The Disney-fication of everything you love

Rating: 3/10 (15 December 2017)

George Lucas was heavily - and rightly - criticsed for his remark about "making films for kids" when he was describing the prequels. I never expected the creators of this latest Star Wars film to emobody that wholy. Star Wars: The Last Jedi is more slap-stick TV comedy than a proper fantasy space adventure, and it's quite sad to see what it's become.
Too much is going on, too many stories with too little development and too much plasticness.The film is hardly predictable, and indeed it's final third act is brilliant, but it can't esecape how simplified and thoroughly manufactured it feels.
Poe walks around and says stuff. He describes exactly what is happening and why its significant, almost as if the audience is too dumb to infer it themselves. Luke's character progression jumps about and stutters all over the place and feels so clunky that it's hard to believe that he's actually Luke Skywalker. Rey's story could have been so much more brilliant if they'd just given it more time. Fin serves little purpose here other than to have a B-plot that feels like a filler episode of Friends and has almost no significant whatsoever to the rest of the plot. Leia flies through space in a moment that had me almost as aghast as when Vader said "Noo!" in Revenge of the Sith.
The sad bit about all of this is that underneath, there is somewhat of a good film. Snoke's death and the subsequent fight were stunning, and really added a proper twist to the film; it's a similair case with the final battle between Luke and Kylo, especially when its revealed that Luke is just a projection - it felt like a satisfying conclusion to Kylo and Luke's stories in the film. Indeed much of the Jedi storyline and the Kylo Ren narrative are good, but other bits left me unsatisfied. I kept wishing that they just spent a bit more time working on Kylo and Rey's relationship, on Luke's return to the force, on Rey's training etc. It felt almost sidelined to make way for completely unnescarry elements and way, way too many shot of the Resistance cruiser being shelled by the First Order ships.
And even there, I just wish they could have expanded on it more, made the space battles a bit more exciting. So much of this film could have been cut - the pointless gags for one, amongst other things - and replaced with more important and significant matters. I feel like that could have made a big difference. It's too underdevloped and dull to be exciting enough for me. There are too many annoyances for it to be enjoyable. I found myself complaining more than I did watching the film.
My friend said something to me after seeing it that really summed it up, frankly: "It felt like a Marvel film". And what's special about any of the Marvel films? They're repeatable, insignificant popcorn entertainment, Great way to spend the afternoon and perhaps something to fun to watch at Christmas, but for goodness sake, this is a Star Wars film.
Disney has thoroughly transformed Star Wars into a franchise, and just like its other side project with Marvel, it's gradually turning a special, unique and beloved idea into a production line that can be used once a year to make a film and sell 300,000 tons worth of toys. What a catastrophic shame.
There's good here, but its so clogged up in dull, Disney-fied guff that the result is something more reminiscient of a Star Wars themed SNL special than an actual entry into the main story. Ugh.