Recently Watched Films

Another one that for some reason I never re-watched until now. It holds up a bit better than Solo and the direct lead in to the original movie is pretty great. 

Hypnotic and fascinating. 

The original. Not sure what else I can say, that hasn't been said many times over by many people since it's release. Been a while since I last saw it, but it loses nothing. 

As a kid, I was always the biggest fan of Return of the Jedi, but I think I do have to acknowledge that Empire is the pinnacle of Star Wars now. 

I prefer the reimgained Netflix series, but this is really good too.

Decent independent zombie movie:

It does depend on how what will only be my second viewing of The Rise of Skywalker goes, but I'm quietly confident that this is actually the best movie of the sequel trilogy. It still has some obvious re-hash from the original trilogy, but I think it still manages to work as its own thing. It's only got better with re-watches, unlike The Force Awakens. 

In a trilogy that's been full of problems since the opening crawl of The Force Awakens established Luke as missing with its first line, The Last Jedi is the only one of the three that feels like it's at least a solid movie in its own right. 

It's easy to lay a lot of blame for all that's wrong in the sequel trilogy at the door of The Last Jedi and that of director Rian Johnson. I'm not saying that the movie isn't without serious problems or that he is completely blameless of course. It does and he isn't, but given what he had to work with, I think he did a good job. The best possible job even. 

No one bar the most devoted of Star Wars fanboys would call The Last Jedi perfect - it certainly manages to fall into the rehash trap a few times itself (the part where Ren takes Rey to Snoke is totally lifted from Return of the Jedi), but at least it actually feels like a sequel rather than a soft reboot. Yes, it has some stupid bits, like Poe's stalling Hux at the start feels very much like real world humour being forced into the Star Wars universe, but most of the humour is fine, as is the overall plot. 

There was no plan for the sequels when they set out with them. That's been confirmed. So Johnson was left to create his movie off the back of The Force Awakens, which I think is a solid, fun movie, but also the source of the problems the next two movies had to try and deal with. Now, a lot of people seem to think the sun shines out of The Force Awakens, but lets face facts: it's a rehash of the original Star Wars, later retconned as A New Hope. There are just too many similarities for it to be considered very original. 

And it kills Han Solo. And limits Luke Skywalker to a glorified cameo with no lines. No one who wanted an Episode VII, wanted this. 

Then Rian Johnson has to find some way to deal with that in The Last Jedi. And he hits on a Luke Skywalker who has become disillusioned with the Force. 

For many, including for a time Mark Hamill himself, how Luke is treated in The Last Jedi is one of the biggest issues of the entire trilogy. I understand why some would think that, but I also think they're wrong, and my earlier stated belief that the true conclusion of the saga should have been someone who found true balance between the dark and the light plays a part in that. The Last Jedi's use of Luke actually sets that up very well. Also his death out of all the original trio is the only one that feels somehow right. I guess Leia was unavoidable after Fisher's death, but I think given the shape of the trilogy that she would have died in episode IX anyway, but such as it is I don't consider Leia and Han's death's worthy of the characters. Luke's death would have felt more right if he'd actually been in The Force Awakens properly of course. I also feel that Luke felt a touch of the dark side himself in his flashback, and Rey certainly feels it. Yoda's appearance also works with my belief for a balanced force user, one of neither Jedi or Sith, when it is Yoda who destroys the sacred texts of the Jedi after Luke hesitates. For me, Yoda was basically confirming that a Jedi isn't what's needed going forward. That Rey needs to be something else. It actually sets up a very good premise for Episode IX. 

Instead of focussing so much on what it does wrong, try to look at what it does right. And most of all it tries to make something of the sequels beyond complete rehash. I think Luke's storyline is actually good and gave Episode IX a lot of potential that wasn't used. The Canto Bight sequence is fun and a glimpse into another side of the Star Wars universe that's been rarely shown. The movie shows that the good guys aren't infallible. Poe really fucks up by insisting on taking the dreadnaught down at the start of the movie. He gets a lot of people killed. I know that The Empire Strikes Back is often seen as one of the movies where the bad guys win, but what exactly do they win? They fail to stop the evacuation of Hoth. They then spend all the movie worrying about one ship. Vader does best Luke in their duel, and Han gets frozen in Carbonite. Arguably that's more of a victory for Boba Fett and Jabba the Hutt. The Resistance itself was never really shown as being able to fuck up until The Last Jedi. For me, that creates more realistic stakes in the story. It's Star Wars, so you know they're going to win in the end, but this is the one time where the saga offers cause to think that maybe they won't win just because they're the good guys. 

Also, Leia is pretty much a badass in the movie, for as much as she's in it. It is a shame that she spends a good chunk of it injured, but how she gets out of a certain death situation is pretty cool, as is her return when she literally shoots Poe with a stun blaster. Again, for me this shows the good guys in a different light. They fuck up. And they fight among themselves. It's no utopian existence. It's gritty. It feels more real. And it's a pretty good send off for Fisher. Better than the pieced together stuff in The Rise of Skywalker. 

The movie also gave the franchise some good new characters, including the often unfairly hated Vice Admiral Holdo. Her kamikaze move is an awesome moment in the film. 

Above all else, I think Rey is actually a very good character as the new lead protagonist, but one whose story gets screwed up in The Rise of Skywalker. I actually like the idea of her being a Palpatine. I don't believe though that the Emperor's return was the right call. But what's done is done and I consider her role in the trilogy up until the last movie to be on the right course. At least for what I envision as a better end for the saga. 

Many may claim that The Last Jedi created a lot of problems that The Rise of Skywalker had to then fix. But my take is that it was trying to fix the problems that were already present in The Force Awakens, trying to make this trilogy something to actually rival the originals. It could have done some things better. A few a lot better. But it certainly could have done everything a lot worse. That The Rise of Skywalker is such a mess is because it tries to course correct from this film and realign with the backslapping manner of The Force Awakens. It squanders all the potential that The Last Jedi sets up in favour of throwbacks that no one needed and goes for a safe ending of light besting the dark. What a waste. It also devalues The Last Jedi after the fact. 

I'm just offering a rationale for why the movie deserves better; that most of the problems it does have stem from the safe, re-hashed set-up of The Force Awakens or are compounded after the fact by The Rise of Skywalker. 

Brilliant movie. We studied this play in English class when I was at high school. Loved it.