Star Wars: The Last Jedi Review (SPOILERS)

Well that was a crazy weekend. If you haven't heard the news, "Star Wars: The Last Jedi" is in theaters and it received quite the odd reaction. The strong majority of critics enjoyed it as it's at a 93 percent on Rotten Tomatoes. On the flip side of that, the audience score on Rotten Tomatoes stands at a shockingly low 56 percent. Does that mean audiences hate it while critics love it? Or has there been some sort of grassroots campaign among butthurt fanboys to sabotage its Rotten Tomatoes audience score as has been rumored? I don't know which it is, but I do know that the movie scored an A on Cinemascore and has thus far maintained an IMDb score that is around an 8.0 with its first 100,000 ratings. That doesn't happen if the majority of people hated this movie. It was also projected to earn around $200-210 million early in the weekend, but it ended up around $220 million when weekend totals came in, meaning it held pretty well, which could be a signal of good word of mouth. So when I say I absolute loved this movie, where does that put me? I'd like to say I'm in the majority, but I might be in the minority. Thus I'm not sure if I should be rejoicing with my friends or preparing to defend myself with an unpopular opinion. Either way, here we go!

As you hopefully saw with the banner in the title, this is a spoiler review. The previously mentioned box office totals indicate to me that a lot of you saw the movie this weekend, and I don't really know what to say in a non-spoiler review that wouldn't hint at actual spoilers, so it's been my tradition with these Star Wars reviews to just dive into full spoilers. So if you haven't seen this movie, don't read this review. Go see this movie and then come back and read this. It's your choice if you continue reading or not, but after this paragraph, you officially can't hold me accountable for spoiling this movie for you because I'm going to now assume that you have either seen this movie or don't care about spoilers. Thus you've been warned. In short, just know that I love Star Wars and have for as long as I can remember. I don't know if I can be labeled a Star Wars nerd or not because I haven't read many of the books, I haven't seen all of the TV shows and I know plenty of people that are more well-versed in Star Wars trivia than me, but the original trilogy has always been a part of me and I think both "The Force Awakens" and now "The Last Jedi" have served as excellent sequels. If you liked "The Force Awakens," I have confidence that you'll also like "The Last Jedi."

Thus ends the spoiler-free review. Now let's dive into details and there's a lot to discuss here. If I were to sum up this movie in just one statement, I would say that this is the boldest Star Wars movie yet. As I read in one review, this is a movie that doesn't care what you think about Star Wars as it throws several curveballs at you throughout the movie that you never saw coming. The movie takes risk after risk after risk and my current working theory is that's the reason why a lot of people are upset. They either have all of the Star Wars Legends ingrained in their heads about what's supposed to happen after "Return of the Jedi" or they had their own theories about what direction the franchise was taking these characters or should've taken these characters and they couldn't let those ideas or theories go. That became a problem because because "The Last Jedi" took all of those theories, threw them out the window, then burned them in a giant bonfire. They all mean nothing now. Thus people have to learn to let go and open their minds to new possibilities and new ideas. Or at the very least, learn to accept the idea of alternate timelines. You are still allowed to love all the old Star Wars books and stories. Lucasfilm has simply decided to go in a completely different direction.

LUKE SKYWALKER

Nothing is more indicative of all this than our first moment between Rey and Luke. "The Force Awakens" left us off on a literal and figurative cliffhanger with Rey handing Luke's old lightsaber to him. The one that he lost in "The Empire Strikes Back." What was Luke going to do? What was he going to say? We spent two years speculating about this moment only to learn that Luke looks at it for a second and tosses it over his shoulder. Because he doesn't care. It's just a laser sword and he wants nothing to do with the force or the Jedi. It's time for it all to end because the Jedi have done nothing but fail in their history and who are we to say that this force belongs to the Jedi in the first place? He didn't come to this island to wait things out or to gain some sort of magnificent insight about how to win this battle. He came to this island to die. He's currently the last Jedi and he wants to die as the last Jedi, thus officially ending the Jedi regime and closing the door on this religion. Thus when Rey shows up on the island wanting to be trained as a new Jedi, he doesn't want to do it. He tells her repeatedly to go away and leave him alone. And by the way, he has no idea who she is. She's not his daughter or his niece, so he feels no personal connection to her.

What in the heck has happened to our beloved Luke Skywalker? It's been well publicized that Mark Hamill fundamentally disagreed on the direction that Rian Johnson decided to take Luke and it was also clear that he would've loved a bigger role in "The Force Awakens." Thus this could stand as the first breaking point between people and this movie. But after pondering on it, I think it really works. Luke had a magnificent arc in the original trilogy, but when I think about it, I'm totally satisfied with that arc not being fully completed as of yet. Luke accomplished many great things in the previous movies, but he started as a whiny farm boy in "A New Hope" and made some critical bad decisions in "The Empire Strikes Back." When he went back to finish his training in "Return of the Jedi," Yoda decided to die. Even though he successfully turned his father back to the light side by deciding to submit himself to the Emperor's attacks and refusing to fight back, I would argue that by the end of the movie, Luke hadn't yet arrived at the level of an Obi-Wan and Yoda, or even Qui-Gon Jin or Mace Windu in terms of power and knowledge of the force and the Jedi. As the last remaining Jedi, he spent a lot of time on his own having the great task of resurrecting the Jedi Order.

We knew from "The Force Awakens" that something happened to Luke when he tried to follow Yoda's council and train Ben Solo and others. We learn here that Luke, who had never trained a Jedi before, essentially failed as a trainer. Ben Solo seemed like he never got along with his parents in the first place, thus the seeds of anger and darkness were planted early in his life. Yet Leia entrusted her son to her brother Luke and Luke failed his sister. When Snoke showed up and was already having a heavy influence on Ben and others, Luke started to notice the darkness rising in Ben and, in a moment of weakness, snuck into his tent one night with the idea of striking him down before he can become the next Darth Vader. But in a fleeting moment that idea left him and suddenly Luke was left with an intense feeling of guilt and shame. Before he could fix anything, Ben wakes up and all he sees is Luke trying to kill him. In an already dark and lonely child, that's the straw that broke the camel's back and turned Ben Solo into Kylo Ren. Kylo defeats Luke, takes some of his former trainees, creating the Knights of Ren, kills the rest of them and burns down Luke's new Jedi temple. Thus in Luke's mind, that's it. It's over. He's failed. So he leaves to the island to die.

I buy this. I buy all of it. Thus when we see Luke and slowly learn this backstory, all of his anger and his sense of miserable hopelessness makes sense as he's allowed this guilt and shame to fester inside of him for what's probably been many years. Thus when Rey shows up, would it make sense for him to see his old lightsaber and magically turn back into this legendary Jedi and train Rey? No, it doesn't. It takes time for him to change and shake out of it. It takes Chewie banging down his door. It takes R2 playing that old message from Leia to Obi-Wan. It takes him clashing with Rey after deciding to teach her three lessons as to why the Jedi need to end because she's decided she needs to go help Kylo Ren become Ben Solo again and Luke won't do jack squat. And finally, when Luke is walking up to burn the ancient Jedi tree, it takes force ghost Yoda showing up, who by the way is back to puppet Yoda with his quirky personality, and teaching Luke what might be Yoda's best and most important lesson yet. That failure is often the best teacher. That fits in perfectly with Yoda's "Do or do not, there is no try" lesson from "Empire." Because, yes, sometimes when we make our best effort to accomplish a task, we will fail. But through those failures, we can learn our greatest lessons.

I absolutely love this arc that Luke is given. It is powerful and emotional. One of the biggest reasons why I love Star Wars so much is the deeply personal life lessons that the saga teaches and the parallels that one can take and apply to his or her own life. To see "The Last Jedi" take one of cinema's most iconic characters and complete his arc in such a beautiful way resonated so heavily with me. Thus when Luke shows up at the end of the movie, has his final interaction with Leia, apologizing to her for failing her son and kissing her on the forehead in such a loving, familial way, then confronts Kylo Ren one final time, I was overcome with emotion. He went from telling Rey in the beginning of the movie that the Jedi need to end to telling Kylo at the end of the movie that the Jedi won't end. That's some powerful stuff that matches or exceeds anything Star Wars has ever done. Not to mention that Luke was projecting himself in those final moments, which opens the door for new, fascinating possibilities with the force. Turns out he was still on the island, which was such a cool reveal. But then we get that final shot of Luke looking off into the sunset and passing away, disappearing into the force much like Obi-Wan and Yoda, after having come to peace with everything.

REY & KYLO REN

That arc alone is enough for me to love this movie. Sometimes it's less about adding up positives and negatives, giving out a final grade that's a summation of all those positives and negatives. Just like most movies, including every Star Wars movie, I can find flaws. Things I didn't like. Things that could've been better. This is a situation where the positives of the movie were so powerful and emotional that I'm able to overlook some potential shortcomings because the rest of the movie weighed so heavily on me. Yet in this instance, Luke's arc isn't the only arc I loved. In my review of "The Force Awakens," I spent most of my time talking about Rey and Kylo Ren because I loved their characters so much. In this sequel, we dive even deeper into their characters, setting up what is perhaps one of the best hero vs. villain story arcs ever told in cinema. These two characters parallel and contrast each other so beautifully in this movie that it's poetic. Rey is our ultimate hero, yet she goes through a test that's much more intense than a crazy guy yelling at her to become evil. Kylo Ren is our villain, yet his unveiled backstory and motivations are so emotionally charged that he becomes an even more fascinating character who is definitely worth following and caring about.

What I find especially fascinating is how the arcs of these two characters mirror each other. Both characters feel lost to a certain extent. Both are trying to find their place in all of this. Yet as it turns out, their respective upbringings are vastly opposite of each other, but they are naturally brought together due to their raw power when it comes to their connection with the force. There's a point in the movie where they are essentially brought to equal playing fields and have to make a decision as to what direction they're going to take and they end up making opposite decisions that will pit them against each other in the near future. As we learned in "The Force Awakens," Kylo Ren is a Skywalker. A descendant of Anakin Skywalker via his daughter Leia. We can call that royal heritage. As far as Rey goes, we learn in this movie that she is a nobody. Her parents were junk traders who sold her for drinking money. Or something like that. Technically this isn't confirmed. All we know is what Kylo Ren tells her. I still think it's possible that she's a descendant Obi-Wan Kenobi, but it seems like we're strongly leaning towards her being a nobody. A nobody who wants to be a somebody while Kylo Ren is a somebody that wants to be a nobody.

If this aspect holds true, I feel it's rather poetic and teaches quite a powerful lesson. At first I was certain that Rey was a Skywalker who belonged to Luke and that she would be facing off against her cousin. Because, you know, that's what Star Wars is. It's a Skywalker story. But does it have to be? This is a story about good vs. evil. Jedi vs. Sith. Light vs. Dark. Why do we have to make it such a small galaxy where all of our characters are related to each other? Thus I'm fine with Rey not belonging to anyone important. But why is she so powerful in the force? That's a good question. Maybe she's the Hermione Granger of this galaxy far far away in that Hermione was a Muggle-born. Her parents were normal people with no magical powers. Yet Hermione was born a very powerful witch who became very important in the magical world of Hogwarts and Harry Potter. This might again make us question what the force can do in this Star Wars universe. But would this be any different than, say, Anakin Skywalker, who was very force sensitive despite not having any force sensitive parents? Or even any father at all? I'm not going to use the m-word that "The Phantom Menace" comes up with, but you get what I mean. I'm fine with Rey being a nobody who is very force sensitive.

What this really teaches us is that it doesn't matter where you come from necessarily. It only matters where you are going. You can have the worst parents on earth with the most depressing background, yet still do great things in life. On the flip side, you can also have the best parents on earth with everything setting you up to succeed, yet still fall from grace and become miserable. That's a beautiful message that this movie teaches. Thus I would say that those who claim that Rey's parentage now means nothing due to her not being a Skywalker or a Solo, and most likely not a Kenobi either, are missing the mark on this incredible lesson that the movie is teaching or are too attached to Star Wars having to be a Skywalker story. Moving forward, despite opposite backgrounds and a brief run-in with each other in "The Force Awakens," Rey and Kylo are brought together in a rather fascinating fashion that again challenges our thinking of what the force can do. Despite not being on the same planet, Snoke forces these two together in some sort of force Skype thing where they have a lot of moments alone to talk to each other. They develop a fantastic chemistry. Not in a romantic sense, but in the sense that they both have a high amount of respect for each other.

I really liked these moments. These were moments of strong character development on both sides. I thought it was fascinating how Rey learned the backstory of what happened from Kylo's perspective as well as from Luke's perspective, forcing Rey in a rather dramatic scene to force Luke to tell her the truth that he's been holding from her that reveals what actually happened. And I genuinely love the progression of Rey's feelings towards Kylo. She went from looking at him as a monster who needs to be destroyed to seeing him as a conflicted human being who could help overthrow the balance of this big conflict. She began to see him, not as Kylo Ren, but as Ben Solo. Thus when she has determined that Luke will no longer help her and won't make an effort to bring back Ben Solo, she steals the Jedi books and leaves to confront Kylo and Snoke. While Luke's departure from Yoda in "Empire" was in fact a foolish decision that gave the Empire the win for that movie, Rey's departure from Luke was a very heroic moment that made me absolutely love her as a character as she proved to be the embodiment of pure good. She would be tested again in the next scene, but she would again pass that test, answering the question of what her destiny would be. She's the next Jedi.

All of this leads to the sequence that just might be the best sequence in all of Star Wars. I'm not officially going to give it that label, but if I were ranking the best Star Wars moments of all time, this would have to at least be in the top five. That's the scene where Kylo and Rey are in the room with Snoke. My first time seeing this, I was on the edge of my seat the whole time because I had absolutely no idea what was going to happen. Was Rey going to die? Was she going to turn and follow Kylo? What was Snoke going to do to her and Kylo? It made me very nervous. When we got the moment where Rey was force trapped by Snoke, who then commanded Kylo to kill her, there were a lot of things playing out in my mind. What I was absolutely NOT expecting was for Kylo to instead turn on Luke's lightsaber that Rey brought with her to cut Snoke in half. My jaw dropped to the floor and I gave the movie a standing ovation along with the rest of my screening. Then we were treated to one of the best lightsaber fights as Rey and Kylo teamed up together to defeat the rest of the guards in some phenomenally choreographed fight sequences, ending in a lightsaber toss from Rey to Kylo where Kylo grabbed it and turned it on in the last dude's face. Epic!

The final word on these two in this movie comes from what happens next. Rey thinks that she has succeeded and that Kylo has turned good. Quite frankly, that's what I thought, too. But then the two of them had the conversation about their intentions and this was a genuinely heartbreaking moment. Kylo hadn't turned good. He just wanted Snoke out of his way. But he also wanted Rey to join him. Yes, we've had many moments in this saga where the villain begs the hero to join their side, but this was the most powerful pull out of all of them. Kylo and Rey had a connection and they both felt lost. This was where Kylo reveals to Rey what he says she has known all along. She's a nobody. Her parents sold her and don't care about her. And Luke won't train her. He begs her to let go of the past and let it all die. Snoke, Skywalker, the Jedi, the Sith, the resistance. All of it. I honestly didn't know what Rey was going to decide because I saw that Kylo cared about her. And she cares about him because she wants Ben Solo back. Yet this moment is a turning point for both characters. She chooses the good and he chooses to officially let Ben Solo die, becoming completely overcome by Kylo Ren. I was devastated because I felt both of them were also devastated.

FINAL THOUGHTS

There's a lot more to talk about when it comes to this movie and I'm not going to talk about all of it. I've gone in great detail about the two elements of the story that mean the most to me and I've separated this into sections so that it seems easier to read with this being one of the longest reviews I've ever written. Luke's story arc as well as the story arc between Rey and Kylo Ren are what matter most to me. That's the reason why I love this movie so much. But let's quickly go over some final thoughts regarding the rest. Rian Johnson focuses heavily on one element of Star Wars that some Star Wars movies have made a bit of an afterthought. Star Wars. As in a war in the stars. This is a very large galaxy, but this specific story is surprisingly small scale. The First Order has discovered the Resistance. In "The Force Awakens," the Resistance manage to dodge a bullet with Star Killer Base about to blow up their planet, but now they have to escape. They are a small group of people now who need to spark a fire in the rebellion, but first they need to survive and the attacks on them are rather brutal and heavy. I call all of this the icing on the cake. These battles weren't the reason I loved the movie, but they were a lot of fun with some great action sequences.

I've read a lot of comments about how certain parts of these battles upset people because of not following the laws of physics. If this honestly upset you, I find that extremely annoying because none of the Star Wars movies ever follow physics. If you hate the movie because of that, I hope you equally hate every other Star Wars movie because they're all absurd in this regard. But I don't care if the space stuff is accurate. It's a lot of fun. Poe Damron is front and center in this movie because they learned from "The Force Awakens" that everyone loves him, so they took advantage of that. Oscar Isaac as Poe absolutely killed it in the role. There was a lot of drama between him, General Leia and newcomer Laura Dern as Vice Admiral Holdo as they all tried to figure out how to escape this attack. Lot of failed plans. A lot of dead people, the most devastating of the bunch being Admiral Ackbar being killed as an afterthought. They could've given him a better send-off. There was also a lot of Finn and Rose running around in what seemed like an unnecessary side plot. I didn't hate them and Canto Bight served good purposes (like broom kid), but I didn't need as much of it. Rey and Poe meeting at the end, though? That was gold! I ship those two so hard!

Let's see... what am I missing? Leia flying through the air? Weird. But cool seeing her use the force. I've wanted that ever since learning as a kid that she's a Skywalker. Snoke? Yeah, I would've liked to learn more about where he came from, but he served his purpose. Better to kill him now than to make him a Palpatine part 2. Remember how we didn't want this to be a retread of the original trilogy? Porgs? LOVE THEM!!!!!! BB8? He made me laugh throughout. Did he become like R2 in the prequels? Sure. But I kinda liked that version of R2. Phasma? I wanted more of her. Maybe edit out a bit more Canto Bight and include more Phasma. Benicio Del Toro? He was fine. He served his purpose. Maz Kanata? I would've liked a bit more of her. Maybe Rey will go talk to her in Episode IX. Predictions for Episode IX? No idea. But I would like force ghosts to show up. I think Luke will be back and I also think it would be fun to bring in Obi-Wan. I'd like to see more Yoda, but we don't need him and I'd be fine with Hayden coming back as Anakin, as strange as that may seem. And let's see the Knights of Ren, please? Where does this fit among the Star Wars films for me? I'm not committing to that right now, but it'll be close to the top. As such, of course I'm giving Star Wars: The Last Jedi a 10/10.