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| Fixed it for you, Disney! |
Since I really, really hated The Last Jedi, I went into this with really, really low expectations. I'd heard plenty of whining about too much fan service. I was expecting a lot of retconning--that process mostly in comic books where a writer retroactively changes something that's already happened or provides a new explanation for it. For instance, after Coast City was destroyed in the Death of Superman story, Hal Jordan goes nuts and becomes the evil Parallax. Later he sacrifices himself to save the universe in Final Night. When Geoff Johns brought Hal Jordan back as a Green Lantern, he made up some bullshit about an impurity in the ring or the main battery on Oa or something that caused Hal to go nuts. So it totally wasn't his fault! (Actually, I'm surprised they didn't do this with Kylo Ren/Ben Solo.)
And there's definitely some retconning at work. But in a way I can't blame JJ Abrams since Rian Johnson left the cupboard so bare. He killed Luke Skywalker--after making him a bitter old pussy. He killed the big bad in Supreme Leader Snoke. He destroyed most of the Resistance. And he shrugged off the mystery of Rey's parents as "they were no one." It was funny when someone on Twitter whined that they should have used the momentum of The Last Jedi for the next movie...what momentum? It was as dead in space as capital ships that somehow run out of gas. So what was the next movie supposed to build off of, those kids hearing stories of Luke Skywalker at the end? I mean, sure, if the next movie were going to happen in 15 years instead of 2 years, which Johnson knew since they hired him to write Part 2 of the trilogy. Anyway...
And since Colin Trevorrow left the project, probably after seeing what he was inheriting, Abrams and writer Chris Terrio had to throw something together quick in order to meet the schedule. Because not meeting the schedule wasn't an option after the failure of Solo, due in large part to firing the original directors who should never have been hired in the first place. Already down a director, a delay would have had people in a panic. So, what can you do?
Why not bring back the Emperor? He's a reliable villain, someone we already know from the first 6 movies. That's important since a certain dipshit killed off the replacement Emperor and the last movie of the trilogy isn't a great time to try to introduce a whole new villain.
The movie doesn't waste time getting to this, as the opening scroll says a message has been received from the Emperor saying the Sith are going to return and take revenge. Then we see Kylo Ren using a Sith artifact to find the Emperor's hidden base, meeting Palpatine, and then swearing allegiance to him. The whole thing made me think later of the Bond movies. Specifically at the end of the only George Lazenby movie On Her Majesty's Secret Service, Bond marries a woman who's then gunned down. It ends with him holding her dead body. But then for the next movie, Diamonds Are Forever, they brought back Sean Connery. It begins with him punching a bunch of people until he finds and kills Blofeld, thus seemingly bringing that whole thing to an end. I mean, later Moneypenny even jokes about marrying him, a guy whose wife was just brutally murdered weeks or months ago. In the same abrupt way we pretty much end the tenure of Supreme Leader Kylo Ren.
And you might ask, how is the Emperor alive? Um...science? We see him plugged into machines but how he managed to survive falling down that shaft in the throne room and EXPLODING is never explained. As far as retconning, there's not even a good half-assed explanation like the Hal Jordan thing. I guess you can say we didn't see the Emperor explode, but there was a big explosion after he fell that I guess he somehow tough guy walked away from? Fall back on that old excuse from my grumpy Marvel movie reviews: shut up, that's why.
Meanwhile Chewie, Poe, and Finn go...somewhere to get a secret message. It's sort of like the end of Rogue One only no Darth Vader, just TIE fighters. Then it becomes like the asteroid chase in Empire except Poe keeps pulling the light speed lever to send them hurtling around space, which was something just impossible in the last movie when we decided we had to obey the laws of physics like Neil deGrasse Tyson had been brought on as a consultant. It's pretty silly, but the one thing I like is that more than Rian Johnson, Abrams seems to GET what Star Wars is: it's a space opera that's a mish-mash of old serials like Flash Gordon, Westerns, and samurai movies. It's not supposed to be real and gritty. So yeah, fuck it, just hop to light speed inside a hangar, through a shield, or wherever the fuck you want. This isn't fucking 2001: A Space Odyssey!
Also Meanwhile, Rey is training with Leia's help, something we probably should have done 2 movies ago and countless books and comics ago. I mean a lot of the books, even the good ones like the original Zahn ones, never do much with Leia's Force ability but she's a Skywalker too. The one element that Abrams kept from the previous movie is Rey and Kylo being able to communicate over vast distances. He goes a step farther by allowing Kylo to actually rip off a necklace Rey is wearing at Space Burning Man to bring it to him on his ship. How is that possible? Um...the Force works in mysterious ways. Shut up, that's why!
Not exactly a retcon but Rey, Finn, Poe, Chewie, BB8, and C3PO head to Space Burning Man because at some point Luke went looking for the Sith homeworld where the Emperor is lurking. I assume this was before the whole thing with the Jedi Temple that turned him into a whiny bitch who was content to let his sister and friends die until a ghost created a bolt of lightning to convince him otherwise. Still, maybe something like that was more what Abrams had in mind in Luke going off to find the first Jedi Temple, not drinking weird alien slug milk and eating Porgs.
Anyway, the whole reason they go there is to find one of the Sith artifacts Kylo Ren used to find the Emperor. Because the Sith don't use GPS or Siri. The First Order spots them, but they're saved momentarily by Lando in his space Winnebago. Not a flying Winnebago like Spaceballs, but some kind of RV-type vehicle that he was hanging out in because...no idea. Conveniently some old Jedi hunter's ship is still there and still flies, though it has to have been almost 30 years or something. Our heroes fall through quick gravel or something into the lair of a big snake, whom Rey heals with the Force so it doesn't eat them like it ate the Jedi hunter. Force healing is not something that was really in the other movies but probably in some of the lame books or comics. Still, as far as sudden unexplained Force powers go, it's more reasonable than being able to beam yourself across the galaxy as a specter. They find some dagger that can tell them where to find the thing they need but while 3PO can read it, his programming forbids him from telling anyone.
After a fairly ridiculous Force battle between Rey and Kylo that involves them playing Force tug-of-war with a ship and Rey shooting Force lightning to blow it up, Rey and company head to some planet to find a guy to extract the information from 3PO. At this point maybe I should point out that the Emperor's fleet was supposed to launch in 16 hours from the start of the movie. So all of this to this point has been in less than 16 hours. Um...maybe there's some time dilation effect or something going on? Or they have a different definition of hours, like Han's definition of parsecs doesn't jive with the real definition of parsecs.
In part to sell some new toys and in part to help establish that Poe is not gay, so shut up "shippers," they run into an old flame of his who has her own bounty hunter costume thing going on. She leads them to some tiny alien who gets the information they need, but it wipes 3PO's memory. Meanwhile, Kylo and his Gwar cover band show up with Chewie on his ship. So our heroes board the ship to rescue Chewie and the dagger, making 3PO's sacrifice pretty meaningless. They get captured but are saved by General Hux, who's turned double agent in an attempt to make Kylo look bad. And maybe since Hux's action figure sold only slightly less worse than Rose's from the last movie, he's killed by General Pride, who it turns out was a former Empire officer still loyal to the Emperor.
Kylo confronts Rey and taunts Rey to remember her parents--let the retconning begin! She finally unlocks the repressed memories that they sold her on Jakku because slavery on a miserable desert planet was better than being taken to the Emperor. Instead of "I am your father," it's "You are Palpatine's granddaughter." So...Palpatine had a kid? Someone had sex with that guy? This was before the whole thing in Revenge of the Sith, right? Or someone had a really messed-up fetish. Nasty. And instead of falling off that platform (and losing a hand), Rey just jumps from a hangar deck onto the Falcon.
Now with the dagger thing and info from 3PO, they realize they have to go to a moon near Endor, but not the forest moon from Return of the Jedi. This moon doesn't have a lot of trees and the ocean is constantly like The Perfect Storm, maybe thanks to having a Death Star fall on it? Like the Emperor, despite that it clearly EXPLODED, the Death Star is pretty intact. At least the throne room, where Rey finds the thing they need. It's funny that she holds the dagger up to the crashed Death Star to find the location pretty much like how Indiana Jones used that staff of Ra or whatever in Raiders of the Lost Ark, so kind of a bonus Lucas reference there. But somehow Kylo followed them there and then there's an OK lightsaber duel on the remains of the Death Star.
During this, Leia reaches out to her son with the Force, momentarily distracting him, which allows Rey to stab him. And then Leia dies, mostly because they ran out of footage they could use of her. It makes about as much sense as Padme dying because she lost the will to live...or whatever. So like mother like daughter, I guess.
Meanwhile, Finn meets a woman who used to be a Stormtrooper like him. And she's black! And female, so suck on that, haters who whined that there couldn't be black Stormtroopers. He and his new friend (I honestly don't remember her name and am too lazy to look it up) go after Rey but arrive too late to help.
Though Rey uses Force healing to save Kylo, she gets in his ship and flees back to the first Jedi Temple place. I guess she decided to follow Luke's example of running away like a whiny bitch. She burns Kylo's ship and then throws Luke's lightsaber away...only for ghost Luke to catch it and say, "That is NOT how you treat a Jedi weapon." To which I said to myself, "Yeah, Rian Johnson." That seemed like a straight-up rebuke of the first scene with Luke in that prior movie where he just tossed the lightsaber away. I'm sure in the media Abrams and Johnson are trying to sell the story that everything is just hunky-dory, but, yeah, I don't think Abrams was very happy that he'd set up that big emotional moment at the end of his movie and then Rian Johnson just took a big dump on it. Anyway, ghost Luke tells Rey not to let fear make her run from her problems. And then that Leia made a lightsaber that he hid in a wall. Leia gave up the lightsaber because she sensed her journey would end with her son dying...makes sense, right? Not really, but I guess it was a clumsy attempt at irony or something.
Since Rey destroyed Kylo's ship, how is she going to get off the planet? Turn herself into a ghost? No, because that'd just be the dumbest fucking thing ever. How about that X-wing Luke left underwater for like 20 years? Sure. And it still flies! Well, why not? It was designed to fly through space and atmospheres and stuff, so why can't it sit underwater? And this is JJ Abrams, who had the Enterprise go underwater, though not for 20 years.
Fortunately, Kylo's ship had the Sith gizmo in it so she can find the place, relaying her coordinates to the Resistance to send their ragtag fleet, more of a flotilla really, to attack the place. But, wait, on the Space Burning Man planet, Rey destroyed Kylo's TIE that presumably was the one he'd put the Sith gizmo in. So he has a second TIE that he put it into? Sure, why not? Lando and Chewie take the Falcon to go try to get help from the Core Systems like Coruscant.
Meanwhile, Kylo is haunted by the ghost of his father. Though Han appears solid, not like a Force ghost. And he convinces his mass-murderer son to fight for what Leia stood for. Just like that, Ben Solo is back! I don't know, maybe Rey's Force healing has some kind of mental healing properties? Sure, why not?
And, again, this is all supposed to be happening in less than 16 hours. I mean, really? 16 days I could believe, but not 16 hours.
Rey goes into the Sith temple to confront her grandpappy. He wants her to kill him so his spirit can inhabit her and she can become Empress. The idea that a Sith has the spirits of all the other dead Siths in him seems like something new--and kinda weird. Is it some kind of Highlander thing then? There can only be one! Meanwhile, Ben Solo shows up there...somehow. I mean he didn't go with Poe, Finn, and the others and Rey took his ship, so how did he get off that moon? He just call the First Order for a ship? I guess. Or maybe Space Uber. They show a TIE fighter later so I guess he got one of those...somehow. Maybe it was Space Enterprise Rent-a-TIE-Fighter: We'll pick you up!
Meanwhile Poe and Finn lead an attack on "The Last Order," or the Emperor's fleet of old school Star Destroyers that each have Death Star cannons--now in convenient capital ship-size! There's this massively contrived thing where the ships are underground and need some navigation beacon to get to space. So the plan is to take out the navigation thing. Now, look, I know the ships need to be constructed somewhere secret, but building massive starships in planetary gravity is so stupid. It's one of the reasons I hated Abrams's Star Trek. I mean sure it's a neat visual for Kirk to ride his motorcycle up to the Enterprise as it's being built, but seriously, something as massive as a starship would be really difficult to build in planetary gravity. I mean, imagine how many tons those hull plates would be; each one would probably weigh as much if not more than an aircraft carrier in gravity. It'd be easier in space where you don't have the weight. So instead of a planet, couldn't they have been in a nebula or something?
(On a side note, the idea of Imperials hiding out in the Outer Rim rebuilding strength reminded me of the original Zahn books. It would have been a great time to work in a live action Grand Admiral Thrawn. But no, denied. Sigh.)
Anyway, Poe leads the fighter attack while Finn and his new girlfriend lead mounted troopers onto General Pride's Star Destroyer that's trying to serve as the beacon for the others. Oh, and Rose is there too. Her and Finn's interaction is mostly him telling her to stay places.
The attack isn't going really well--until Lando and Chewie show up with a ragtag armada of freighters and whatever. Wedge has about a five-second cameo as a gunner on the Falcon. Not even in an X-wing? The only pilot other than Luke to survive all 3 movies and he's on a freighter? Kinda lame. But I guess the actor didn't really want to be in the new movies; he must have caved as long as he didn't have to be in it very long or do very much.
Rey refuses to kill the Emperor, and is fighting his guards. Meanwhile Ben is fighting his former Knights of Ren buddies. Rey sends him a lightsaber he can use to finish them off. Then they confront the Emperor, but he somehow extracts power from them to heal himself, though not really to make himself look all that much better. He's still all wrinkled and gross. There's this whole thing about Rey and Ben being a "dyad" in the Force. What does that mean? I guess the best way to think of it is kind of like Voltron or Power Rangers or Transformers combiners where you have 5 smaller things come together to create 1 super robot. In this case Rey and Ben don't merge physically but their bond in the Force makes them stronger. Or some goddamned thing like that.
Anyway, somehow the Emperor shoots lightning that fries all the rebel ships fighting. Um...what? I guess that Force healing was like steroids too. And he throws Ben into a big hole as retribution for when Vader threw him down a hole--the one he EXPLODED in, remember? Except I don't think Ben ever explodes.
But you know the good guys have to prevail. Rey is able to call upon the power of all the Jedi in the past. The neat thing is they used the voices of like all the Jedi in previous movies: Luke, Yoda, Obi-Wan, Anakin, Qui-Gon Jinn, and I think even some from video games and shit. With their motivational coaching, she's able to grab the lightsabers and then crosses them Wonder Woman style to deflect the Emperor's lightning back at him. So the Emperor dies, but not because Rey kills him. He kills himself. Thus she doesn't go to the dark side. LOOPHOLE! She seemingly dies, but Ben shows up to heal her with the Force and after a kiss, he disappears. Which, really, was about the only end you could expect for him. He had to die heroically to redeem himself for the thousands, if not millions, of people he brutally murdered--including his father.
And so all over the galaxy people rise up to somehow blow up Star Destroyers. Sure, why not? Back at the Resistance base there's a party that includes a creepy scene with Lando and Finn's new girlfriend who may be Lando's daughter. He asks where she's from and she says she doesn't know and he says, "Well let's find out." How's he going to do that? I suppose you could say that it's racist to think her and Lando are related, like I think all the black people are related, but why else are they even bringing it up right then? And wouldn't it make more sense for Finn and her to go off and look for the families they were taken from?
BTW, I forgot to mention it's very heavily implied that Finn and this new girl are Force sensitive. On Twitter someone even claims Abrams said that when they're falling through the quick gravel that the thing Finn was going to tell Rey is that he's Force sensitive. Which is something that might have been explored earlier if not for Rian Johnson. You know, if they'd had an actual plan for all three movies instead of just rushing into it and hoping for the best?
In the end Rey goes to Tatooine to Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru's moisture farm, which 42 years later is still unoccupied. I guess when your property had two people vaporized on it, it's not really valuable--if it ever was. I was really hoping there would be a container of blue milk lying around, but sadly, no. She goes there to bury Luke and Leia's lightsabers for...reasons. I sort of get burying Luke's there since he grew up there, but Leia only went to Tatooine to save Han from Jabba so it wasn't her home or anything. But then Alderaan is in a billion pieces, so I guess she couldn't bury it there. Rey sees their Force ghosts, but where's Ben's ghost? He doesn't get a ghost yet? Come on, Anakin got his right away--twice!
Some old lady shows up and asks for Rey's name and she decides to call herself Rey Skywalker. Um...why? She's not a Skywalker. She's a Palpatine. Her name should be Rey Palpatine. I mean sure that's like all those poor people who have Hitler for a last name, but just own it. The Skywalker thing isn't really earned, but I guess we'd already made up the posters and merchandise so we had to find a way to justify it since from Day 1 it was clear there were no Skywalkers really in the picture with Luke dead, Leia dead IRL, Ben being a murdering psychopath, and Rey being "no one." But it just feels really half-assed. It's too bad her and Ben didn't have sex or we could have shown her pregnant at the end so there would actually be a Skywalker--or at least someone with Skywalker blood. As it is the Skywalker bloodline that began with Anakin thanks to his immaculate conception is now dead since his two children and one grandchild are all dead. Hooray?
On the plus side, she turned her staff into a lightsaber with a yellow blade. Have to think it's probably a double bladed saber like Darth Maul's. That it's yellow and not blue, green, red, or purple is probably supposed to be significant somehow. And then the closing shot of the two suns to pay homage to that iconic shot from the first movie, which was also done in Episode III. Hooray?
Going back through it, there are plenty of things that don't necessarily make sense. I suppose Abrams lucked out in that both of his movies followed movies that weren't very good, so that while his aren't great, at least they weren't THAT bad. It's like that Seinfeld where hack comic Kenny Bannon gets a lot of laughs just because he comes on after Seinfeld has already warmed everyone up. Abrams is the Kenny Bannon in this case, though Rian Johnson is definitely not a Jerry Seinfeld.
Anyway, I had a few other observations I made on Facebook after seeing the movie. I'm tired and lazy and don't feel like retyping them.
I'm not a supporter of Rose by any stretch--I wouldn't buy
her action figure for $2--but pretty much writing her out of the movie seems
like caving in to the toxic "fans" who hated her solely for her skin
color and gender.
In the trailers the Emperor at one point says, "This
will be the last word in the story of Skywalker," but the actual line is,
"This will be the last word in the story of REBELLION." It's annoying
when movie trailers do that stuff.
Apparently if there are no cookie scenes in a movie no one
will actually stay to the end. Except me, because this is the last Star Wars
movie that will have an actual John Williams score, so I felt like enjoying it
to the end. Thanks to the length of the credits I think all the greatest hits
are in there from the original trilogy.
Anyway, this makes you wonder what the trilogy would have
looked like had Abrams agreed to do all three movies at the start. In the
future they need someone if not directing all three movies at least in charge
creatively. Ostensibly Kathleen Kennedy was supposed to be in charge but she
was apparently too busy counting the piles and piles of money to actually give
a shit what was being thrown up on the screen. I mean when your third movie is
largely ignoring and/or retconning your second movie, it's kind of a shoddy
trilogy. I'm just saying.
As to my last point, I nailed that in an entry last year. Look, I don't know Kathleen Kennedy, but from this first mess it seems like she doesn't really know anything about the creative end. They need to have someone actually in charge of the whole mythology. You know, someone like George Lucas. Really, Disney fumbling the ball on this really gives me new appreciation for Lucas. Most of us thought after the prequels Star Wars would be better off without him, but it's really not. Maybe it's time those of us who hated the prequels cut him some slack. My brother suggested they put Dave Filoni, who worked on The Clone Wars series and other projects, in charge and that seems like a really good choice to provide some actual creative direction to the property and not just cash grabs like the Disney movies so far. They can keep Kennedy for the business end if they want but it's clear that she has no fucking vision other than to make money, which is really what I feared as soon as Disney bought the property. Whenever they make more movies (of course they will) I hope they have their shit together by then.
1 comment:
I think that was a thumbs down? That sounds basically like a thumbs down, Siskel.
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