The Legacy of Luke Skywalker: Now naught more than a Disney cash-grab.

Rating: 6/10 (26 December 2017)

While I am a Star Wars fan, I am not a fanatic. I would, however, classify myself as a purist, as I refuse to watch the "remastered" original trilogy, as in my opinion, not a single change made the films better and many changes made them worse. I only own Episodes III-VI and Rogue One, as Episode I is a drag that adds nothing of import to the Anakin story arc, and Episode II adds important points but is still hard for me to watch. Episode VII had equally terrible acting, script, and plot contrivances, not to mention being a glaring knock-off of Episode IV, and I have no qualms about standing nearly alone in saying the Force Awakens was a relatively terrible movie.
If you feel the same, this review is for you.
The Last Jedi (TLJ), as the title suggests, is a story about Luke Skywalker. You may not realize that while watching the movie, as there are so many other mostly meaningless plot points and story arcs demanding your attention, but this is clearly a movie about who Luke Skywalker has become juxtaposed to the legend of Luke Skywalker that commands the minds of both Rebels and their enemies (not to mention Star Wars fans).
Unfortunately, we are at least a half hour into the movie before Luke is even mentioned, with multiple superfluous characters and plot points being introduced in the meantime. And over the entire length of the film, there is so little Luke time, it is easy to understand that so many do not even realize that that is what this movie is really about.
And here we have the first major flaw in the movie: When you have to explain to people who just watched the movie what the movie was about, you know something is wrong.
From the get go, it is evident that Star Wars has not escaped the influence of Guardians of the Galaxy. But what made a talking raccoon and walking tree adorable does not work in other movies, not even in the Marvel universe. The first TLJ scene starts with Poe's immature, slapstick humor, and then tries to switch to a "desperate hour" tone as Rebels sacrifice their lives for their comrades. Which is immediately followed by more pointless attempts at slapstick humor as Fin makes his first appearance. That trend continues for the duration of the movie, with scenes that should have felt dark or desperate being interrupted by forced attempts as humor. Possibly the only times the laughing came easily was with the nun-like caretakers, who constantly chide and berate a novice and unwieldy Rey as she tries to use the force whilst destroying Luke's island sanctuary. Overall, TLJ's humor came off about as well as the one-liners teenagers come up with in their homecoming skits: funny only to the writers, traumatizing to the dutiful audience.
The Last Jedi continues with another hour of two simultaneous plots, that are both completely pointless, as the disorganized Rebel forces flee. Not to mention the introduction of at least two more major and pointless characters. The acting continues to be bad all around, but part of that may be to blame on the writing, as it is obvious the audience is intentionally left in the dark, but also left without any curiosity, only frustration. By the two hour mark, it becomes pretty clear that, save Rey and Kylo's moments on screen, the movie up to that point was pointless.
Stories usually ramp up to a climax, something neither the writers nor director of TLJ seem to have mastered. Time after time after time, I found myself getting a little on edge as the final conflict seemed to be drawing near, only to have that faint glimmer of hopeful anticipation doused as the plot line took an abrupt turn and the story continued. After a few of these moments, my excitement simply could not be provoked; I became numb as over and over again, the movie seemed to drag on. At least in the last half hour, the story did seem to have a purpose, even if it was not an inspiring or even very interesting one.
If it were not for Rey's fight scene, and Luke's cameo appearance, it is quite likely fans everywhere would have rioted and burned down their respective theaters. Rey's final fight, and Luke's final appearance were the two bright spots in the movie, the two times I actually, genuinely enjoyed sitting there.
Overall, TLJ had an interesting story to tell. It was simply a poorly told story, as if by a grandmother who wanted to emphasize her part in events past, even though they had no bearing on the actual story, nor its unfolding, nor its outcome. The story is about Luke and the effect his Legend has had, and how far he has strayed from that path. The story is about the gray areas, the things that are not extreme enough to labeled either right or wrong, just told so poorly I feel like I may come off as justifying the movie instead of explaining it. It is about the evolution of the minds of people, their good and evil, their pride and fear, their courage and complacency. The movie could be said to be showing that moment when you realize that something you hold dear and true is wrong, the crush of betrayal, the loneliness that follows. But The Last Jedi doesn't convey those feelings. You have to read deep between the lines to see those contrivances. And so the movie ends as it begins, ultimately a failure, as evidenced by the fact that the story told has to be explained.
I left the theater torn, not hurt. There were a couple of genuinely spectacular parts, buts so much of the movie was so bad I could not leave with a smile. I wanted to smile, but I couldn't. As the days past and I had time to reflect on the story I was shown, and what that story could have been, my opinions solidified: this is another Star Wars movie that I will not own.
*** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** ***
Now, for the nitpicky stuff, as some of you are, like me, very nitpicky.
The space physics are distractingly bad. Someone on the production team must have known something about physics, must have said something, but someone, perhaps the director in his creative genius, chose to ignore said advise and make a movie that not only exhibits false physics in multiple, unreconcilable ways, but who's entire first-hour-plot revolves around bad physics. It drove me nuts. I will accept the laws of a given scifi universe as long as that universe obeys them; TLJ does not.
Military strategy is nonexistent. It is not a matter of inexperience or immaturity, as when Kylo commands his troops; these are the leaders of the First Order, professional military men. Yet points established in Poe's assault in the first five minutes are completely gone against five minutes later when the bad guys have the upper hand. It doesn't take a brilliant tactician to see the flaws, and asking even the averagely intelligent viewer to buy into the subsequent plots is disrespectful.
The endless "just" moments. Just big enough, just far enough, just hard enough, just fast enough. I can usually take a lot, but when the Millennium Falcon flies through a hole JUST big enough for it to literally scrape through for the fourth time in its five movies, I was left shaking my head. I cannot even call it a spoiler that the hole actually turns out to be a tunnel. And with as many times as it felt like this movie was about to end and didn't, we are blessed with more "just" moments than usual, definitely more than bearable.
And of course the pointless plots. The film could be cut back to only scenes containing Luke and Rey and all it would be missing is Snoke's taunting of Kylo, and we would still have to watch Luke trying to traumatize and scare away Rey, and the awkward hand touching of Luke and Leia at the end.
A note about me, for all those who think I rated this too high or too low:
I watched the trailer, maybe twice. I was not impressed, and went into the theater with low expectations, not so much because the trailer made me think this film would be bad, but because the previous entry in the series was bad and also, because I have learned that I like movies more when I go into them with low expectations. I think a lot of the backlash to this film only exists because there was so much hope, and so much of that hope was crushed. I watched this film opening weekend, and rated it before reading anyone else's reviews. I decide on a rating before I visit a film's IMDB page to guarantee I am not swayed by the film's current rating. And I have not changed my rating; 6/10 stars seems fair. I judge relatively harshly, but as long as there are not aspects of a movie that literally sicken me, the lowest I will give it is a 4/10. I consider a 7/10 a movie worth owning, and rarely give out 9's or 10's.