The Last Jedi: A Star Wars Parody

Rating: 2/10 (18 September 2018)

With 'The Last Jedi' Star Wars has ultimately become a parody - a mocking imitation - of itself. Although traces of this were already visible in 'The Force Awakens' this movie takes parody to another level which almost already borders on ridicule. There are two elements in the movie which turn the once epic space opera saga into a parody of itself - the "twistmania" and the almost Marvel-like attempt to cram as much humor in this movie as possible.
TWISTMANIA: A (single) twist can be a wonderful narrative device if it suddenly takes the plot in a completely new direction or sheds a new light on the entire plot when it occurs towards the ending of a movie (e.g. in Flightplan). In 'The Last Jedi' Rian Johnson's main idea seems to have been to create a movie that thwarts viewer expectations at every turn / twist. The problem with the various twists in the movie lies in the fact that they willfully destroy emotionally-intense and potentially epic scenes (Luke takes the lightsaber just to toss it carelessly over his shoulder, the new main-enemy Snoke is simply unceremoniously killed off, Finn's heroic self-sacrifice for the Resistance is prevented by Rose's intervention). Moreover, there are simply too many twists in the movie which makes it seem as if it was constructed around the twists instead of being a coherent narrative which contains twists.
MARVEL-ESQUE HUMOR: Similarly to the hugely popular Marvel superhero movies which employ a lot of humor in order to make their movies more enjoyable for a general audience, 'The Last Jedi' is crammed with humor which mostly remains flat (Luke's tickling of Rey's fingers when she physically reaches out instead of with her mind, Luke dusting off his cape on Crait, BB-8 shooting coins (!) at enemies) or is even cringeworthy (Poe's your-mother-joke at the beginning, General Hux's chronic incompetence, Luke and Leia's reunion which spins around a discussion about hairstyles).
In general, 'The Last Jedi' is not so much a compelling, interesting new chapter in the epic Star Wars saga but a parody which proclaims to be a Star Wars movie which uses known characters, settings, and narrative patterns but never takes them (or even itself) seriously. While this might be hugely enjoyable if this was a real Star Wars parody (like Spaceballs and the Family Guy Star Wars episodes), the movie unfortunately lacks the spirit of the original Star Wars movies and ultimately remains a mediocre science fiction adventure comedy which does not live up to the magnificent universe which George Lucas created in the 1970s.