Fresh but underdone

Rating: 1/10 (14 December 2017)

Sigh, it hurts.
It hurts because some parts of me liked this movie. Really liked it. I even go as far as to say that this was the best Star Wars movie after 1983. I guess I need to back that up a little. The Force Awakens was a lot more coherent movie and a nice introduction of the new guard. And it was better than this movie. But TFA wasn't really a movie because it was just a reimagining of great movie named Star Wars: A New Hope and thus a sure hit. Rogue One was good but in the same time it didn't have much anything to offer since all the characters were killed off and it was always known what the ending would be. So, it was a very nice filler scene and not a stand-alone movie. Episodes 1 through 3 were awful for reasons I shouldn't need explain here.
So, the best SW movie since Return of the Jedi? Well, yes. And no. The Last Jedi was extremely stylish, entertaining and it felt somewhat fresh instead of spoon-feeding the well tried recipe like in the last instalment. But unfortunately that was only the very outer shell. Digging a little deeper, The Last Jedi's plot was just a thematical re-hash of both The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. Luke was Yoda being a silly old hermit and giving insufficient lessons to a young pupil. Rey was Luke trying to find the legendary master. The whatever planet the rebels landed on was Hoth, Kylo Ren was Vader and so on and so forth. BUT, it was still a thoroughly enjoyable movie.
But then come the bad pieces. My grievance is two-fold: the characters and the future of the movie series. I'll go through the horrible handling of characters first. Apologies beforehand, the list will be boring.
General Hux was as good a general as stormtroopers are marksmen. Almost as credible too. The SW universe has a long history of incompetent baddie commanders but this was just too much. On to the next one, Captain Brienne of Phasma. Captain Plasma was a useless let-down in the last movie and there were promises she would be much more menacing in this one. Cpt. Pasha was also blaster-proof, thanks to her mirror-like armor. Are you suggesting that blasters can be deflected with an armor like that, what the f..? Captain Phantasma added absolutely nothing but a slight meh to the movie and she died off as stupidly as a garden variety stormtrooper would. Next, Luke. This pains me so even though Mark Hamill gave a stellar performance. Luke's behaviour and logic of denying the whole jedi order was a big slap in the face. It would've been a lot easier to stomach if Luke gave proper explanation for it. Not just saying I failed and nobody should have the power, boo-hoo. Luke maintains the position that there are no more jedi and there shouldn't be and then goes on saying just a moment later that there is a new one in Rey. Huh? And Luke died because (?) Kylo skewered his projection with a lightsaber, double huh? Wait, why, what? Neeeext. Snoke, the extremely powerful boss with a mysterious past. Great job darthmauling him, Rian Johnson. So much potential and then being a single-serving End Boss totally wasted. And that past got never explained. Neext! Holdo, she's a neverheard and now leads the resistance, and now she's dead, next! Master Codebreaker from the planet of rich people, 2 seconds screentime and then being substituted with Benicio Del Toro (very good performance by him, though). And Leia as the last item on this list of horrors. Vacuum-cleaning-force-pulling her back to the movie felt so bad and keeping her through the movie was a really odd choice. Carrie Fisher was a great actress and I valued her screen time but this will be problematic later on.
So, where to from here? Leia needs to disappear awkwardly because unfortunately Carrie Fisher isn't there to portray her. This could've been done with a dignified heroine's goodbye in this movie. Now it's a problem and she needs to be deleted in the next movie. Snoke, the big evil got cut (mmm-hmm) from the movie and there isn't natural continuation for the next movie. Luke vanished in a puff of logic so there shouldn't be a new jedi order either. Rey is still (!!) an under-developed character without any past or depth. I like her but she feels like cardboard. Kylo Ren is the best developed character by far and also the most complex one. In TFA he was prepared to be the ruthless, ultimate evil but now he's gone soft too. Kylo Ren isn't a good choice for the big evil for the new rebels to fight against.
It's really difficult to understand where this saga could go next. And I'm not sure if I want to see it go there, either. Being a realist, the expectations for any new SW movie are almost impossible to fulfill. But why, oh, why you needed to do this to almost all of the characters?