A sterile, but fun, provocation

Rating: 1/10 (14 December 2017)

Reducing Star Wars to an entertainment film only, after the work that George Lucas has done (of research and writing) is absolutely simplistic; work that had always been reffered to the studies of the anthropologist J. Campbell, for example. Let's be clear: I don't say that there's no attempt in The Last Jedi to relate to the great anthropological issues (which have always characterized the franchise) such as the overcoming of paternal hegemony, but, the few things that may have worked, have been sacrified in the name of childish jokes and grotesque situations. Giving the peculiar explanation of why Kylo Ren turned evil, by the way, was the only thing that may have really surprised in the movie, on which base, could have been settled a better plot. The main issue of The Last Jedi, in fact, is the total lack of a solid narrative structure and filmic logic, which, at least, had always characterized George Lucas storytelling, from the very early beginning.

Anyway, Star Wars means a lot of things for billions of people all over the world. Thus, killing what it represents in the deep and hoping that everything would be fine, sounds like an insult to mankind intelligence.
When someone has the honor and the privilege of putting hands on masterpieces that have revolutionized the American film industry, first of all, he must understand in which kind of franchise he is working on and so follow certain unwritten rules. For example, If I'm writing for the TV show "The Walking Dead", I can not let Zombies eat candies, instead of human brains.
This is the reason why Rian Johnson can not talk about "gray shades" in a world where there has always been a such clear gap between good and evil (despite history teaches:"only a Sith deals in absolute...") or He can not force Luke Skywalker to act such as a dull boy, when he's always been the opposite in terms of character's personality. If you twist the founding elements of a saga, you're not innovative, you're just a fool.
Just remember that, if you're staging a famous opera, you can, of course, change the set up and the lights, but not the basic contents; otherwise it would be like drawing, on top of Mona Lisa's head, hornes: a sterile, but fun, provocation ... just like The Last Jedi.