Tuesday, June 5, 2018

I watched The Last Jedi again

Toxic Star Wars fans seem to be news worthy these days. The Last Jedi has got more hate than other movies before it. Solo is not performing in box office as well as you could expect from Star Wars movie. After hearing so much critique I decided to watch The Last Jedi again. I did change opinion a little but I don't see it same way as haters and really don't get some of the critique. I think haters belong to three different groups. I get to my current opinion later but first what I think has caused all the hate.

First group is people who don't like diversity of new Star Wars. Some seem to confuse all critique coming from this group. If you want to see big budget movies you have to get used to diversity. Studios want their money and they know white males are not only ones with money. It doesn't matter how some fans complain about diversity. Big budget movies will have diversity to attract bigger audiences. I don't see diversity as a problem. It could be done wrong but in that case movie probably does have many other flaws too.

Second group is Star Wars Expanded Universe fans. EU contains books, comics, games and other media released after first movies. Fans got their Star Wars fix from EU when there was only three movies (+ Holiday Special and Ewok movies) and continued to get their fix when more movies were released. Disney declared EU material non-cannon because they didn't want to be restrained by EU stories. Fans of EU didn't take it too well. The Last Jedi's Luke Skywalker is different Luke Skywalker than EU Luke Skywalker. This group's hate seem to culminate to Luke Skywalker but there are other changes from EU that they don't like. Bit like their holy text were discredited. I think Disney didn't know what they did when they made EU non-cannon.

Third group is fans who want their Star Wars movies to be fun action movies without any serious themes. I am not sure if you can say they hate The Last Jedi. Their voices get mixed with two other groups.

I don't have problems with diversity and don't have Star Wars EU baggage. I can see The Last Jedi as what it is. I still think it is fourth best Star Wars movie. I haven't seen Solo yet but I don't think Solo will be better. The Last Jedi has few problems. It follows Empire Strikes Back too closely. Everything Poe and Hux does at the beginning should have been rewritten. Characters improve later but beginning sets wrong tone. Rose's reasons saving Finn and causing First Order to destroy the door made sense only if she had read the script and knew Luke Skywalker would walk through the hole in the door to buy heroes time to escape.

Whole casino planet could have been dropped. They could have gone to First Order's ship without going to casino planet. They could have added all that social commentary without going to casino planet. Movie should have ended soon after Snoke's ship was destroyed. Ending at the planet felt more connected to rest of the story second time, but emotional high point is still when Snoke's ship was destroyed. I liked Mark Hamill's work more this time. I liked Rose first time more than this time. Maybe because I knew what she does at the end and was more critical of what she did during rest of the movie.

I like how The Last Jedi does things differently. Rey's parents weren't important. Luke had his doubts of Jedi order and wasn't this guy who could do nothing wrong. Rey's and Kylo Ren's connection was interesting. Killing Snoke like he was killed was probably best thing they could do with the character. He didn't feel like a guy who would become supreme leader. Maybe he was so powerful he didn't need to care how others like him. He acted like guy who get others hate him.

I enjoyed The Last Jedi. It took Star Wars to new places. I don't mean planes or anything like that. It made story more interesting. All the hate it got make me fear what is coming in future. Will the movies continue revolve around original trilogy and be copies of original movies. I hope they do something like Knights of the Old Republic games did and do something which has nothing to do with Skywalkers or original trilogy but still being Star Wars.

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