It’s been quite a weekend. After devoting so much time, energy, and thought into Star Wars: The Last Jedi these past few days, it’s shocking that I’m not even tired of talking about it yet! It’s a good thing too, as there is a L O T of ground to cover, and the extreme reactions from people loving and hating it are only making me more anxious to get my thoughts out there! Before I proceed, I just want to make a couple of disclaimers: Everything I state below is simply opinion. I am not trying to pass anything off as gospel, and I certainly don’t believe I represent all the fans out there. This is simply me, a longtime fan, putting out my personal thoughts on a series I’ve known and loved since I was about 8 years old (I’m 30 now, just for reference!). As I promise to be respectful as I can be to fans from all sides of the field, I only ask that you do the same in this instance. Star Wars is nothing we should be arguing about; quite the opposite in fact! With all that said, let’s get down to business.
The Relationship Between Luke And Rey
Right from the moment we resume Rey and Luke’s meeting for the first time, director Rian Johnson is already there to say “Hey, that thing you were expecting to happen here? Nope.” Luke takes back his lightsaber, only to immediately toss it behind him and walk away, leaving Rey quite shocked and confused. This was already not the Obi-Wan/Yoda-like encounter many fans predicted in their heads. Instead of being the hopeful and optimistic Luke we remembered in Return of the Jedi, we see a very different kind of person here. This Luke is aged, distant; clearly filled with dread and regret. This was (in my opinion) clearly hinted at in The Force Awakens, but I feel like people only just started to really get the impact of it now. We already knew that Luke had left, due to his feeling of regret in failing to train Ben Solo (aka. Kylo Ren) properly. But we also knew there had to be more to it than that. Why else would the hero of the original trilogy straight-up leave and abandon his friends? Well, it turned out the reason was a bit more complicated than we may have expected.
After telling Rey about the flaws in the Jedi's entire philosophy (something I will be revisiting later), he begins to explain that he believed he could train Ben, just as he had once been taught. But something went wrong... Luke sensed a great darkness in Ben, slowly manifesting itself over time. He said that Ben eventually used that dark power against him, causing all kinds of chaos, and provoking him to flee. But that wasn't the whole story, as Ben/Kylo would later expand on.
In Ben's version of the story, he reveals that Luke had in fact activated his lightsaber, allegedly planning to kill him in his sleep (!!!). This gave a completely different perspective on what could have happened, causing Luke to explain the situation in better detail once more. In Luke's revision of the story, he acknowledged that what Ben witnessed was correct; but there was still just a little more to this. Luke did go to Ben while he was sleeping, to see this darkness manifesting for himself. It frightened Luke, causing him to activate his lightsaber in a knee-jerk reaction to the darkness he felt around him. He tells us that he immediately realized what a mistake this was, but unfortunately, it was too late, as Ben had already seen Luke and the lightsaber out. This caused Ben to retaliate, solidifying the cycle of Kylo Ren's descent into the dark side of the force.
What we witnessed in this plot thread of the movie was along the lines of the "Rashomon Effect." It's an instance where two or more characters tell their side of a story, with each person having a different perspective than the last, sometimes leading to a completely different story altogether. It also leaves you to wonder if one story was truer than the other, or if they were both completely fabricated. While I do believe Rian Johnson meant for Luke's retelling of the story to be the definitive version, it doesn't necessarily confirm that's all there was to it, and makes the story all the more interesting to think about, in my eyes. Could there have been more to it all? Something else that led Ben astray before his retaliation against Luke? Whether this will get revisited later or not is up in the air.
Luke’s other internal struggle involved a much deeper issue; one I was pleasantly surprised to see get brought up: Jedi culture was flawed. It was always flawed. It was so flawed that it would eventually cause their own downfall in the prequel trilogy. This is something I don’t hear people talk about often, but they absolutely should. If you can stop and think back to Revenge of the Sith for a second, you may understand what I’m talking about. The Jedi council were in existence to keep peace and order in the galaxy, but they were arrogant in their ways. The Empire slowly crept up on them from within because those very ways were put in doubt. Lest we forget these people allowed slavery on places like Tatooine to continue. Why wouldn’t the Empire seem more appealing by comparison? Palpatine tempted Anakin to the dark side of the force, but it was only after the Jedi council had instilled that doubt and mistrust into him in the first place. Darth Vader was born. Palpatine took control. The Jedi were almost completely wiped out. The Empire took over.
Rey’s counterpoint to what Luke said (about how he came out of this situation for the better and allegedly brought balance back to the force) was no doubt true, but it didn’t change any of what Luke said either. It certainly seems that the reason this backstory was even brought up, was for the sole purpose of Rey and future heroes learning from past mistakes. Learning from failure. In fact, that appeared to be the theme of the entire movie. Let’s examine some more.
Some people find it very hard to believe that Luke Skywalker, the man who once took on Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine, and brought peace and order back to the galaxy, could have taken this turn; not to mention the idea of him turning on Ben for a split second. I can sympathize, as that was my initial knee-jerk reaction to the whole thing as well. (I think it’s also safe to assume this is the reason Mark Hamill himself was initially against the idea of Luke’s direction, before he later came around to the idea.) But as the movie went on, I began to understand the things he was saying a little clearer. I myself have had experiences where I felt hopeful and optimistic in my life, only to have those hopes dashed from me by one circumstance or another. I don’t always recover from those situations so easily, and Luke was clearly having one of those moments as well. I don’t find it too hard to believe that even the heroes can still have moments of weakness like this as life goes on. Could there have been more development that lead up to this moment? Absolutely, and I hope we get it one day (whether through a tie-in novel, comic, or other media). One of the biggest flaws I had with this movie was some situations simply “happening,” with not enough development to give us a full impact. But again, I at least feel that I understand what the director was trying to do here, and I can appreciate the idea behind it.
None of this is to say Luke didn’t turn himself around later, of course. Rey reminded Luke of the optimistic outlook he once had, and he eventually agreed to help her to control her abilities. This power initially frightened Luke (for fear of another “Ben” situation), but he slowly came around to see the good she could still provide for the galaxy. It wasn’t quite the “Yoda/Luke” experience that some were hoping for, but it certainly gave Rey more time to learn about her force powers, and eventually tap into more of their potential. Like The Empire Strikes Back, Rey came out of the encounter still having a lot to learn, and left early to confront Kylo, believing he could be saved. Also similar to Empire, was Rey's mysterious encounter in the strange pit on the island. Reminiscent of Luke's confusing encounter on Dagobah, this sequence left us with more questions than answers, but clearly took an emotional toll on Rey.
The Relationship Between Rey and Kylo Ren
While we're on the topic of Rey, I feel this would be a good time to jump into her dynamic with Kylo. There is without a doubt some type of (force?) connection bringing them together, but we're still uncertain as to why at the moment (Yes, Snoke claims he was behind their force encounters, but that only tells us so much). Throughout Rey's time on the island, we were made to be quite confused when Rey and Kylo would keep encountering each other, due to an unexplained force ability. This led us to believe they may be related in some way, but it's still uncertain. Putting further doubt in our minds was Snoke's revelation that he had in fact been connecting them through his own force ability, after Kylo went to turn Rey in to him. It was also clear that Rey was becoming more sympathetic to Kylo, as she was still convinced that there was good in him somewhere. You could even say that the scene played out similarly to Return Of The Jedi (Rey saying she believed Kylo could still turn, Snoke sitting in his throne, holding Rey's lightsaber hostage, Kylo's decision to overthrow and kill Snoke, etc.), but the result was not quite the same.
After Kylo had successfully killed Snoke (and the two of them took on Snoke's remaining guards), he reached his hand out to her, in an attempt to get her to join him. For a second, the movie had you believe she was really going to do it, but instead, we see she was really reaching out to force pull her lightsaber back toward her hand. In a tug-of-war force grab for the lightsaber, we finally see it split in two, showing us that these two are clearly powerhouses, despite neither of them seeming to be in total control of it yet. Unfortunately, we don't get to see much of them interacting any further after this point. But the message is clear: These two will meet again and the fate of everyone will be resting on their shoulders at some point in the near future.
The Rise And Fall Of Snoke
Snoke has of course been a popular topic among Star Wars fans, ever since his first appearance in Episode VII. For two years, fans tried to consider who he could possibly be, coming up with all kinds of theories and predictions. In the end? None of it mattered. Yes, you heard me right. As far as we are aware, he was just a powerful force user, who tried to claim his place as another Emperor Palpatine, but it makes little difference now that he's gone.
Another knee-jerk reaction of mine was say "... What??? All of that buildup with him was for nothing!?" After taking a little more time to process it all (which is obviously hard to do as you're watching the movie), I started to come around to it a little more. Hear me out on this one: Was this really meant to be about Snoke to begin with? Does it matter as much as we initially thought it should have? To answer these questions, it's important we look at the scene with more detail.
After flailing Rey around the room like a ragdoll, Snoke talked about how he was able to look into both she and Kylo's minds with ease. This was also revealed as part of his plan to go after Luke Skywalker. As Snoke was holding Rey down and saying that he sensed Kylo's desire to kill her, he eagerly waited for Kylo to force pull the lightsaber toward himself and finish her off. Instead? He used his force ability to turn the lightsaber on its side and pierce straight through Snoke's body. After that, he force pulled it toward himself, effectively cutting Snoke's body in half, confirming that he is mostly likely very VERY dead.
Here's why that's so significant, and why it was easy to miss what we're really looking out for in this scene. My first reaction was to say "Either he got completely lucky, or Snoke just got careless. There's no other way..." But that's just the thing: Right before this, Snoke proudly exclaimed that he was able to read all Kylo's thoughts because he was so much more powerful than them. Kylo still being able to kill Snoke under this circumstance confirms there was no luck involved in that moment. The director was trying to tell us that Kylo's ability (whether in that moment or earlier on) had actually surpassed that of Snoke's. I think part of the reason some fans felt cheated by this scene was not only the lack of substance regarding his background, but rather, the way the scene itself was executed. If there had been a clearer sign that this was what we were witnessing, I believe it might have resonated better with some people. I also question if scenes like this were initially different or more fleshed-out prior to editing.
Personally, I never thought he was much of a compelling character to begin with (something I attribute more to Episode VII than this release). We've got so many characters that represent traits of past ones throughout this series, that losing someone similar to the Emperor before the third installment of this trilogy actually has me feeling relieved. Again, I DO understand the backlash on this one, but I've come around to be all for this change up.
The Subplots Of Finn, Rose, Poe, & Others
This is the area where the movie started to really lose some people. Many of the biggest complaints (outside of Luke's characterization and the series' direction itself) were from fans who felt most of these stories were unnecessary to the main plot. I thought this at first too, though I ended up changing my mind on some of them. I'm not going to into as great a detail for these (as this is already a long blog post, and we'd be here all night!), but I'll still try to cover my thoughts on each of them.
One hand, I absolutely feel like Finn's character had some excellent progression, but on the other hand, I don't at the same time. His role wasn't nearly as big as what we saw in Force Awakens, though I was expecting that to some degree. On the upside, he had some truly heroic moments in this, which did surpass the previous movie. We got to see him take on Captain Phasma and come out triumphant, nearly sacrifice himself to save the entire group of remaining Resistance members, and even help free some animals that were being used for gambling and profit (think in the style of horse racing).
On that note, let's get into Rose for a bit as well. Though we didn't get much time to learn about her yet, I felt like she fit in with the cast perfectly, being just the kind of push in the right direction some of the other characters (especially Finn) needed. You could think of her as caring and hopeful, but also firm and strategic all at once.
So, there were complaints abound, regarding the arc for these two. They were essentially sent down to a casino-like world to locate a hacker who could get the First Order's lightspeed tracking device out of commission. The issues weren't so much over that, as much as the amount of time that was spent here. This would also couple onto the fact that people saw the whole plan as a waste, due to the events that would later transpire and ruin everything they had worked to achieve.
Although I do agree that the dynamics involved here could have been shortened a bit, I don't believe we can simply dismiss this part of the story as "pointless." For one thing (though some may see this as subtle), I believe the main message behind this entire trilogy may have been contained in it. Throughout this part of the story, Finn learns that there is corruption outside of just the First Order. On top of the way those animals they freed were being used for profit, there was also clear child slavery going on (as shown with the orphan children they met while freeing said animals from their stables). And worst of all, we witnessed arms dealers selling weapons to both the Resistance AND the First Order, clearly profiting from both sides with no remorse. But it's the orphans I really want to focus on here. You may have noticed these details in the final scene in the film, before the credits started to roll. One of the orphan boys (made to represent bright, young, and hopeful children of the world) uses a slight bit of force energy to pull a broom toward his hand, just before he holds it like a lightsaber and points it up toward the sky. This moment is absolutely everything with regards to the trilogy's message. It's showing us that you don't have to be from a special bloodline (or say, a Skywalker) to be a force user. This is very likely a hint about the next path the series will take. Despite the low remaining numbers of Resistance members, there are others out there who hear their pleas, and make no mistake; will come to aid the Resistance in their time of need. Oh, and that entire third act of the movie? It couldn't have happened if Finn and Rose weren't caught by Hux, revealing Holdo's plan to escape. So, no, I don't believe it was "pointless" in the slightest, no matter how inconsequential the circumstance may have been.
The animosity between Poe and Holdo did feel a little forced and unnecessary to me, though not to the point of ruining the movie or anything. Poe's character seemed much more cocky and forceful in his demeanor, despite getting many of his comrades killed earlier on. Some have told me that his personality changes make more sense if you read his tie-in comic from Marvel (and I probably will read it at some point), but I hardly believe I should have to in order to understand where this slightly glaring change came from. Unfortunately, Holdo's personality didn't seem to help things either. Again, this was nothing too major for me, but I did feel a little at odds with it.
The buildup to Holdo's sacrifice scene also felt a little at odds with the plot that been setup before it, but it was clearly done so we could get that shot of her ship using lightspeed to destroy the First Order's ship in the process. Did it make sense? Maybe not entirely, but... come on, that looked pretty damn cool!
So, About That Leia Scene...
Yes, that scene. We all believed General Leia to be dead after getting her ship blown up, only to see something... very interesting happen. Okay, I admit it. My first reaction to seeing Leia pull herself through space was a big "What... the... f-...," as I'm sure it was for most people in the theater. It obviously looked a little silly in its execution, so much so that people mistook her force pull for "flying." But you know what? It allowed Carrie Fisher to be in the movie longer. For that reason alone, I'm okay with this. She’s always had potential force ability within her, so I don’t think the idea was too far contrived. Honestly, they could have given the excuse that she was really a space-breathing lizard all along, and I would have still been okay with it, if it allowed her to be in the movie for just a few more minutes. The only scene in this entire movie to almost bring me to tears was a single moment, that had no bearing on the main plot. It was simply Leia saying something along the lines of "We don't need any more losses," while consoling Holdo. Celebrity deaths rarely hit me on a personal level, but Carrie was an exception. Meeting her at New York Comic Con less than a month before her passing was such a wonderful moment for me, and I'll never forget the love and joy (and glitter!) that she brought to those around her. R.I.P. General.
The Jedi temple of Ahch-To was a very interesting choice of place for Luke to run away to. On top being literally the first Jedi temple in existence, it also housed the oldest known texts about the Jedi Order. This is no doubt how Luke was able to learn about and describe the flaws in the Jedi's logic and philosophy. When I was speaking about wishing for some more details behind the Luke/Ben relationship, this is an aspect I was hoping for some more background on. What really prompted Luke to pick this temple in the first place? Did he not really intend to run away and simply come here looking for answers that he never got? Was it out of anger and contempt for the Jedi Order (which would admittedly go in line with his notion that the Jedi need to "die.")? Star Wars Battlefront 2 (the video game from EA) did explain how he was able to find the temple, but I don't believe we ever got an official explanation as to why he wanted to find it in the first place.
Based on what was said about Luke above, it was no surprise to me that he would proceed to try and burn down the Jedi temple, and all the texts contained within. What I wasn't expecting to see was the sudden return of Yoda's force ghost form. It was a very confusing moment (though not a bad one by any means) for a few reasons. For one thing, Yoda seems to have gone back to his original personality from when we first met him in The Empire Strikes Back, loud and excitable; ready to jump up at any moment and do something unexpected. While this didn't really make much sense (since we've seen Yoda as a wise old hermit in every other context past their first meeting), I'd be lying if I said it didn't make me happy to see anyway. I really missed that side of Yoda, and honestly thought I'd never see it again. Kudos to the team for using an actual puppet for the character as well. It was also interesting to note when Yoda stated that there was nothing in those texts that Rey couldn't learn herself.
There was one more very odd (but again, very interesting) thing to take from this scene as well. As Luke tells Yoda his intention of burning down everything, Yoda responds by... creating a lightning bolt that zaps the temple into a fiery haze. Never in Star Wars history has this type of ability been presented to us. I'd be very interested to see if anything else comes from it, now that Luke has joined their ranks. And speaking of this, we should be moving on to one more important topic…
When Luke said to Rey "This is not going to go the way that you think!," he was certainly NOT kidding! While not in the way most people were expecting, Luke appeared in the Resistance's most dire hour of need (which is really saying a lot when you consider how much they had already lost up to this point!). He had a brief, but wonderful reunion moment with Leia, gave a hilarious wink to the camera, and made his way outside to face Kylo and his troops alone. After a multitude of blasts failing to put a dent in Luke, followed by another hilarious brush of the shoulder, Kylo goes down to face Luke alone, demanding that no one else interfere. It's at this moment that the team realizes Luke is buying them time to escape. While trying to literally run out the back door, the group reaches a dead end, due to pile of large rocks in their way. Luke proudly tells Kylo that he will not be the last Jedi, cutting back to Rey lifting the large rocks with her force powers and clearing the Resistance's path for escape. By this point, Kylo now realizes that he has been fighting a convincing projection of Luke. This is yet another Jedi ability we have very rarely seen in action before (I believe the last time it was done was by Darth Maul in Star Wars: Rebels, though I could be wrong).
This scene caused another knee-jerk reaction in me at first (as I'm sure it did many others). On one hand, the writing absolutely hinted that we would not be seeing a real battle between Luke and Kylo at this moment. On the other hand, I think most of us wanted to see it happen so badly, that we ignored all the signs. I initially felt cheated by the whole thing, but then I started thinking about it more and came to a very different conclusion.
What changed my mind? Well, a lot of things. For starters, if Luke actually HAD come there to fight, there would have been only a small number of possible outcomes, with the most obvious being Luke's death at Kylo's hand. Would you have wanted to see that? Part of me wanted to say yes at first (as seeing one of your favorite heroes go down fighting is an awesome thought, and fitting with the samurai culture that the Jedi ideology was partly based off of), but in the end, I came back to the conclusion that this was a much better and more fitting path. It was a non-violent approach to victory (which I will never cease to find beautiful), it robbed Kylo of any satisfaction he would have gotten from ending the life of his former master (as Vader did to Obi-Wan so long ago), and we didn't have to think of Kylo as having killed TWO fan-favorite characters in a row! This isn't even mentioning that Luke succeeded in his mission to buy enough time for the Resistance to get away.
Unlike Han's abrupt and unfortunate death scene, I found Luke's transition at the end to be quite wonderful. What could be a more fitting end for a Jedi Master, than to go out with an incredible (and mostly unheard of) force power, save the ones you set out to protect, pass the mantle on to a new child of the force, and get one final moment to stare into a double-sunset, just like the one on Tatooine so long ago? This may be one of the most beautiful moments of any Star Wars film I've ever seen. Even if you didn't enjoy his road to getting here, I hope you could at least see what I saw in this final moment.
Last, but certainly not least let's go back to…
As I started to elaborate above, there are definitely things you can nitpick and critique about this new movie. What's been so fascinating to me is how many different types of criticism I've seen throughout the internet these past few days. Even if you check out the fan reactions now, you'll get an almost even mix of "It was the best Star Wars film ever, or at least since Empire Strikes Back!" alongside "This was the worst piece of crap I have ever seen. It ruins every character and the franchise will never recover!" Whoa. Those are some big extremes, right? So, what's got everyone so conflicted? This isn't a matter of "hardcore vs. casual" fans, or "true fans" as every elitist has started referring to themselves as. In fact, I'm seeing just as big of a split among longtime fans as well. While I don't have all the answers, I can at least elaborate on what I do know.
It's easy to write this off as “You can never please the fans anymore,” and there might be some truth to that, but I don’t believe it’s as simple as that. The largest amount of backlash I saw against Force Awakens was that fans felt it was too much a carbon copy of the original, despite others loving the callback to the classic trilogy. In the case of the Last Jedi, it seemed to go the opposite route, with some fans complaining that the direction taken was so far left field, it didn’t even feel like a proper Star Wars movie to them anymore. This was next to just as many people proclaiming it to be a masterpiece and a sign of great change, with new unexpected things to come. That’s quite a divide! Is it even possible to find common ground among such a disagreement? Well, maybe not, but I’m going to damn well try at least!
There are some that liked the ideas behind the story, but hated the way it was executed. This (to me) is probably the most valid criticism I can give the movie. It doesn't change how I feel about the events themselves, but scenes like Kylo's overtaking of Snoke, or Luke's immediate and fearful reaction when drawing his lightsaber in front of a sleeping Ben, would have been ideal for more buildup and analyzation.
I do also see many people saying that they believe Finn and Rose's scenes were mostly "pointless." As I stated above, I don't agree with this, although I admit that the scenes could have been shortened a little, and would have probably had just as good of an impact. I still remember The Empire Strikes Back quite vividly (as I watch it all the time!), and I don't see anyone complaining about the amount of time Han, Leia, and the group spent running away from Imperial forces, only to get caught inside the belly of a large creature. Lest we forget, Empire also caused a bit of a split among fans and critics alike when it first came out. The main difference was that we didn’t have the internet to raise a soapbox platform on.
I've seen the argument of "plot holes abound" getting thrown around a lot too. You want to know the funny thing about this? Every Star Wars movie made has "plot holes abound" in it! If you were to re-watch A New Hope right now, you would likely find more plot holes in that than just about any other movie of its type. Part of loving Star Wars has always been acknowledging that it has plot holes and still being able to enjoy it, despite. I consider this movie to be no different in that regard. Analyzing can be fun (as I’m obviously doing so right now!), but I don’t think we need to do it to the point of ad nauseum, arguing about the technical specifications behind lightspeed tracking.
Another issue that people seemed to have was with the humor in the movie, claiming it felt forced and out of sorts in multiple places. I partially agree, as there were some moments that had me scratching my head at the choice of comedic timing. However, I did find some moments to be downright hilarious as well. Perhaps my favorite “silly” moment was seeing Luke squeeze a blue-ish milk (like the one we saw him drinking in A New Hope) out of a strange looking alien creature with giant milk sacs. The way he confidently (and awkwardly) stared at Rey while drinking it was priceless.
Rey’s parents and background were another point of concern. People were annoyed to hear Kylo tell Rey that they were nobodies, who sold her off. While we technically don’t even know if this is true (as it would make sense for Kylo to lie to Rey here, intending to manipulate her into joining him), Rey’s reaction proved that this comment clearly struck a nerve. Whether that’s because there’s any truth to it or not, we’ll hopefully find out down the line. Either way, I am okay with this scenario. There’s no reason to believe that strong force users can’t come from anywhere. (In fact, when you think about it, they had to! Jedi weren’t even allowed to love, yet there used to be an abundant number of them, prior to Order 66.) What leads me to believe there could still be more to this however, comes from Rey’s dialogue. When walking into the first Jedi temple, she quite clearly states that she felt as if she’d been there before. What’s that about? We still have at least one more movie to find out.
The other most common complaint I've seen is that some people believe they are "ruining" these classic characters, while paving way for the news ones. I can sympathize with the people who feel this way, though I respectfully disagree. I was in the group of people who enjoyed The Force Awakens, but was longing for a different approach that would truly separate this from the original trilogy. While I don't think it's done that completely (as rehashes of old plot points are still riddled throughout even this film), I did find this to be more of a step in the right direction.
That brings me to my last main point about the criticisms here. A large majority of them (outside of the structure of the film) seem to revolve around things not playing out the way some fans envisioned for them to. It’s not too hard to see why this is such a sore spot for some. As fans, we ALL have different ideas of what directions Star Wars can take, and would love to see come alive. When it doesn’t go that route, this can immediately confuse, especially when you see such drastic changes as you did in this new entry. I personally believe that it’s going to come down to the way people view this on a second or even third viewing. Whether people will see it again and start to come around to the new perspective, or not be able to look past its faults will determine where we go from here. I’m in the camp that believes more viewings will help people come around to the new ideas presented, but there’s no way to really tell.
The actual message of this movie was to accept that failure is going to happen, but to take that failure and learn from it. This movie was a constant barrage of the main characters going through one failed scenario after another. The “extremely luck hero moments” simply didn’t happen much this time around, up until the movie’s final scenes. That was off-putting to some, who believed they were going to get a completely different experience altogether. Yoda himself said that failure is our greatest teacher. On board with it or not, that message was clear.
Again, I ask that whatever side of the scale you see yourself on with this movie, please be respectful to others. There is obviously no definitive "REAL FANS THINK THIS!" or "REAL FANS THINK THAT!" in the equation, otherwise you wouldn't see everyone at such odds about this. I am admittedly happy with a lot of the changes I saw in this movie, but I am also understanding of those who are not, and am sorry to hear they didn't experience the same level of joy I got out of this. This is a property that's existed since the late 1970's, and it's obviously resonated with many of us in all kinds of ways. I don't blame the fans for getting a little defensive sometimes, but we can still do it without become that to which we hate. Remember, only a Sith deals in absolutes!
I’m basing my review score of this movie by how much I personally enjoyed it. If I were to base it on a typical point system, removing points for each flaw I witnessed or issue I had with the editing, I don’t think it would accurately convey my real feelings about the movie. That’s why even with all its flaws, I give Star Wars: The Last Jedi a solid 9/10, and can't wait to see where we go from here. I’ll even go as far as to say this is the first time I’ve been legitimately excited about Star Wars’ direction in a very long time. As always, thank you for reading, and feel free to share your thoughts on this obviously divisive film with me for more discussion!!!
