10 Reasons the Last Jedi is Awful
By: Matthew Donnellon
Tags: Film, Review, Humor, This Happened To Me, Star Wars

The Last Jedi came out a while ago. It was divisive to say the least. Some heralded it for taking the Star Wars Saga into bold new directions. Others decried it for killing their childhood. I was somewhere in the middle but there are several reasons the movie didn’t work.

10. Snoke’s Pajamas

Do you remember the cold, dark, and ominous throne room from the Return of the Jedi? The Emperor was still a character that we hadn’t spent a lot of time with, and he was so mysterious. Why does someone as formidable as Darth Vader take orders from a little old man? I remember thinking. But, the setting and those dark robes worked. It established the Emperor as a threat.

But, in The Last Jedi, we get a n old decrepit man in his pajamas. It looked so dumb. Instead of an intergalactic space despot, he looks like he’s running the space Playboy mansion. It looked so silly. Apparently, he ran a adult entertainment empire before the First Order.

9. Holdo

I get it. That last scene was great. She took out a First Order Fleet with one move. But, I didn’t like Holdo. I thought the purple hair was silly, which sounds funny considering it’s a movie with toad nuns, but she looked like she was in Hunger Games and not Star Wars.

Also, all she had to do was tell Poe what the plan was and they could have avoided half the plot of the movie.

Also, she says “godspeed” despite a singular deity never really being mentioned.

I will give this, the “Holdo Manuever” is a great name and it sounds awesome. The rest was still silly.

8. Flying Leia

i wish that was a joke. I thought it was going to be a bold decision to kill Leia right there. And, to do it so early in the film would have been a surprise.

The last image we’d see of Carrie Fisher would be her floating through space.

Nope.

I realize that the powers the Force gives have never been strictly defined, but the flying through space thing looked pretty silly. The force has always been a vaguely defined mystic power, but this crossed right into space wizard territory.

7. Old Luke

This one hurts. For years, since I first watched Star Wars, I wondered what Luke did after the last movie. There were books that talked about this, but I wanted to see the new Jedi master on screen, and how he would handle rebuilding the ancient order.

Aaaand, he didn’t. He tried. Then his pupil betrayed him. He was also about to kill a young Ben Solo. This is definitely what I thought my childhood hero would be doing.

He abandoned Han and Leia. My childhood triumverate broken.

Instead we get old grumpy Luke with a fraction of the Yoda’s charm. Even if he thought the Jedi needed to end, it would have been more interesting to see him embrace the Grey Jedi concepts and accept both the Light and the Dark side of the force. He could pass this lesson onto Rey and he’d truly be the last Jedi.

Oh, you can just have an hour of him acting surly and drinking green milk.

6. Phasma

This problem was particularly egregious because it never had to happen. People complained because Captain Phasma was underutilized in The Force Awakens. Rian Johnson decided to bring her back to basically to the same thing. She shows up for half a fight scene and presumably dies. I hope she’s gone for good this time.

Also, people say she was a great character in the books. I read enough books. I can’t let Star Wars dominate all of my reading habits and movie watching. I have set some kind of limit.

5. Benicio Del Toro

It’s weird to say that Benicio Del Toro is one of things wrong with a movie. Traffic is a great movie. I love The Hunted. Siriana is also good. But, boy did I not like him in this movie.

Imagine I say that Benicio Del Toro is playing a morally gray codebreaker in a science fiction epic. That’s sounds amazing. Now what if I say he has a stutter and his name is DJ. Changed your mind didn’t you? Star Wars is not without dumb names, but DJ sounds like one of the kids from Barney, not from Star Wars.

And the st-st-st-stuttering was annoying.

4. Wasting Finn

Hey do have one of the most charismatic young stars? Is he super popular? Is he fantastically talented? Did he do incredibly well in the last installment? Let’s put him in a pointless sided quest.

This is what they did with John Boyega. Boyega is a fantastic and super talented young actor and you separate him from everyone. Finn is a great character too. He’s the first time we’ve ever seen a defected Stormtrooper and they waste all kinds of story. Oh, they need to sneak onto an Imperial ship? Good thing we have a former soldier from the First Order. That sure is handy. It was such a colossal waste of talent and time. And, you split Finn from Rey. Daisy Ridley and John Boyega’s chemistry is superb. They essentially cut an entire movie out of their relationship to develop.

They honestly would have been better off leaving him in the medical unit. Finn is a coma is more interesting than his plot here.

Also, if Holdo had told anyone about the plan then the silly side quest never gets done in the first place.

3. That Dumb Kiss

This was minor but it looked so dumb it hurt. We’re getting to the climax of the film. This is it. All the big stuff is about to happen aaaaaaand Rose stops Finn from sacrificing himself, by sacrificing herself? And she pecks him on the lips. It looked like two dolls being pushed together by a six year old.

I mean Star Wars is not without its problems with kissing. Luke got to first base with his sister, but this was kind of dumb, and it didn’t add to the stakes.

2. Space Gambling

This is related to the Finn problem. This was a horrible section of the movie that I was already on the fence about.

I actually thought they started playing a different movie. Suddenly I was watching a Baz Luhrmann film. I half expected the space version of Jay Gatsby to come strolling down some grand staircase. Some cinematographer got his rocks off because he got to do intergalactic roaring 20’s.

The giant dog made from bad CGI was silly too.

It was only there so Rose could spout off some heavy handed nonsense about economic disparity in the galaxy.

I don’t come to Star Wars for treatises on war profiteering. I want space wizards and laser swords.

Rey’s Backstory

This is the part of the movie where Rian Johnson gleefully kicks you in the stomach. The biggest question coming out of The Force Awakens was the identity of Rey’s parents, and what happened in her past to make her such a powerful force user.

But, no. We got this instead.

Kylo Ren: I know who your parents are.

Rey: Oh so we’re going to rip off Empire Strikes Back too?

Kylo Ren: No we’re going to subvert expectations.

Rey: I don’t think that’s a good idea.

Kylo: It’ll be great. It can’t miss. Just like making the dope from Girls the main villain.

Rey: Hey, aren’t you that guy…?

Kylo Ren: Enough, do you know who your parents are?

Rey: Is it Luke? I feel like it’d be a little obvious.

Kylo Ren: No. It’s not Luke.

Rey: Obi-Wan Kenobi? I don’t know how that would work, but I heard his voice in The Force Awakens.

Kylo Ren: No, not him either.

Rey: Sooo?

Kylo Ren: Nobody. Your parents were just drunk junkers.

Rey: Wait, that’s it.

Kylo Ren: Don’t you see? It’s brilliant. You’re not some lost scion of an ancient family. The next leader is a from a desert world in the middle of nowhere.

Rey: Seems kind of familiar. So how did I get so powerful. I went toe to toe with you last movie.

Kylo Ren: (shrugs) Beats me.

Rey: If I’m not the progeny of an ancient force user. How did I get so strong? Was I secretly a member of the Knights of Ren and my memory was wiped?

Kylo Ren: Oh that would have been much more interesting.

Rey: So I was just born incredibly powerful and I’ve had to do literally no work to make it so?

Kylo Ren: Pretty much.

Rey: Oh god, I am a Mary Sue.

And there you have it. Ten reasons this movie was awful.