#another issue i have is that like. andy gets to be jaded and bitter most of the time and while joe and nicky do keep each other on far

[magnetoapologist]

low-key pisses me off that ppl are so resistant to Joe and Nicky having bigger interpersonal issues sometimes and often justify it with "they would have solved these hurdles far longer ago" like things and feelings and also the world around them can't change??? like the only conflict in a story about them is allowed to be external forces acting upon them? sometimes I think you guys don't even want a story

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi review

WARNING: THE FOLLOWING REVIEW CONTAINS MASSIVE SPOILERS FOR THE NEW STAR WARS MOVIE, AS GIVING MY HONEST OPINION ON THE WHOLE THING IS NOT SOMETHING I’M CAPABLE OF DOING WITHOUT DISCUSSING THE WHOLE PLOT. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

Star Wars is a franchise very near and dear to my heart. Ever since I was a little boy I’ve been watching these films, filled with a sense of wonder and excitement as I was whisked off to a galaxy far, far away.  I always found myself to be an anomaly among Star Wars fans, as I’ve managed to find enjoyment in the first seven movies; even the prequels are films I don’t really hate, and as derivative as The Force Awakens was it was still a lot of fun. So when I heard how incredibly divisive The Last Jedi was, so divisive that half the fanbase was petitioning to have it stricken from canon while the other half was praising it as one of the best Star Wars movies to date, I figured this would be yet another example of me ending up enjoying a Star Wars movie that was controversial among fans.

I was wrong. Kind of.

I was really disappointed by this movie… and I was really disappointed because a lot of this movie really is as good as some people are saying. I totally see why this is the most divisive Star Wars film to date; there are just just so many great moments interspersed with so many boneheaded decisions, that I can see why anyone would love or hate this. I don’t know if I’m really in either camp. I don’t know how to feel at all. And so, in a break from the norm, I’m going to skip the plot summary here, and I am going to do a sort of bullet point list of the good, the bad, and the ugly parts of this movie and my reasonings for why I liked or disliked said points. It’s a bit of a departure from the norm, I know, but so is this movie.

And again, before we get into it… MASSIVE SPOILERS BELOW:

The Good

Luke Skywalker: One of the absolute best aspects of the movie is Luke. Mark Hamill is at the top of his game here, delivering a very complex performance of a bitter, jaded Luke who has failed in a deeply profound way. It is revealed HE created Kylo Ren in a moment of typical Skywalker impulsiveness, and has had to live with this failure for years. He also gets a lot of funny moments, such as in the recreation of the ending of The Force Awakens; after being handed the lightsaber by Rey, he pauses for a few moments, then chucks the lightsaber over his shoulder before walking away. This really sets the tone for how his character is going to be for the whole film. Then there’s his final showdown with Kylo Ren at the end, which is pretty awesome in and of itself, especially considering… Luke was never there. He was astral projecting from half a galaxy away. Fucking. Awesome. Of course, the toll of this ends up with Luke becoming one with the Force… and while this disappointed me at first, the gorgeous final shot of Luke looking at those two suns before vanishing, perfectly bookending his journey… it was beautiful. I can accept it, even if it hurts. Luke’s portrayal here in the film may be divisive to some fans, but not to me.

Princess Leia: I have absolutely nothing bad to say about Carrie Fisher’s performance. Nothing. This is the last time we’ll get to see her in Star Wars, and she gave it her all. And, best of all, we FINALLY get to see her use the force in the most epically gonzo way you could ever imagine. She uses the Force to survive in the vacuum of space and fly back to safety. Leia could have easily been killed off at that point too, which makes this all the more awesome. Almost every scene she was in had me tearing up, particularly her final interaction with Luke, in which he says “Nobody is ever truly gone.” He’s right. Carrie Fisher and Leia will always be with us, in our hearts, in our memories… God, I’m crying just writing this, time to move on….

Poe: It was good that Oscar Isaac convinced J. J. Abrams to let Poe Dameron live, because boy does he really bring a lot to the table here. Hotheaded, reckless, but with an indomitable spirit and his heart truly in the right place, Poe is the heroic rebel he deserved to be in the previous movie, but never got a chance to be. Not much more to say other than he was great here.

Snoke: Look, I’m a sucker for Andy Serkis. Snoke was cool, creepy, mysterious, and one of the most nightmarishly powerful Force users in the franchise. He had that massive Star Destroyer, he had that gold robe, he had that fucked up face… and in his first scene here he basically calls out Kylo Ren for being a whiny little bitch and tells him to take off his stupid mask. Snoke is a fucking baller… which is why what happens to him two thirds of the way through the film pisses me off (but we’ll get to that later). Trust me, I was fully expecting to find Snoke a massive letdown, but instead I felt more like the movie let down one of the most intriguing antagonists Star Wars has produced in a while.

The Praetorian Guard: On the subject of Snoke, his space samurai ninja laser guards are nothing short of awesome. Following in the footsteps of the legendary stormtrooper with the testicular fortitude to fight off a lightsaber-wielding Finn with nothing but a stun baton and sheer chutzpah, these guys steal the show in their single awesome fight scene, in which together they manage to nearly kill Rey and Kylo Ren. While that might not seem as badass as one regular stormtrooper against a lightsaber-wielding Finn, please recall Rey and Finn are both powerful Jedi who were both trained, however briefly, by some of the most powerful Force users in the galaxy. The fact these guys survived more than ten seconds is nothing short of impressive.

Vice Admiral Holdo’s heroic sacrifice: While Holdo herself, as a character, is… well… pretty sloppy and poorly done overall, her final moments are perhaps the greatest heroic sacrifice ever put to film. Faced against Snoke’s massive ship, which for the record is the width of the state of Rhode Island, and seeing the fleeing rebels get blasted to bits, she turns her ship around, aims it at Snoke’s ship, and activates lightspeed. What follows is one of the most epic and gorgeous shots of the saga; it’s completely devoid of sound, just the sight of Snoke’s ship crippled and the other Star Destroyers bisected. The only reason the scene was silent was likely because they couldn’t get the rights to “Rules of Nature,” which would be the only acceptable thing to play over such an incredible moment.

Yoda: Motherfucking Yoda appears, of all people. Voiced by motherfucking Frank Oz, of all people. And he’s an actual puppet! Of all things! This is the Yoda we all know and love, and even after being dead for decades the little guy is still the biggest baller who ever lived, calling down lightning from the heavens and chastising Luke for being a doofus. Boy was this an unexpected appearance, but damn if it wasn’t a welcome one.

Captain Canady and Paige: The commander of the Dreadnought, I’m pretty sure Canady was the only competent member of the First Order in the entire film. He only appears in the opening scene of course, since as a bad guy he’s required to die, but he really steals the show there alongside the heroic rebel Paige who manages to blow him up (which he seems to gracefully accept in his final moments). Seeing the hypercompetent badasses of both sides is a great start, I must say.

Kylo Ren and Rey: These two finally feel like a proper antagonist and protagonist. They’re very fleshed out and given quite a bit more depth here, with a lot of their more controversial aspects toned down. Ren no longer throws tantrums and acts like a Darth Vader wannabe, Rey gets her ass handed to her a few times and is frequently tempted by the allure of darkness… overall, this movie handles them both a lot better than the previous film which, while not bad, was more of a groundwork for them than anything.

Hux becoming the First Order’s Butt Monkey: I don’t have much to say about this beyond… it’s funny to see Hux get slapped around by everyone.

The Bad

Rose: Rose was truly a pointless character. I have nothing good to say about her, she was an utter waste of space, her subplot with Finn wasn’t interesting, her chemistry with him was lacking, her romantic feelings for him are just exacerbated hero worship… she’s quite frankly one of the most annoying characters in the Star Wars canon, and remember that the Ewoks and Jar Jar exist. It’s a real shame her awesome sister died and we got stuck with this schlub for the movie.

DJ getting shafted for screentime: Now DJ himself is a pretty interesting character, adding a shade of gray to the typically black-and-white stories; he even points out the moral ambiguity of the war that’s being fought. Here’s the issue: they write him out of the movie fairly quickly, without him really getting a chance to shine. He has maybe ten, fifteen minutes of screentime before he betrays Finn and Rose and then fucks off, never to be seen again? Fucking lame. Hopefully he can come back in the sequel, because he deserved a lot better.

Finn: He went from being the best new character of the last movie, to… this. It’s not even so much that he’s a bad character now or anything, but John Boyega is given nothing interesting to do here, and Finn’s character just seems stalled. He doesn’t really progress or develop in any way that feels meaningful.

The casino plotline: Rose and Finn go to the casino to find a hacker. Hijinks ensue. Hijinks that end up amounting to nothing at all and actually end up worsening the situation of the rebels. While I do like all the unique aliens that appeared in the casino, it’s not worth it for such an utterly meaningless plotline that ended up hindering rather than helping. Still, this plotline is not nearly as bad as some people make it out to be. It just feels like some of it could have been trimmed, since so little of it ends up mattering.

The Ugly

Killing Snoke: The worst problems of The Last Jedi lie in how they take all the interesting concepts that were teased in The Force Awakens and then just toss them out the window. Case in point: the mysterious, nightmarish Snoke, built up as the successor to Emperor Palpatine and who is established as a Force master able to pull off some wicked moves… is sliced in half two-thirds of the way through the film. Nothing is revealed about who he is or what he had in mind for Kylo beyond the most basic things. Now, one COULD use the excuse that Palpatine was not exactly fleshed out in The Return of the Jedi, and yet he was still a pretty awesome villain… but the issue with that is that Palpatine at this point had three prequels to flesh him out, so saying “Oh that’s how it was in these old movies before we had characterization!” is BULLSHIT. Making an interesting villain and then tossing him aside like he’s nothing is fucking retarded, no matter what way you slice it. Oh, a nd while we’re on the subject…

Phasma: Once again, Phasma is reduced to an utter joke. She actually has a very rich and complex characterization and backstory… seen in comics and prequel novels but not in the movie. In the movie she gets hit with some Bond villain stupidity and is bested by Finn in one of the shortest fight scenes in the movie. And then she (maybe) dies. If this is truly the end for her – which I have my doubts about – then she truly is the poor man’s Boba Fett and an absolute waste off a character.

Rey’s parents: After all the mystery and buildup to who Rey’s parents could be, the rampant speculation driving fans wild as they tried to uncover the answer, after all the teasing from the creators… it’s revealed they were just a couple of lowlife drunks who sold their kid for pocket change. Like this could be an interesting twist – Rey being a nobody is a pretty shocking subversion of audience expectations – but it leaves a bad taste in my mouth for a lot of reasons. It just feels like, on top of the twenty other twists the movie throws at you, like overkill. This big mystery people were theorizing over? Well fuck it, it doesn’t matter.

Killing Admiral Ackabar: Look, I understand why they did it, his actor passed away so the character dies with him… but god, killing one of the most iconic alien characters of the franchise like that just feels really fucking cheap. And then he gets mentioned one time in passing. I GET he was never a major focus or anything, but this is Admiral “IT’S A TRAP!” Ackbar we’re talking about. The fans love this guy, if you’re gonna kill him you could at least afford  him some more respect and dignity than getting blown up and then mentioned in passing.

What now: My biggest issue is that, now that all the mysteries of the previous film have been tossed aside or answered anticlimactically… what else is there to do? There’s nothing like at the end of The Empire Strikes Back, where Han was frozen and needed to be saved and Vader was still out there, planning his big move. The movie kinda just… ends. Oooh, the rebellion is alive! Kylo Ren is the Supreme Leader of the First Order now! None of this feels compelling or exciting, none of this feels enticing the same way the cliffhanger at the end of The Empire Strikes Back did, the movie this film is aping quite a bit from. They kinda shot themselves in the foot repeatedly here; maybe they can put some unique spins on the story, but they really ruined a lot of the interesting ideas that were set up in Episode VII. It’s gonna be hard to feel totally interested in whatever comes next unless they have an exceptionally massive selling point, especially now that the Han and Luke are both dead in-universe, while Carrie Fisher’s death means Leia’s role in Episode IX is being removed.

In Conclusion

There is a lot of stuff I loved, and enough stuff that I hated that it keeps me from loving the movie. It’s the epitome of a mixed bag, one you’ll probably either end up loving or hating; maybe you’ll be like me and find it to be a mixed bag as well, but it does seem to be a movie that elicits only the most extreme of responses. Can I recommend this? You know… yeah. As much as I hate a lot of the decisions they went with here, there IS enough of that Star Wars quality to give it a watch. And if nothing else, seeing Carrie Fisher’s final performance is worth the price of admission alone. This movie is dedicated to her, and you know what? With her performance here, this is definitely a film worthy of being dedicated to her memory.

Maybe I need to watch it again to truly like it, or maybe I’ll still dislike it, or maybe I’ll even hate it more. Who really knows? There’s only one thing I know for sure: anyone who signs the petition to remove this film from canon is an absolute waste of oxygen and needs to sit in the corner and reevaluate their life. Get over yourself you fucking losers.