Why Does Rian Johnson Despise Star Wars?

Rating: 1/10 (25 January 2018)

I grew up with Star Wars. My dad sat me down on our family couch when I was 5 and showed me the original trilogy. It's been something I have shared with him for over 2 decades. His love for the universe spans back to when the originals came out and he watched them in the theaters. I have watched every Star Wars film that came out with him in theaters beyond the original trilogy. I remember being overjoyed when my father picked up Star Wars books for me, and toys. If you share memories like this, then this film...this film..is an abomination.
More than a month after suffering through this abomination of a film, and travesty of a Star Wars film, I still cannot believe how coldly, and fantastically, Disney and Rian Johnson butchered my favorite universe. This movie is soul crushingly abysmal in its writing, in its treatment of beloved characters, and in its overall plot.
It is impossible to stuff all the failures of this film into the limited space for a review, so here are some of the highlights:
If we look at the Last Jedi from the perspective of film, it has two things going for it - The special effects are generally quite stunning (except for on occasions like the cooked Porg Chewbacca ate looking like rubber), and the visuals are also quite nice (such as land speeders kicking up plumes of red "salt").
Everything else is astoundingly amateurish.The film opens with a scene that's relatively dramatic - a battle for the struggling Alliance against a far superior First Order force. Then....a beyond cringe-inducing scene where A MILITARY COMMANDER IS DUPED by...Po essentially pretending not to hear him over the communication system - and the Commander persists in playing along with the charade despite stating at the opening of the communications "there will be no mercy, we will kill you."'
Guess what? The Rebels escape because they mustered enough ships to go on a suicide run to kill the dreadnought (a new imperial ship that's supposedly overwhelmingly powerful). OH, and the commander of the Dreadnought - yeah, he sat there and watched it happen. He literally noted, in the dialogue, that he was sitting there watching the Alliance muster enough ships to take out the ship.This is the type of mind-numbingly idiotic, cringeworthy attempts at humor you can expect to pepper the carcass of this brutally beaten horse.
The plot revolves around the Alliance attempting to escape a pursuing, superior force of First Order ships - but they cannot escape by warping due to being low on fuel...and so the slowest chase scene in all of movie history begins. By the way, the First Order fleet isn't low on fuel but refuses to do a short jump to head off the Alliance for...no reason whatsoever.
We're treated with a pointless jaunt to a capitalist empire so we can watch Finn and Rose (the new cardboard character added to the cast - more on that later) bumble around a casino and bemoan capitalism. By the way, they also conveniently completely forget about why they went to the casino planet in the first place (hint: it had to do with saving the entire rebel fleet). They fail.
We get a cameo by an all-knowing Benicio Del Toro on such planet, who somehow ascertained the plans of the rebel flight in spite of not being told such plans, at any point, or having such plans hinted about. He uses this knowledge to betray Finn and Rose. When They are about to be executed - SURPRISE, conveniently the ship is attacked and they escape. Phasma faces off against Finn in a horrifyingly predictable battle that's over before it began (seriously, you will be able to predict every swing, of the 5 there are), and she dies the classic "fall into oblivion" death. That's all I have to say about that.
The force is a mystical, powerful tether that ties all life together. It requires training to use, and master. Right? We all know that's how the force works. NOPE. Anyone can use the force with little to no training at all. That's right - no training. Leia can fly through space like superman, Rey can pick up a lightsaber and defeat Royal Guards with relative ease, with no combat training, and lift huge mountains of rock - you name it - she can do it.
Were you intrigued by Snoke? Guess what - Rian Johnson doesn't give a f---.
Luke inexplicably decides that, because he see that there is some possibility Kylo may turn to the Dark Side while training him that he'll hover over him with a lightsaber and think about killing him. That's right, Luke wanted to kill his own nephew for...reasons very vaguely explained and nonsensical.
Ever fantasize about watching Luke milk a giant space cow and drink its milk in a boorish manner? Rian Johnson has you covered.
Remember the wave of anticipation when Rey found Luke's lightsaber in Force Awakens - the one Luke was given by Obi Wan? Watch Luke irreverently toss it off a cliff for no reason.
Ever wanted to see love blossom between two people who spent about 3 days or fewer together, who did not know one another at all before then, did not spend any time getting to know one another aside from going on one mission together? Rian Johnson has you covered.
Do you want empowered female characters, some of whom are tossed into the story for no reason, and have no personality beyond brutish "me stronger than man" attitudes - Rian Johnson has you covered.
Did you know the spirits of Jedi can MANIPULATE THE REAL WORLD? Well, apparently they can. They won't do anything to stop the First Order for reasons unknown, by the way. Also, Yoda, the one who always spoke of knowledge - decides to burn all the holy texts of the Jedi..for some reason.
To top it all off, and to continue what seems like Disney's crusade against the original trilogy, Luke Skywalker...the beloved hero, after being debased and turned into a joke....dies one of the most anticlimactic, idiotic deaths I think I have ever seen in a film. He is killed because he used the force to place himself in front of Kylo Ren, crosses sabers with him twice, then stands there and waits for Kylo to chop him down. He is then absorbed by the force like Obi Wan.
Astonishingly, the only one to survive aside from Chewbacca, is Leia. The one character whose actress, sadly, passed away. I have no idea why Rian Johnson did that. Then again, nothing he did with the script for this film makes sense.
Rian Johnson, it's amazing. Every part of what you just wrote was wrong.
To quote the film, "it's time to let old things die." That means you, and that means me - because apparently we are relics, to be spat upon and discarded despite our decades of fandom. It is time to make way for the younger generation, a generation that doesn't share the same love we have, or memories we have, of Star Wars.
It saddens me to say that after seeing this film...the Star Wars universe is dead to me. I may see the Han Solo film, in the hopes it is not a catastrophe..but my spirit and all hopes I had are crushed.