disney stop destroying good storytelling and rehashing other peoples ideas!

That is all.

Thank You if you read all of this!!

-TheFlood

[gotton2013 · 2/10 · 14 December 2017]

After seeing the unbelievable rating of this movie, I have never felt further removed from the average Star Wars fan.

I wasn't a fan of The Force Awakens, feeling it was derivative of previous Star Wars movies. But, in spite of my distaste for the movie, I understood what there was that people liked about it. It was nostalgic to see old faces. Rey, Finn, BB8 and Po were each likeable characters that I felt worthy of leading future movies. The action and effects were excellent. There were hints that we were going to see more with the force in future movies. Most of all there was promise. Therefore, yes, I get how people can see that movie in a different light to how I see it.

But this? I just don't get it.

The Last Jedi was so tedious that were it not a Star Wars movie, I would have walked out of the cinema within an hour. I'm not talking about a slow burn here, I speak of unrelenting tedium and mediocrity. There are fundamental problems at the story level that made it impossible to get hooked by this movie and should have been fixed long before it went into production. The pace was glacial, and when things finally happened, they were anticlimactic at best.

Talking of fundamental problems at pre-production levels, why don't we talk about the script. Not only is the story underdeveloped and poorly plotted, but the dialogue is attrocious. When it's not being cheesy and cringe worthy, it is more wooden and unbelievable than even what we saw in the prequel movies. There was cheese in the original trilogy dialogue, but it was earned off the back of powerful characters, great performances and other genuinely inspired lines.

Being as there are such strong problems with the story and script then, it is hard to hold the actors at fault for the lack lustre performances in this movie. All of the acting fell flat in The Last Jedi. None of the emotion (what litlte there was) felt real to me, and as such I just didn't feel any steaks to get me hooked.

*** Now we move into serious spoiler territory... you've been warned. ***

I am not an editor, but even I could easily cut a third off this movie with a single paragraph. If when Po first confronted the admiral about her plan she had simply explained it, Finn's entire storyline could have been cut from the movie and they would have ended in the same place. Finn would have no need to go off on his hunt for the 'Code Breaker' and the story would have been tighter for it. I get that the film makers didn't want to give the plan away to the viewer, but considering that part of the movie takes up the majority of the second act, it is a really weak premise to hold to. Not only this, but if you cut away this farce, the movie would have been considerably shorter, much cheaper, and the pacing would have been infinitely more bearable.

Now let's move onto Snoke. You know, this strange being that was teased in The Force Awakens as the next big thing and has sparked so much speculation in the Star Wars community for the last two years? Yeah, that guy. Well he is little more than a plot device. Insanely powerful in the force, yes, but a plot device none the less. He exists only as a way of bringing about Kylo and Rey's story which just made their story seem artificial and forced. So there's another third of this movie wasted.

So the last third of this movie is the Luke Skywalker and Jedi story. Surely that's going to make up for it, right? No. Sadly not. Luke has returned to the spoiled, flawed character of the first movie who just wants to sulk about the fact that he cant go off with his friends to pick up some power converters. There's even a moment in the movie where Yoda actually points this out. That means that it was a conscious decision to tear down the protagonist of the original trilogy that has spawned 4 decades of love and an enormous universe of stories. The decision to do that boggles the mind.

Basically, this movie was a mess from beginning to end. It gets 1-star for the visuals (though there was a lot of bad CGI in this movie), and one more star simply because I don't think this movie is the worst movie in cinematic history. It's watchable at the very least, which is reason enough for that second star.

I certainly have no hope for the new trilogy Rian Johnson has been employed to write.

[mdyansufiyan · 1/10 · 16 December 2017]

A movie that tries extremely hard to be politically-correct, while being inclusive and embracing diversity, that it forgets what it means to be a part of the Star Wars lore. One of the greatest protagonists in cinematic history has been reduced to an uninspiring hermit drinking milk off an alien-cow-dinosaur hybrid. Supreme Leader Snoke could potentially be a greater villain than Darth Sidious but unfortunately killed off, Darth Maul-style. Meanwhile, forgettable and insignificant token characters such as Finn and Rose were kept alive all in the name of "multiracial-diversity" and "political-correctness". And don't get me started on the space battles: It was vomit-inducing.

• There was an estimated 4-5 First Order Star Destroyers including the massive Snoke's personal flagship, all armed to the teeth with thousands of turbolasers, hundreds of laser batteries, tractor beams, anti-ship torpedoes, and this movie is telling me that none, and yes, NONE, of them could take out one feeble Resistance cruiser? And don't forcefeed me with that "oh they're out of our range, so at the moment, we could just continue pursuing them for several hours and hope they would eventually run out of fuel" reasoning. General Hux could have just deployed his entire squadron of TIE Bombers, strategically targeting the cruiser's engines and shield generators, and poof! Mission accomplished.

• Wow, didn't know that the mighty First Order Dreadnought that is capable of orbital bombardment was extremely vulnerable to "vertical-dropping bombs that defies space physics" from ONE Resistance bomber.

• The "finding the codebreaker at the Casino-Monaco Planet" storyline was grossly unnecessary and a borefest. It would have been better to allocate the precious screentime to a more-engaging backstory about Snoke or showing more of Rey's Jedi training.

• Leia flying around in space without a spacesuit. Apparently being strong in the Force negates the urgent need for oxygen, being frozen, or propelling oneself through a microgravity environment. SpaceX, anyone?

• Snoke's death was unreasonably premature.

• Luke's death, while expected, could be better managed by the writers.

• Kylo-Rey intergalactic Force-Skype communication: The next Tinder in the making?

Conclusion: A Disney-approved Sci-Fi comedy specially made for the general masses, Porgs for the kids, while leaving behind the tiny bits of crumbs for the longtime fans to scrimp on. Hey, as long as Disney makes $2billion at the box office and millions more on merchandise and other related IPs, who are we to criticise them? In the end, it's all business, profits, and nothing else.

[todoloquenotedije · 1/10 · 16 December 2017]

• Tons of plotholes.
• Luke Skywalker's character ruined
• JJ abrahams work and characters, dumped.
• No character development.
• Rushed "romance"
• Bad main plot.
• Bad side plots.
• Totally lacking any lore.

[Ali Baba · 2/10 · 4 April 2018]

I am so sorry that for the first time in my life, I walked out of a Star Wars movie. This was so disappointing. As a young father, every moment I spend outside of the house without my kid has to be justified, and after about an hour of this garbage, I could not suppress my conscience anymore, and walked out to go home and spend more time with my kid. This piece of garbage had no character development, horrible edits, basically ruined Luke Skywalker's character and turned him into a hobo. I am so frustrated right now. They've ruined Star Wars.

[Marcus James · 1/10 · 17 December 2017]

Wow this is getting hammered by reviews and now I understand why. Given its still in week 1 and most of the early reviews were all paid for and fake, the fact that this is at:

57% - Rotten Tomatoes 50% - Metacritic

Means that the real scores are likely closer to 30% and 25% if you take out all the paid for "pro" and fake user reviews...

Are they serious? Didnt they learn from the 1st one that they need to push the story forward instead of making a C grade retelling the old stories? Wow, so glad I didnt pay to watch this.

1st of all, the replacement characters remain unlikable because dialog and character building is poor. Attempts at humor are not funny nor charming, and the plot development might as well be written by someone with a high school level intellect. Plot holes abound in what is sadly yet another attempt at a retelling of the same story from the 80s... how you can make more plot holes in a story remake? Well they did. and they threw in a few eye rolls as Rei continues to be a lore destroying super Jedi that has more power than all the previous Jedi combined without even trying and barely any training. The sensitive storm trooper who didnt want to kill can now kill all his brethren with a smile. And oh apparently the rebel are now so dumb that they dont even consider looking around for an exit when they are trapped, that is until the magnificent leader says they should look around and after asking Lea if its ok to look around with him... lol.

Luke who is supposedly a master Jedi at this stage in his life, is now the guy who either died due to being out of shape or by a 3rd rate sith dork who lost to a storm trooper in melee combat. But he sure fooled him for a minute to allow a group of worthless idiots to escape... I guess this was his Obiwan moment when he went up against a full powered Darth Vader and had no chance of winning... except in Lukes case it was against a kitten with the IQ of a wet towel. They basically took a dump on all three original movies (and even the prequels if you care about those) as well as all the written lore that came after not to mention common sense. Luke got killed while projecting his hologram... why? To give the rebels time to escape when all they had to do was look around for an exit and shoot themselves out. But they were too dumb to figure that out. It took sacrificing Luke (who didnt actually need to die, he could have pulled out the second they started looking for an exit) and Rei to move a few rocks to do what would have been trivial with the guns and equipment the rebels had with them. And all this happened why? Because they ran out of gas lol.

Good bye Star Wars.

[nadblaster · 2/10 · 21 December 2017]

I can't really get into what's bad with this movie without dropping a ton of spoilers, but let me put it this way: a friend of mine went to see this before I did, and when I asked him how it was he hesitated, then said "it's just a superhero series now". He was more right than I ever could have known.

The plot is stupid and is full of moments where my friends and I looked at each other and said "wait, what?". There are sequences in this movie that simply do not need to exist and provide literally nothing to the story. The technology, previously something I always thought was neat about Star Wars, is genuinely dumb and makes zero sense (why do big laser bolts in space arc like artillery?). I am ashamed to have paid money for this and as a long-time Star Wars fan it hurts to see just how dead the franchise I love really is.

All that said, the special effects look and sound great, and it was fun to see Mark Hamill acting again. Other than that this movie is a disgrace not just to the franchise but to anyone with a brain. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

[jonmit-88269 · 1/10 · 20 December 2017]

As much as I wanted to love this movie, it utterly failed to deliver on so many levels. Disney, in all its previews, advertised the film as a serious epic focused on Luke, Rey, and Kylo Ren, with no doubt some appropriate comic relief as always. What they delivered was a farce-tripping over itself with excessive and ill-timed humor such that no scene could ever be taken seriously, even ones that were intended to be. That combined with frenetically paced scene transitions, too many new characters, and wasted sub-plots (casino scenes), meant the main story and characters were left undeveloped with few burning questions answered. The main premise, equivalent to a slow motion car chase with the First Order chasing the Resistance until they run out of fuel, was absolutely ridiculous. Perhaps most unforgivable of all was the treatment of Luke Skywalker. While initially promising, his diminished role and ultimate end were insulting to his character and inconsistent with everything we know about him. Shame on Rian Johnson.

In the end, Disney got lazy and knew that no matter what, they'd make a ton of money off people who want to see a huge lightsaber fight and lots of space battles with big special effects. They forgot that lots of people actually like movies that, on top of all that, are written and produced with enough thought and care so as to not appear like a fifth-grade homework assignment put together 30 minutes before it was due.

Not worth the paper the ticket was printed on.

[zvelf-1 · 4/10 · 18 December 2017]

I've read articles saying the THE LAST JEDI is being rejected by fans because the fan theories all turned out to be incorrect. That's wrong. THE LAST JEDI is being rejected because it didn't deal with any of the questions that THE FORCE AWAKENS spent so much time asking. Who are Rey's parents? It doesn't matter. Who is Snoke? Shrug. We're going to save Luke Skywalker until the last few seconds. Why? So he can spend almost the entirety of the next movie doing absolutely nothing.

Mark Hamill has said in interviews that he disagreed with Rian Johnson's take on Luke Skywalker, and THE LAST JEDI reveals that Hamill was spot on. Luke's reasoning in the film makes no sense. Even if he doesn't want to train any more Jedi, he should still want to stop the First Order and help his sister. One thing has nothing to do with the other. That Han Solo's death doesn't even motivate him is a betrayal of the original trilogy and everything those characters went through. If you're going to make a movie about Luke Skywalker, master Jedi Knight, something the entire original trilogy built to, don't you want to see what one of the greatest Jedi Knights can do?

Basically THE FORCE AWAKENS was to spotlight Han Solo and this movie was to spotlight Luke Skywalker, but this movie is about Luke doing nothing. Watching Luke do nothing for 90% of his screen time simply doesn't work as drama. What's even worse is we know that Luke will come around or else there would be no story. The original trilogy is about Luke leveling up. Now we should get the payoff, and the ending looks like it's going to give it to us, but then it does a bait and switch and it turns out Luke was never really there.

Think of how awesome the ending would be showing Luke tossing First Order walkers through the air? Giving Luke this kind of moment wasn't necessary specifically for this movie except that Johnson purposely had Luke do nothing instead. If you're going to do that, then you have to counterbalance Luke's inactivity with Luke doing a lot in the end, which he doesn't, and then he died, so that mean we won't ever get to see the culmination of Luke's Jedi training. What a wasted opportunity.

[penny514 · 2/10 · 16 December 2017]

To clarify before beginning my review, I'm a 34-year-old lifelong female fan (not a misogynistic racist fanboy as some people assume of those who are unimpressed with this movie's outcome). The characterization of Luke and some of the others was downright WRONG, especially to those of us who loved the OT. And let's be clear, I'm not an OT purist. I will defend Revenge of the Sith to my death. I watched the Force Awakens 5 times in theaters. I thought Rogue One was one of the best Star Wars movies ever.

But The Last Jedi? This movie broke me. Almost within the first five minutes, I knew this was not going to go well. Other reviewers are probably nailing all the fine details but for me, from the beginning, the writing was uninspired, shaky, and poor. The forced comedy and cheap one-liners all in place it simply DID not belong. Cutaways to the porgs, which I thought I would love and ended up being there purely for kids and merchandising options. Come on, Luke dusting off his shoulder? Throwing the saber over the cliff? And Hux, a character who was set up to be hard and terrifying, was made into a Three Stooges style punchline character almost. Poe was one-dimensional. Holdo was completely unnecessary and looked more like a citizen of the Hunger Games Capital than a character in SW. Finn and Rose's storyline could have been completely taken out. Boring, uninspired, and useless.

Kylo and Rey's storyline and their force bond was the only thing that interested me as I hung in there, waiting for some redeemable moment of the movie. I genuinely felt sure that Ben Solo would be redeemed. That is really the way it should have gone. But NOPE. Rian Johnson and company seemed way more determined to write a bunch of trash and twists just to be able to go "GOTCHA" to the audience. Well I don't like cheap tricks. There's a difference between good plot twists and bad ones. These were ALL bad, including Leia's sudden space walk many are compared to a Poppins like moment. The characterization and ending of Luke's life and some of the others was downright WRONG, especially to those of us who loved the OT.

This is the first Star Wars movie to ever have left me feeling so numb. By the end of the night, hours after we left the theater, I felt totally gutted and crestfallen to realize what the Star Wars sequels had become, because Rian Johnson had to "Age of Ultron" the series. Again, Kylo and Rey's storyline was the only thing of interest in this movie, and Rian even messed that up by the end. No chance of redemption now.

Well, no thanks to episode 9. I'm done seeing the franchise i love being butchered by Disney and their ever-growing greed taking over with no respect to the characters we love. This was the biggest disappointment of my life.

[liell · 1/10 · 15 December 2017]

How this script made it past everyone at Disney I'll never know. What happened to the Star Wars that told a coherent story and focused on characters that we truly cared about?

Here, we have a ridiculous stew of new pawns thrown into the mix who end up amounting to nothing. The characters we do care about are under-utilized. Phasma has an underwhelming death after once again being absolutely worthless and without consequence. The other two deaths in the film are that of the two female characters who are introduced with minimal development. And... how did Luke die? He just decided to drift off into oblivion in the same fashion as Yoda? This made sense for Yoda in Return of the Jedi as he was way beyond his years. But Luke here basically just commits suicide.

Genuine drama and momentum is traded in for cheap twists and a non-stop urge to be humorous instead of taking itself seriously. Several of the jokes are cringe-worthy, as if a room full of aspiring comics sat around and said "Hey, wouldn't this be kinda funny if we had this character do this?!" and then they just included every possible outlet for humor with zero discretion. Trading in fluid and impactful story-telling for an overabundance of cheap laughs... something that no Star Wars movie til now has dared to do.

I was genuinely excited to explore the true nature of The Force in this installment, but I was sorely mistaken in that department as well. The dialog during the training scenes is simplistic, rehashed from The Empire Strikes Back, but in a dumbed-down way. No new or innovative ideas are brought up, and as Luke trains Rey, he does so with an air of mockery. To those who have found actual insight, emotion, and philosophical resonance in The Force, the way this movie handles the subject is beyond insulting.

Also- I understand Leia is strong with the Force- but are we really supposed to believe that Jedi can survive being THROWN INTO OUTER SPACE now?? Where do we draw the line? These are human characters we're dealing with, but Mr. Johnson apparently has no boundaries.

And his final shot? A boy who we have NEVER SEEN BEFORE. I understand the meaning behind it- to say that anyone can be force-sensitive- but really?! For me, Star Wars has always been about the characters. So when one considers the closing shot of the movie (which has, in other Star Wars films, always been highly poignant) to be a RANDOM BOY... instead of a character that we're actually invested in... you'll see why I am upset.

Adding even more questions to the list of unanswered mysteries introduced in The Force Awakens, this episode has me seriously concerned for the culminating chapter of this trilogy. Best of luck to Abrams in salvaging the story he set out to tell, as The Last Jedi has left it in a very puzzling and disappointing place.

[emanueleromagnolo · 2/10 · 14 December 2017]

Congrats for killing another franchise. The movie was horribly edited, half of the things happening on screen are literally pointless and theres NO character development whatsoever. Rey becomes a jedi after a 15 min meditation session with Luke, Kylo kills Snoke (wich was supposed to be stronger than vader and sidious) and this somehow doesnt change anything AT ALL. But hey, the 2.5h of screentime are filled with poe doing poe things, finn and a forgettable chinese partner going to the forgettable space-las vegas and doing pointless things that have nothing to do with the plot except giving benicio del toro some money, and leia somehow flying in space. Oh also dont expect explanations for the multple questions you may have had after seeing TFA. 13/12/2017 is the day Star Wars died, good job mickey mouse.

[j-tochtenhagen · 1/10 · 25 December 2017]

I watched this movie twice before finally making up my thoughts. The more i think about this one the more i felt empty and angry at the same time. You can enjoy this movie if you're simply want to see some space ships fighting, some aliens, thrown in, random politcal correct messages without any connection to the splot, some Marvell humor and no story telling at all.

Of course there are quite a lot of bad movies out there, but nobody really cares about Transformers after watching the crap, right? This is different with Star Wars. This franchise connected so many people all over the world from all countries, ethnics, both male and female. What this movie does is to completely disconnect people and ruins almost everything Star Wars stands for. And in addition to this it also ruins it's legacy.

I am not a hard core fan, i did not read any books or comics, just saw the movies. I did not really like the prequels, but at least George Lucas tried to tell an original story, but failed in execution. Episode 7 was okay as a reboot and Rogue One was my hope, that Star Wars can grow up into a great adult space epic, since although the story of R1 wasn't that good, the tone was excellent and catched everything i hoped for. Also the characters were believable if you consider the short screentime they had.

In The Last Jedi it seems, that they tried to put everything into which needed to be in a commercial sci-fi kids movie, please some fans, include as much twists as possible just to the sake of surprise plus add the most obvious and cheap political correct statements possible. Yes, you can do that, but you need a really good plot, a vision and a perfect directing to match all these things together. And this is where you completely failed, Mr. Johnson.

This movie is a desaster in story telling, pacing, tone, character development and also disrespectful to the legacy of Star Wars. It's an insult to both Star Wars fans and good movie makers in general.

For me, this is the end of Star Wars. I wish this episode never happened and would be wiped out of the trilogies.