Bold new steps

Rating: 10/10 (18 December 2017)

I felt compelled to create an account and write a review on here following the negative backlash this film has received. To put things into context, I've been a die hard Star Wars fan for as long as I can remember. I still have Dark Forces II and Republic Commando installed on my laptop, and yes, I still watch Star Wars Rebels. That being said, I still recognize and criticize the flaws I see. The prequels are nostalgic to me and I still love parts of them, but overall they're hugely flawed, from script to acting to an abundance of poor CGI. Rogue One was great, yet lacking in any real semblance of character development or depth and TFA was just a rehash of A New Hope. I was then surprised to see the reception this film has got from other lifelong fans of the series, who like me criticized the cliched path TFA took. It surprised me, because this film did the complete opposite. Johnson has given us a film that's gone against the now predictable formula of the films before it. Spoilers follow as I feel they're necessary to convey the way I felt about this film. I've seen the Last Jedi twice now and actually liked it even more the second time round. The shocking death of Snoke was a fantastic choice, it stopped us from having another Emperor Palpatine and portrayed the opportunistic and emotionally rooted Dark Side perfectly. Rey not having any famous parents is greater still, working brillianly in conjunction with one of the films many messages of trying to live up to a legacy. (I'm confused as to why everyone wanted the same story as the originals and the prequels again.) With regards to the plot, the film is about the characters themselves growing, and even though I agree that the Finn/ Rose plotline felt out of place on first viewing, I don't think that gives anyone any real justification to rate the film 1 or 2 stars out of 10. The characters in this film were done beautifully. Mark Hamill was amazing as Luke, a deeply flawed hero of sorts who regretted this one split second decision he thought about for a 'fleeting moment'. Ridley was much better than in TFA, playing this confused learner, 'trying to find her place in all this', drawing a lot of parallels with Luke in ESB. Driver was fantastic too, along with all of the other now familiar faces. The music was stunning, far better than TFA, my hat goes off yet again to John Williams. Hearing the Tie Fighter Attack music from a New Hope as Chewie slides the Falcon through the crystal caves of Crait gave me goosebumps. Everything was filmed beautifully, even the action scenes; a rare thing nowadays. The throne room scene has the best filmed action scene of any Star Wars film in my opinion; brutal fast paced and without the stupid spinning of the prequels. All in all the Last Jedi is my favourite film of the year. It had flaws in it's humour at points and I felt the Finn subplot could have been improved on, but everything from the acting, the directing, the script and the music to the beautiful send off for Luke was fantastic. I know you guys are all going to downvote this to oblivion, feel free to if it makes you feel better about yourself. Sorry for how long this was, thanks for reading.