Revived, evolved, modernized

Rating: 10/10 (15 December 2017)

Yesterday with our IMAX tickets booked two months ago, we walked into a pleasant surprise. The last jedi is bold and new, pinning a thorough transaction into the generation Z, on the characters, the cast, and the audience.
I felt sorry for fossil minds that can't appreciate the young. Yoda perfectly captions on the way of nature, that each generation had its time. Come on, Lucas is old, he can't keep up with the episode I-III. It's time for a new generation.
Only then, I can see the legacy prosper over a hundred years, the message went strong and ever deep. I think it's one of the best star wards movies ever made, and an important one.
SPOLIERS ALERT
In one sentence, the movie is the formal transition form Luke/Leia/Darth generation of characters into Rey/Kylo generation. It's also part of a transition from Lucas-generation of artists into new. The evolution heads towards more free-style expression, more fun, without much deviation from the velocity from the 1977 first installment.
I'll list a few of my favorite scenes:
1. Haha, I like the cute birds. The interaction between them and Chewy is great. The other creatures including the crystal cats are nonetheless beautiful.
2. The moment Kylo and Rey touched hand is glorious. I think it's the first time in Star Wars history I saw some formal taoic integration between the force and the dark side. You can say it's the interaction between the good in Kylo and Rey, but I see it otherwise. Throughout the movie the force and the dark side begs for unity. The two emphasizes less on ideology but pay more attention to down-to-earth humane conflicts. For me, that's harder to pull out and is closer to the truth.
3. The moment Rey lifted rocks with Luke's narration. That's the formal transition I was talking about, it speaks to the characters but also to the team and the audience. I love the moment, a summarization of the movie and a pivot point in the saga. We know that from the point onward the story won't be about Luke or Leia anymore, it'll be about Kylo and Rey.
4. 3 is further tinted and augmented with the beautiful ending scene of nameless children looking forward to the future and liberation.
5. Luke's fading. The whole sequence, from the surprise of telepresence to the ending in the signature double suns, was beautifully choreographed. A detailed sense of liberation and transcendence is conveyed. Master Luke, submerged in unspeakable force, went to meet Master Yoda. After the scene, I feel light-hearted and blessed.
6. The scene when the cruiser crushing light speed into the flagship was spectacular. I think that's the grandest scene I saw in Sci-fi.
I do find a few things in the movie not satisfying:
1. The scene where Kylo killed Snoke is quite rushed. Snoke appeared unreasonably brittle and Kylo's struggle and thought process was mostly not manifested. That scene, if done well, can be fantastic, but it was not.
2. Vice Admiral Holdo's transition was also rather uneventful. I wish that scene was done better, it has the potential to be really powerful.
3. In general, Kylo is pretty 2d. One moment he has some depth was when he conflicted about whether to shoot Leia's bridge and ended up not to. The latter scene of ordering all guns to shoot Luke was rather shallow.
I think a lot of the criticism are essentially about Kylo and Rey's lack of depth. I do agree with such opinion but we have to taken into account that people are being deprived of depth and privacy in the 21st century. The world is becoming flatter and so are we. This new episode just in some way reflect that.
This is an evolution of culture and it might take some get-used-to. Same way if Shakespeare ever watched the 1977 first episode he probably would also find it crude. Such evolution is at most disruption instead of destruction, and it comes with its own revelation.
In summary, I'm happy with the Last Jedi and felt encourage for the future episode. I can already picture in my head when 40 years later the by-then old Kylo and Rey would hand the torch to the next generation, I might also felt grumpy and offended. But hey that's the way of life. And only by telescoping through time we can have the force be strong with us.