“Let the Porgs Die, Kill them if You Have to”
(9/10)
Star Wars: The Last Jedi is the second movie in the new sequel trilogy. It's episode number 8 in the series, but it's number 1 on the list of longest Star Wars films. In 2 hours and 33 minutes we see some of our favorite characters from the originals, our new favorites from Episode VII, and we're even given some new characters to love. The movie hits some emotional high points, low points, and has some of the best visuals in the series. Reviewing this without spoilers is near impossible, but we will warn you and try to keep them to a minimum. But if you haven’t seen it yet, what are you doing?!
Throughout the story we learn more about what happened to, now Jedi Master, Luke Skywalker over the last 30 years. Through his character we learn a ton about the Jedi, the history of the Order, and the Force. We finally get to see the famed Luke Skywalker in action, and he’s kind of the best. He's the Last Jedi Master, a symbol of optimism and hope to the resistance. He’s also a grizzled old man who has exiled himself to a remote island because of his mistakes as a Jedi Master. He doesn’t see himself the same way everyone else does, but that's what makes his character so great in this film; he’s almost angry. Whenever he's on screen he exudes both wisdom and annoyance at Rey finding him and asking questions. That combination makes for some funny dialogue. We get to see more of Kylo Ren as a person and enemy of the rebellion. His inner struggle actually serves as a plot device and pushes the story along. This movie makes you just love Rey even more than you did from the last one. Both her and Kylo Ren’s character development and relationship fuel the balance that is the force. Kylo Ren isn’t the only one with an inner struggle here and that makes their interactions with each other and everyone else really complex.
In a long movie, like this one, it can be hard to keep audience's attention. This movie, for the most part, doesn't have that problem. The pacing of the story is near perfect. There were only a few parts that we thought could have been shortened, changed, or even omitted without ruining the movie. These parts were some of the reasons why we took off points and we’ll address them in a minute. The unexpected twists and various little things they add bring smiles to our faces as they pay homage to George Lucas's ideas from the originals. The colors, the cinematography, the story, the pure weirdness of it all; it all made for a movie that earns its place in the Star Wars universe. There are so many little things that we loved in this movie and to say them would be major spoilers, so just know that they are there, you have to see this movie more than once to catch them all, and they are awesome.
Fair warning, there’s a few spoilers coming up in the next few paragraphs so...
SPOILER ALERT:
One of our favorite scenes is when one of the characters sacrifice themselves and light speeds right through one of the First Order’s ships. It’s shocking to say the least. The pure artistry in that 30 seconds to a minute of film is astounding. At that moment there is no sound and there are only visuals. It’s stunning and if you haven’t seen it you really should and if you have, you know what we’re talking about. That being one of favorites, it must be noted that we thought there was not enough of that in this film. There were many times that the movie could have killed off a character that we cared more about, but instead they chose to kill off lesser/not known characters. One example being General Leia Organa. We felt they missed an opportunity to remove this character from the story but instead she was just in a coma for most of the movie and only wakes up at the end. Either way she’s not in the movie much and with the death of actress Carrie Fisher, we are left wondering what they are going to do with her character in the next one. Another example is they don’t let Finn sacrifice himself to save what’s left of the resistance, but instead have Rose crash into his sand pod thing to stop him. The last opportunity we thought they should have taken to kill a character off was Rose. When she crashed into Finn, we wanted her to take his place and sacrifice her life. As a side note, Poe Dameron also probably should have died from recklessness. That’s just how we felt about it.
Our least favorite scene, or set of scenes was on Canto Bight. The whole mission Finn and Rose were given ends up being a moot point and they ultimately didn’t need to go there at all. It just seemed like they added those scenes to give those two something to do. We thought the city itself was a nice concept and was a good additive to the complexity of the universe, but the parts we didn’t like were mostly expositional with Rose explaining things and being all emotional about it. We could see that it was supposed to have meaning and emotion but we didn’t feel it as well as we should have and that’s one of the reasons we took off points. We can assume that some of these scenes were meant to show a growing relationship between Finn and Rose, but that’s another thing we didn’t like. Those two didn’t have any chemistry in our opinion, and we didn’t think they needed to end up together in the end.
Ok END SPOILER.
The last thing we didn’t care for in this movie was the lack of answers. Some of these characters come and go too quickly, leaving us to either not care about them at all or be left wondering about who they are, where they came from and how they’re important. We don’t learn the answers to all of our questions from Episode VII about Supreme Leader Snoke, or Rey, or the Knights of Ren. It’s a little frustrating and another reason why we took off points. We found out later that there were scenes cut and scenes added for contractual reasons. There were rules in place that put requirements on screen time for the main characters. Because of this, they cut down Rey’s training to a much shorter set of scenes, they added scenes for Finn and newcomer Rose, and they took out everything about the Knights of Ren. If they hadn’t had to cut those, we would have had some answers.
Overall, though, the story that they gave us was fantastic. It continues what the previous one started without being a remake of any of the originals —though it has some homages— and it adds new lore elements to what we already knew about the Star Wars universe. It actually builds up, throws out, and rebuilds everything we know about the biggest things in the universe, the Force and the Jedi Order. This movie was fantastic and it earns multiple watches and doesn’t bore us with its length. We love this series and can’t wait to see what the next one has for us.
PS: You're probably wondering about the title we gave the review. We realized after writing it that we forgot to include our opinion on the Porgs. We thought they were cute, but there was just too much of them. After a certain point of their presence on screen, we began to find them annoying.
Also on a more SPOILERY note, we should seriously address how Porgs leaving their native environment will affect both them and the new environments they end up in.