SPOILER ALERT

I took in a showing of The Last Jedi and wanted to make a few comments. Keep in mind I am writing this on the fly so there may be spoilers. STOP reading now if you don’t want to know things.

The first impression upon walking out was, “hmm… that may be the best Star Wars film in quite some time.” It was written better (by Rian Johnson not George Lucas or J.J Abrams,) it kept you wondering just who would go to the dark side throughout. That element of unpredictability was probably the best thing about the film. Also, the never-ending series of cliff-hanging moments kept you interested throughout.

Yes, there were some things I didn’t care for. Those Furby-looking creatures that provided the slapstick comedy for the Chewie scenes… I think they are called Porgs. (read: Christmas toy) I get it. You have to earn the billions of dollars on product sales in addition to tickets.  I also wasn’t a fan of the Occupy Canto Bight scenes.  That is the city full of rich oppressive jerks that justified all the rampant property destruction and terrorism brought on by our heroes. It seemed a bit too much like an antifa recruitment video to be entertaining.

Politics aside – and you have to put them way aside when watching anything from Hollywood – this was a good film. LJ took cues from the unexpected success of Guardians of the Galaxy and added a ton of comedic scenes and lines that sometimes seemed to try to hard. Most of the time however, they worked.

There were a ton of scenes I loved – far too many to go into. The visuals rocked – my favorite still has to be the fights on Crait – the planet that once hosted a Rebel Alliance outpost during their early rebellion. The surface is covered with a layer of white salt over its red-colored soil, and the visual result was awesome.

Also positive was Mark Hamill. This is the first time in this age of “bring back the old cast to spark sales” that doing so didn’t feel gimmicky. Luke Skywalker was an integral part of the story and Hamill’s acting didn’t feel like a former star making a guest appearance… he did a great job. He was Luke Skywalker… not Carrie Fisher playing Leia.

I have to admit that the fanboy in me smiled when the audience erupted with cheers and applause at key moments. It was good to have Star Wars back and done well, even if for the last time. (wink wink) As far as the title of this post… they made it quite clear at the end that this is only the beginning.

In the canon of Star Wars films, I will reserve final judgement for after having reviewed them all and seen this again. But, for right now, I think this is easily in the top two or three from the series.

What are your thoughts?

RATING 8 out of 10

by Chris Doelle

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