The First Subversive Force

Rating: 8/10 (26 January 2018)

Star Wars. one of the biggest franchise on earth. some of you spent most of your life being a part of this fictious galaxy created by one man who's at some point of his life decided to think "hey, the industry is filled with serious and artsy movies. i think this industry needs something enjoyable and easy to make that the industry can make a lot of money from for years in the future" that man is George Lucas--though soon after this idea came out of his brain he decided to ruin it by creating the prequels but, I digress--this fictious galaxy that's being expanded by lots of brilliant and wondering mind all over the world. some of you might hate it so much, because I guess you're just so smart and intelligent that unless it's scientific experiments or naturalistic evolution that unfolds right in front of your very eyes then you won't find it interesting.
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away.. and just like that a galaxy with seemless possibilities and scenarios, created. and also just like that, lack of logical reasoning and the recurring of events with no sense, becomes forgiven.
I just make it seems like Star Wars is an absolute disaster, but no. I mean, of course in the grander scheme of cinema, those things that I just said were an incredible sins. but, at the end of the day. even cinemas are a form of entertainment, and their sole purpose is to entertain. if it's entertaining, why bother complaining? yeah, despite all of the things I previously mentioned, I'm still a fan of this gigantic universe. yep feel free to hate me.
I watched this movie quite later that most people, because believe it or not, it's hard to find money. hence, this review was quite late too.
so what do I think about this movie? plenty of things that I want to say, but let me first address one thing. have you seen the reception that this movie get? a bit of a madness wasn't it? well yeah, I was surprised too. for a well-loved franchise with millions of fans out there, it was quite a mixed reaction. one thing that I find really interesting about the reaction is, the difference between how the critics and the fans were reacting to this movie. it seems like most of the critics were taking this movie better than the fans, this could be seen by how high the movie was rated on rotten tomatoes--90% rated twas as high as Snoop Dogg--compared to its fans rating--49% twas as low as punching your girlfriend in public--so how's this happened? there's plenty of reasoning as to why this happened. but one thing i'm pretty sure of is, the fans expectations doesn't correlate with the final result.
We all know how insane the Star Wars fans are, as much as I love the community that i'm a part of, it's not hard for me to admit that they can sometimes be hella obnoxious. even before the movie was released, there's countless of fan-theories out there, that many of the fans believed to be what 'The Last Jedi' is going to be. but then Rian Johnson decided to say Hell Nawwwww... to all of them and we get millions of disappointed longing souls. but of course it's embarassing to admit that the reason why they hated 'The Last Jedi' was because their fantasies were not being realized. so they decided to nit-pick all of the flaws that are spreading all over the galaxy. such as. "Oh my god, The Last Jedi is so unrealistic! what Leia can fly with the force? there's no explanation for that! it doesnt make sense arghjjsdkghasdngcsng i'm bored and i hate my life" first of all, to say a Star Wars movie was bad because it doesn't make sense, that is like the most idiotic statement ever made by a Star Wars fan.
Since when does Star Wars ever make sense? it never have and it never did, and it shouldn't have. the idea of Star Wars was a story with no limits, it was originally made for kids, until Disney found the business aspects of the franchise, and they turn it into a gigantic gift for the nerdy culture.
It's a story about a never ending battle in space, where there's a religion that worships an invisible energy than can be used to make things float all over the space and you can also read someone's mind with it. and maybe fly too. "Rian Johnson is creating a fantasy lore not a scifi movie agrghsjkjgsdghjsdk my girlfriend is pregnant." Star Wars has never been a sci-fi story, it was a fantasy movie. the idea of the Force is nothing scientific. George Lucas once tried to do that in the prequels and it's doesn't seems to be a good idea wasn't it?
Star Wars is a fantasy. and it's great because of that. if you have a problem with that, then it's you fault to watch Star Wars in the first place.
Time to review the movie. Star Wars: The Last Jedi starts with a strong and intense space battle scene as usual, the only difference is that it's doing a good job setting up the tone of the movie. of how in great desperation every one was, people can die in any moment, and the conflicted Kylo Ren was being set up really well from the beginning.
The performances were great from all of the cast. Daisy Ridley is back as Rey, and she's really commited to the role, her performance here is very commendable because she's doing a lot of the stunts in the movie herself, if you've seen the videos in which she was training all the choreographies then you'll see why she deserves a lot of praises. the same thing can be said to Adam Driver who's doing a fantastic job of portraying a character that in my opinion was the best character in Star Wars at the moment. Mark Hamill is giving his best performance ever as Luke Skywalker. and Carrie Fisher too. i'm not going to write how I feel about her as that will make this post longer than it already is.
The first part of this movie was basically everything that you can expect from a Star Wars movie. not until we're in 15 minutes of the first-act until the last minutes of the third-act, that things started to be unexpected. and that unpredictability is what I think so special about this movie. I've seen all of the Star Wars movies countless times, so I can basically predict everything that's going to happen in a Star Wars movie because almost every single one of them follows some sort of a formula or a recipe. but The Last Jedi however, is different. for the first time in my life, I don't know what the hell is going to happened in this movie. even some of the things that happened were out of my prediction. that is something else to me, because for the first time after a while, someone actually tried to do something different in a Star Wars movie, someone is actually ballsy enough to do something like that at the expense of the fans major disapproval of the movie.
Because the thing is, the old Star Wars formula can only go so far, there will be time where you'll eventually get tired of it. as risky as Rian Johnson's decision, it's a really good step forward for the sake of the franchise.
This movie's existence was basically an anti-thesis to the old formula, and it's very apparent. throughout the movie, you can find a lot of questions regarding some of the old storyline for us the audience to answered. I don't know how else am I supposed to tell you how shocked I am with some of the things that happened in this movie.
now that's all the positives that I can tell you. how about the issues? as for issues, I think the pacing of this movie is a bit excruciating at times, because there's plenty of needless parts of this movie that can be cut out from the movie and it surely won't change the bigger picture of the movie. I really don't care about the subliminal veganism propaganda that's being spread all over the movie, it's really unnecessary. the Canto Bight stuffs were useless too, and DJ could just die, and I don't care. such a useless character. too many plot devices. and sometimes, I think this movie focus too much on other thing instead of focusing on Luke and Rey's story arc.
And, that's pretty much my opinion on 'The Last Jedi' there's plenty of things that irk me. but for the most part, I find this movie very epic and enjoyable, and I respect every decision made in this movie. because it's about time for this franchise to be taken very seriously, or else, this franchise will become a laughing stock. because at this point, everyone will basically eats whatever Star Wars is feeding the, so why not try and do something different with it. despite its mixed reception, this movie still garnered more than 1 billion USD worldwide. you can buy your fate with that amount of money.
Just like how in the movie, Luke Skywalker said that The Jedi has to end, it's time for the old and cliched Star Wars formula to die and end. the movie is called The Last Jedi, but it's also The First Subversive Force of the franchise.