Can't Get It Out of My Head (and I really want to)

Rating: 1/10 (21 December 2017)

A friend of mine currently living in Italy has told me that she is not going to see this movie. Ever. I can stress enough how much I envy her. I think that's the right move to make if you, like her, want to keep your Star Wars memories unsullied. Nearly eight days after watching the film my mind keeps coming back to it, as the tongue does with a rotten tooth, trying to make some sense of the whole mess. The movie itself is not that bad - though it's sloppy and clumsy - but I hate it because of its pettiness. The first Star Wars movie was an act of love, George Lucas was able to breath new life in the very stuff "old" movies and "old" books were made of, and show how they could be valid for a new generation of cinemagoers. This hateful little movie ransacks Lucas' legacy (which is really the legacy of centuries) even as it ponderously proclaims the need to kill "the old". No wonder than that one of its central images is the burning of books. That an act that has historically signalled the rise of barbarism ( the Spanish Inquisition, Nazi Germany) is viewed in such a positive light tells you a lot about the degree of confussion that went into the making of this movie.