Star Wars Last Jedi Review

I settled into my theater seat this Saturday, giddy with nostalgic anticipation for a bit of my youth. Remembering watching Star Wars: Return of the Jedi in the theater as a teenager, I looked forward to the epic tale to be splashed upon the screen.

In my mind the shadow of The Force Awakens loomed with the knowledge we would learn more about the characters introduced and finally have answers to the many mystery's posed:

• Who was Rey really and why did she have the Force?
• Who are Rey's Parents? Why did they leave her on Jokku?
• Who is Snoke? Has he been a part of SW lore all along? Maybe a advisor to Palpatine? Darth Palageius himself?
• Why did Luke make a elaborate map to his location, and what will he reveal when found? What has Luke been doing since the events of ROTJ?
• Is Finn part of the plan, what woke him up and caused him to defect? If he Force sensitive? 

Many many questions would be answered in The Last Jedi!

I enjoyed much of the Last Jedi as a fun Sci Fi sort of romp. Many hated the Casino Planet but I always like visiting strange new worlds, and I always love creative creature design. I liked the ship to ship battle scenes particularly the opening scene.

The Battle with Snoke, Kylo and Ray was great. The Battle with Rey, Kylo and the Praetorian Guard was epic as well.

Many of the set pieces were fun and exciting and taken by themselves are excellent. My problem with TLJ is the over all plot. What was it?

Plot A: The Rebels try to out run the Imperial fleet
Plot B: Rey tries to get Luke to Teach her the Force and join the Rebels.
Plot C: Finn and Rose side adventure to find a code breaker

In between we learn why Kylo Ren turned to the Dark Side. Leia dies then comes back to life, Luke projects himself to a different planet in order to stall the Imperials and give the rebels time to escape. Finn kills Phasma.

What I didn't like:

The overall plot made no logical sense. The Rebel Fleet tries to stay just out of cannon range of the Imperial fleet. Why cant another imperial ship hyper jump in front of the ship? Or unleash the whole squad of Tie Fighters?

Why did Luke hide a map to his location when he did not want to be found? The Island was a cool concept and had some neat fun moments, but nothing that helped with the plot. The darkness beneath the Island intrigued me immensely until we get to see it....its a mirror! Why not create real tension and terror? How about a creature(Spider) form of Snoke that would have clued Rey into the fact that she was being manipulated? A wasted concept right out of ESB that disappointed.

The Finn/Rose sub plot to find the Code-breaker turned out to be unnecessary to the plot and the cause. Its like someone came up with a the idea of the casino planet so the shoehorned it in. Again I enjoyed the visuals and creature design, but it made no sense to the plot.

Killing Snoke- why? He was a super devious, manipulative and a very interesting character. We wanted  to know more about his origins. It was a great moment admittedly, but then follow through with it. This film would of been so much better has Rey joined Kylo and created a Sith Lord/Apprentice scenario. This would have left a huge cliffhanger..will she/wont she set up for the third film.

Lastly....Luke's behavior and death...If we parallel Obiwan/Luke to Luke/Rey we see that Obiwan helped Luke on his journey despite the outcome with Anakin. He acted as a mentor. Luke became a big grump and downer. His lessons sucked, and it seemed that he apostatized from the Force religion. He didn't care and even sought to destroy the sacred texts. Luke would never do this. Furthermore he would have never tried to kill his nephew, Kylo even if he thought he could sense darkness in him. Out of Character. It was also out of character for him to "phone in" his confrontation with Kylo at the end.

A force hologram? He actually could of used the force to block the fire from the blasters, that would have made some sense. 

So where does the film leave the series? No one from the original series is left that is significant to the plot after this entry. I do not believe the new cast of characters are strong enough to carry the series.  Carrie Fisher is not returning obviously, Luke is dead, Han is dead, Chewbacca is regulated to a Porg wrangler and R2-CP3P0 are "offline". Who is left?

Kylo, Rey, BB8, Finn and ......who?

I think the writers of this film left JJ Abrams a real mess for the third entry.

My final rating is 3 tacos out of 5.