The flawed theory of a flawed movie

Rating: 4/10 (17 December 2017)

A myth is spreading that attempts to explain the vast disparity between the fans' opinion of The Last Jedi (TLJ) and the critics': TLJ is bold, risky, and cerebral, and it has alienated fans who desire familiarity and comfort from Star Wars. This myth is absolutely ludicrous. Look, I am an elitist. I like slow independent films. I like foreign films. I wish TLJ were a daring and intelligent film. Alas, it is not. It is just a potpourri of hackneyed Star Wars' scenes and themes done better in earlier films. Worse, at the end of the film, absolutely nothing changes. At the beginning, Rey is good, Kylo is bad, the rebellion have a "spark of hope," and the First Order dominates the galaxy. At the end, Rey is good, Kylo is bad, the rebellion have a spark of hope, and the First Order dominates the galaxy. It takes a painful two and a half hours to get to this changeless end, however.
I want to note, before lacerating this film with criticism, that there are a few good things about it. The production values, as one might imagine, are excellent. The sound is excellent. The acting is rather good; even Mark Hamill turns in a very good performance (although this film's Luke Skywalker bears little resemblance to the Skywalker of 4,5, and 6). And the Kylo Ren storyline is moderately compelling. (Tragically, this storyline is tossed, like a rose, into a heap of garbage and ruined.) Kylo is a great character because he is conflicted. Rey just radiates "goodness," so one is never worried that she might turn. Kylo, on the other hand, is neither pure evil, nor good. He is, instead, a young man with a serious existential crisis. Who is he? Is he a Skywalker? A Solo? The next Vader? Or is he the creative source of his own existence, a person who has "killed the past"?
Now the bad.
EDITING. This film is perhaps the most poorly edited high quality film I have ever watched. Two problems. One, the film is entirely too long. It feels all of its two and a half hours. A lot happens on screen. But nothing REALLY happens. And there is an absolutely irrelevant side plot about a trip to a casino that is worthless and would have been cut by a competent editor. Two, the cross cutting is paced poorly. As I noted, the Kylo/Rey plot thread is the most interesting in the film. However, it is woven with two dull threads. And the film constantly cuts from one to the other at an apparently arbitrary rate. At times, we get one minute of Kylo and then cut to Finn. It's jarring. And it never allows for emotional momentum.
PLOT HOLES. The script to TLJ is remarkably bad. The ideas are stale and nothing ever seems at stake. Thousands of people die, but nobody actually appears to care (despite Leia remarking time and time again that she "has experienced too much loss.") One particularly bad plot hole: At one point Poe is skipped over for promotion in favor of Admiral Holdo (played by a miscast but usually excellent Laura Dern). Poe had been demoted by Leia for insubordination. (He literally turned off the radio and ignored a direct order from a general! Later, Leia and Holdo comment about how much they like him because he is a "trouble maker" who got people unnecessarily killed. Yeah, it doesn't make sense.) Poe asks Holdo what her plan is (because the Rebellion is being stalked by TFO and is running out of fuel). Admiral Holdo refuses to tell him. She just tells him to obey her orders. Later, he discovers part of her plan and yells that it will lead to ineluctable failure. She again ignores him. Of course, this leads him to another act of insubordination and a literal mutiny. Finally, the FULL plan is revealed and Poe thinks it will work. Hole. Why not just tell him in the first place? Leia says that Holdo didn't need to draw attention to her own heroism, which makes no sense and doesn't explain why she would not have just told Poe, "Hey, here is the basic plan. We are going to fuel these ships and then aim for this planet....."
LUKE SKYCRYER: As I noted before, Mark Hamill delivers the best performance of his career in this film. His Skywalker is damaged with a grizzled beard. However, this Skywalker is so different from the Skywalker of the first films that it is hard to believe that he is the same character. In here, he is old and bitter and sarcastic. Remember the Skywalker from 4,5, and 6? He was energetic, optimistic, and earnest to a fault.
LET'S GO DARK....JUST KIDDING. One of the obnoxious things about the "new, bold, cerebral" Star Wars myth is how radically untrue it is. In fact, Johnson immediately takes back anything in this film that might have been interesting in a kind of "nah just messing with you" way. For example, at one point, Kylo tells Rey that Luke was going to slay him in the Jedi temple. Now, this would have been interesting. Maybe Luke sensed the darkness in Kylo and decided it would be better to kill him than to leave him alive and take a risk. Moral ambiguity. Debate. Luke going a bit dark (even though I don't think this is consistent with his character). But, then Luke says this was "just a temporary impulse that immediately passed" (or something of the sort), robbing this plot line of all real danger and substance.
Absolutely nothing is solved in this film. Nobody goes dark. Nobody goes light. Nothing changes, except that Luke dies a pathetic death after using the force in an absolutely new and ludicrous way. (He generates a mental projection of himself across the galaxy that has conversations with his sister and tricks Kylo into a fight.)
CONCLUSION. At one time I abhorred the prequels. I was very excited about Abrams; and when I heard Johnson was directing the second, I was giddy. However, TFA was a fluffy and inconsequential retreat of New Hope; and this film is even worse that TFA. Both feel superfluous. At least the prequels were trying to tell a compelling and tragic story: The fall of the Republic and the downfall of Anakin. I give Lucas credit. He had a vision. Of course, he utterly failed. But these new films don't have even have a vision. I don't know how to measure their success. TFA is entertaining. It is a decent diversion from life. TLJ isn't even entertaining. It is just a crowded and inconsequential film that suffers from limited imagination, poor editing, and craven story telling. Johnson didn't change Disney. Disney changed Johnson. It snuffed out his creativity and fearlessness. It turned him into a studio hack. But, unlike Abrams, he is not even a talented hack. I hope Johnson will leave Star Wars and go back to making interesting films like Looper. And I hope that Star Wars will remain peacefully interred or produce a new idea.