The Star Wars Universe has been permanently damaged

Rating: 1/10 (24 June 2018)

When it comes to a Star Wars movie, there are always two aspects to review: how it works as a film, and how it fits into the larger universe. The Star Wars shared universe is truly remarkable in terms of scope and longevity. It is very soft sci-fi, but generally stays true to rules established in the original 1977 Star Wars.
Past Star Wars movies have been of varying quality as films from beloved all-time classics like Empire Strikes Back to much more controversial entries such as Attack of the Clones or the Phantom Menace. However, their world building has always been exceptional with the prequels giving us some of the best additions to the universe (Coruscant, the Republic, the Clone Wars)
The Last Jedi manages to completely and irrevocably damage the shared laws of this universe. It damages and humiliates all remaining characters from the original trilogy, but also treats the newly established ones from the Force Awakens with contempt. There is no contribution to world-building in this movie. Why is the First Order suddenly so powerful? What is happening to the Republic? Are our heroes fighting for the Republic, the Resistance or the Rebellion? All three terms are used interchangeably and it makes absolutely no sense.
I would argue that on the movie side of things, we are given exceptionally good cinematography. This is certainly the best-looking Star Wars movie ever. We are also given very good sound design and a good but not great musical score. Visual effects are very good too. This is where the good stuff ends, sadly.
The dialogue is arguably worse than in the prequels (yes, worse than "I don't like Sand") with cringe-worthy lines everywhere and misguided humour that only ridicules characters and is totally out of place everywhere. While the editing is done competently, many editing choices are questionable at best, leading to awkward moments and uneven pacing. There is no real climax, nor the build-up to one and the movie is too long by at least half an hour.
The plot is incredibly poorly written with more plot holes than any other Star Wars movie I can think of. It is also rather boring with the slowest space chase in cinema and ridiculous amounts of plot armour for some of the protagonists.
Plenty has been written about the humiliation of Luke Skywalker. Once a great hero who sacrificed everything to save his friends, who believed in the good in everybody, even Darth Vader. Gone he is, consumed by Rian Johnson.
Now we get a grumpy old hermit who doesn't care whether the dark side wins, and who insists the Jedi have to die. This might be appropriate if the last movie before this would have been a disaster for the light side Revenge of the Sith was, but it wasn't. Obi Wan seemed to have no such depression in spite of witnessing far greater calamities. Luke's character in this movie is plain bad writing and inconsistent with the original 6 movies. It also doesn't make a lot of sense in light of the events in Force Awakens.
In one of the most unforgivable choices, we are seeing Rose mourn for her sister, we see Chewbacca mourn for Han, but we never get to see Luke mourn for Han Solo. Yes, you read that right: Luke Skywalker doesn't mourn the death of his friend of 35 years who saved him about 20 odd times in the OT.
The new Casino planet is used solely to insert some animal rights and anti-capitalism agenda that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever within the universe. It is claimed that evil people get rich by selling weapons to the First Order. However, a later scene reveals they also sell weapons to the Resistance which completely contradicts the earlier message: if weapons dealers want to get rich by selling to both sides, they would want to prevent the weaker side from losing. This means that they would in this case be on the side of the Resistance, at least temporarily. The freeing animal scene is equally shallow; it carries the viewpoint of a child. Free the animals and they will live happily ever after. Except that they cannot survive outside of captivity and their caretakers will take all the blame and having to clean up the mess. This is horrible writing and a catastrophically misguided moral message.
A similar example of horrible writing occurs during the space chase that takes place in parallel. There is a conflict between two characters that exists solely because one of them doesn't share an obvious plan for ensuring survival with the other for no reason at all. I have read all sorts of misguided defences for this, but they all fall foul: when finally, the plan is revealed everybody agrees it is a good plan. This is called an "Idiot plot" and is a known fallacy in writing, except maybe in a comedy where everybody is allowed to be an Idiot. This is Star Wars. Stop it, Rian, just stop!
New force powers are invented whenever it suits some superficial notion of aesthetics that the director has in mind. This is bad for several reasons: it stretches the notion of what the force can do to the point that it seems just like magic. Combine this with the utterly humiliating and incompetent portrayal of villains in this movie and thick plot armour and every sense of looming danger is eradicated.
On top of that we have an all-powerful heroine with absolutely no flaws at all. Never does she need rescuing like Luke needed dozens of times in the OT, never is she tempted by the dark side, and never does she make any serious mistake whatsoever. It would not be far-fetched to imagine Rey snipping her Fingers, and suddenly all First Order war machines fall apart. Or she mind-tricks General Hux into the ordering to disband his army or whatever. Then she defeats Kylo Ren single-handedly and also saves Finn Poe etc. Their plot armour makes sure nobody is harmed.
Sounds horrible? I think it's better than the plot of this movie. More importantly, the Force mechanics established in this movie ensure that this is all quite possible. There seems to be no sense of "reality", of a shared universe with universal rules like in the OT any more. Anything the writers want is suddenly "magically" possible with no reason given at all.
Again, this completely destroys any sense of immersion or emotional investment and also damages past movies. Clearly, an incompetent bunch of cowards like the First Order would never get to any kind of position of power in a universe that follows and form of logic. Was Tarkin incompetent? Vader? The Emperor? Boba Fett? Imperial Generals? Clearly, they weren't. They set up traps for our heroes who escaped by the narrowest of margins and often depended on others for saving.

Respecting villains and giving them dignity ensured that the perceived threat to the heroes was real. In this movie, they are a bunch of cartoonish thugs who at best are mildly annoying. Captain Phasma is mishandled, yet again. Snoke is poorly treated. Kylo Ren does make for an interesting character by virtue of being torn and by Adam Drivers strong performance. This goes against Luke's reasoning that he cannot be redeemed however, so one of the best characters of the movie is undermined by its nonsensical plot. Kylo Ren is also weaker than Rey in any comparison, further diminishing him being a threat.
The complete flawlessness of Rey is a common critique, and many call her a "Mary Sue" for it. The actress, Daisy Ridley thinks this critique is sexist and would not be wielded against male characters. This may be true of the term, as it refers to a woman in a derogatory sense. It is however fatal to assume that we cannot criticise female characters for having - well - no character flaws I guess. This is absolutely JJ Abrams and Rian Johnston's fault by the way. Regardless of what you call it, Rey being good at everything without having to go through any kind of learning process, and without any kind of failure is a problem (both Luke and Anakin failed and had to be saved by others many times).
Rey's overpowered character also makes this movie extremely sexist, if you think about it for a moment. One of the worst outcomes of oppression of women is denying them access to education and personal development. Patriarchist societies deny them access to good schools and close them off from society by forcing them to stay at home, yet they admire them for innate and unearned qualities such as good looks.
Think about the morals of Rey being good at everything despite not having to work for it. Yes, she is a strong female character, but she carries a terrible message for women: that overcoming adversity and being allowed (!) to fail and getting away with it is for men only: and that women are only as good at traits that are largely innate to them. This is horrible. Research has established that women try less hard and give up earlier in the face of adversity when tested together with men (but not when among only women). This is widely accepted as evidence of them internalising that "men are better at overcoming adversity". This movie reinforces this toxic stereotype and hence does a disservice to female role models.
There is nothing I look forward to, frankly, after this Star Wars instalment from Disney. I will not watch Episode IX except when it comes out on Netflix (maybe, just to see how bad it is).