Star Wars : Épisode VIII - Les Derniers Jedi

It is as if Rian Johnson watched the Star Wars movies on mute before writing/directing this film. Visually, the movie is stunning. From the set pieces to the action sequences, "The Last Jedi" has some of the best visual moments in the franchise. Unfortunately, the story and a true understanding of the Star Wars universe is lacking.

• The actions of some of the characters are completely against what we have seen in other films (the treatment of Luke Skywalker is absurd).

• The new characters introduced are irritating and shallow (Laura Dern's Vice-Admiral Holdo might be my least favorite character in Star Wars history).

• Force sensitivity is a joke (Leia, Luke, Kylo and Rey).

• The entire "master code breaker" plotline is frustratingly pointless.

When I look at the poster for this movie, I think about the epic fight sequences and the daring visuals. This is fortunate, because the rest of the film is frustratingly disjointed from the rest of the franchise.

Best Character: Kylo Ren Best Quote: "Pass on what you have learned. Strength. Mastery. But weakness, folly, failure also. Yes, failure most of all. The greatest teacher, failure is." - Yoda Best Moment: The battle against Snoke's guards. The red scene!

Very surprised that the critics gave this a thumbs up. It's possibly among the worst Star Wars movies (including the prequels). It's entertaining, for sure, but in the way David and Jerry Zucker films of the 80's were crowd pleasers. This isn't something you go home thinking about or affecting you when you go home, at least in a good way.

The problem as I see it is that it tried to tackle too much in one movie. Worst, it spent so much time on unimportant (and seemingly inconsequential) events and not enough time on the bigger questions that were left hanging from TFA. The story structure is a mess. The Finn/Rose subplot could've been totally removed, and the new characters introduced were a waste of time.

Characterizations were very inconsistent. Characters who had already grown in TFA (Finn, Poe) suddenly regressed for no reason. Major characters (Rey, Kylo, Luke) would make surprising moves without any basis or set-up, for the sake of surprise. In fact a lot of the movie can be said as favoring a "twist" happening at the expense of consistent character development. The prequel movies' treatment of Anakin's character development was a lot more satisfying, AND that's a generally panned. At least the prequel movies' story tried in earnest, TLJ did worst that just phoning it in.

As some movies have become acclaimed films over time after an initial bashing by the critics (e.g. Bladerunner), this one I believe will take the opposite direction.

Here's hoping JJ fixes everything with IX.

I really want to sit across from Rian Johnson and Kathleen Kennedy and ask them honest questions:

1. Do you know what "heavy-handed" means?

2. In film school, or in any time in your career, did you ever learn about building tension, or making the audience care about characters, or continuity from a previous installment?

3. Is this a Star Wars movie or a Marvel movie version of Star Wars?

There is very little good to say about it. The movie is void of any significant story or dialogues, it lacks purpose and vision. Its rather an obvious and obnoxious mix of studio wishes for toy sales and trying to please as wide an audience as possible. So many things wrong dont know where to even begin.

First of all, Jar Jar, the ever annoying horrible Jar Jar from previous movies at least had a purpose as a (very poor) comic relief character. The fluffy penguins in Last Jedi on the other hand are 100% transparently there for no reason but toy sales. The action trumps everything in the movie. I have nothing against good action but come on. And the characters are so blatantly cliche and repeating themselves. Luke, a seemingly wise Jedi, perhaps fed up with everything but how does that make him a miserable, cold, heartless bast*ard. All of the characters are so black and white, its mind numbing. A good movie is a good movie, be it a simple comedic Thor Ragnarok or a thought provoking Matrix. But the Last Jedi is nothing of that, its a heartless product almost made by a (quality) hollywood generator machine working based on a formula of most prevalent cliches today and popular ideas/values. Also of course the SJW crowd had to have their say making all heroes,general,admirals whatever women and male hero black. And then throw in an asian sidekick,they mustnt be forgoten,that would be rasist. Its pathetic. The race or sex of characters shouldnt be forced,it should serve the story. It does anything but that here. It wasnt story first here. It was the marketing guy, the censor, the SJW representative and toy company. Only THEN came director,story,character. Expect no sight or smell of anything original, thought provoking, tabboo breaking or good moral quandries. Just a lot of empty happening for 2 hours.

After George Lucas's execrable prequels and the mediocre The Force Awakens, I've learnt to keep my expectations low for any new Star Wars films in order to avoid total disappointment. Having just seen The Last Jedi, it appears that I haven't been keeping them low enough.

The reasons for my loathing are the same as those noted in the countless scathing reviews here on IMDb, so I won't go into drawn out detail - suffice to say that the film frequently beggars belief, is massively bloated, defies logic and is full of misplaced humour (the worst moments being the horrible 'steam iron' gag and BB-8's handy coin launcher).

3 out of 10, solely for the impressive special effects. Writer/director Rian Johnson shouldn't be allowed within 12 parsecs of another Star Wars sequel.