I really didn't think my praise for The Last Jedi would fade with time like it did for The Force Awakens. Yet once again the more I think about it the more it does.
I still find the movie highly entertaining, definitely a better movie then TFA, thanks largely to John Williams being on his game again.
A lot of the praise of the film has been predicated on how great it is that they subverted fan expectations, being almost kind of Meta about it. And I guess it's because I watch so much Anime that the mere idea of doing that isn't so inherently impressive to me.
Doing plot after plot of making the audience think it's gonna do the same thing SW has done before only to swerve on us. Doesn't change that the end result of the movie is ensuring the conflict will continue to be an outnumbered band of Rebels against a massive Empire.
Oh some people seem to think it's different that the Rebellion is even smaller now then it ever was during the OT. But that is not interesting to me. I'm not a big fan of the stories of the old EU, but at least they actually had an interesting complicated geopolitical scenario for the post ROTJ Galaxy. Most people were assuming after TFA that the Republic must still exist, it's capital system can't be all there was to it? But nope, TLJ has made it clear that was all there was.
It could have been interesting to have the Bad Guys be the rebels, or to have the good guys and bad guys on equal footing. Or to have more then just two sides. Something to make it so it wasn't just the OT formula repeating itself over and over again.
I've been in willing denial of the fact that these Disney movies are pandering to Prequel Haters as much as their marketing is. But now it's become apparent that they didn't want to have a Republic in these movies because that would be too similar to the Prequels. Even though the story potential for a newly reformed Republic as opposed to an old one could have been vast.
Whatever stupid problems you might have with the Prequels. There is no denying that they made this fictional Galaxy feel larger then it ever did before. While these new movies have made it feel smaller.
Again we have no truly visionary ideas for new locations. I don't care if you say it's Salt not Snow, we know full well the point was to create a similar look. Just throwing Red in so you can create moments that look like Bloodshed but really isn't.
And the whole illusion that these Dark Side users are something distinct from The Sith is totally thrown out the window by the fact that this is the first time we ever actually saw the Rule of the Sith play out. The first time we actually see an Apprentice overthrow his Master.
The idea of failure being a theme is undermined by all the superficial victories designed to lighten the weight of each failure. Finn's mission failed but he got to beat Phasma in a fight. Rey failed but still gets to have her Savior moment and doesn't lose a limb like past Heroes of the saga did at this point. Poe partly caused this dire situation but still gets entrusted with leadership at the end. All things I would be okay with if they weren't in a movie about failure being a theme.
And there is a fine line between subverting expectations in a way that expands what Star Wars is about, and doing so in a way that feels like a rejection of what Star Wars has been about.
Actually discussing the fact that the Jedi of the PT era grew complacent and failed the Galaxy, and that the future of the Jedi needs to be something different is exactly what I was hoping for. However that Luke saved Vader even though his Mentors didn't think it was possible was part of that narrative. Now Luke is where his mentors were before and this time that attitude is vindicated.
The rejection of Redemption couldn't come at a worse time for me, where the primary thing alienating me from other people who hold similar political and social values to mine, are annoying me with an increasing attitude of 'we shouldn't forgive people'.
I would have liked the idea of going in a more nuanced direction, of saying the Dark Side isn't inherently bad. But no this movie seemed to be equally rejecting that option.
And responding to the criticism of "why didn't Holdo tell Poe the plan?" with "you didn't learn the lessen Poe was supposed to learn" is really offensive to me. The whole moral of "soldiers should just trust their superiors no matter what" is an inherently Fascist one to me. And therefore totally destroys the whole notion that the good guys are the ones opposing Fascism.
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