THE LAST JEDI - THOUGHTS AFTER MY FIRST VIEWING

Before you read on, the assumptions are:

1. You've already watched the movie; there will be SPOILERS, here.
2. You're a fan of the franchise. If you're not a fan, none of this will really matter to you.
3. You've already read FilmCritHulk's blog post. No? Read it first. Seriously, read it. It's one of those he's-forgotten-more-about-storytelling-than-you-will-ever-know situations.

All good?

Okay.

I enjoyed The Last Jedi, but I didn't love it. Some people are gushing over the movie. Others are hating it. I'd like to share my thoughts, having seen the movie once.

RATING/HATING

I want to first discuss how we "rate" movies. In doing so, I'll get to the "hating it" part.

This will take a bit of time.

I've seen people rating this movie with 1 out of 10. Really? A one?! So, this movie is among the worst movies that the person has ever seen? Really? I believe, after a lifetime of watching movies, there's a bell curve; the vast majority of movies that you'll see fall into the 4-7/10 area. If you really enjoy a movie, and you could watch it again and again, then that movie should score an 8, or higher. That's fair, right?

Rottentomatoes.com determines that anything rated 6+ is given the "Fresh" tag. This is the score they're famous for. They also display the movies' average scores out of 10. (This is what I tend to look at more than their Fresh/Rotten score.) Although I've never seen it happen, it's mathematically possible to have a movie with an average score of 6.0, but also have a 100% Fresh rating. If you were rating a movie, and it did just enough for you to say, "Yes, I enjoyed that movie," then you'd give it a 6. If it falls just under that. You thought it was "just okay", then that sounds like a 5. If everybody gave it a 5, because it was just okay, then that movie would score a 0% on Rottentomatoes. Again, this is not something I've ever seen. Most movies that are above 90% fresh, typically score in the 8s, and movies below 10%, tend to score below 3/10. (As of right now, TLJ is 93%, 8.2, with 294 critical reviews in.)

There's an expectation, I believe, that many fans have that any time a new Star Wars movie is released, it could be a new Favourite Movie of All Time! for them. When it's not, then instead of saying, "It wasn't as good as I'd hoped, but it was still okay," they decide that it's crap. I'll be repeating myself throughout this post with this, but it's about expectations. People expect a 10, but that's just not realistic, is it? No, it's not. It's also highly unlikely that any movie in wide release, regardless of how much you don't like it, is actually a 1. (A real 1 would likely find itself in the DVD discount bin at Walmart, with no theatrical release.)

Recently, a friend told me (essentially) that I automatically love all Star Wars movies, because I'm a Star Wars fan. I told him that this is just not true. Of the 8 Star Wars movies released before The Last Jedi, I have loved two of them. Only two. I grew to hate three of them. The other three fall somewhere in between. Even the three I hated, I wouldn't score a 1 out of 10, because there were still elements in each of them that I enjoyed. (For example, in The Phantom Menace, I love the 1-on-1 duel between Obi-Wan Kenobi and Darth Maul, and John Williams's Duel of the Fates is a great piece of music.) Guess what, if I scored each of these movies, and thrown them on a graph, you'd probably see a bell-like shape. Granted, it would be shifted a little to the right, but still, there'd be a curvy line that went from near one side to the other.

Maybe it's because I'm practical, and a little logical, but my expectations when I go into a new Star Wars movie, is that the movie will likely be a 7 out of 10. I hope for more, of course, but I expect that I'll think it's pretty good.

I think most fans, or at least the vocal internet ones, expect a 10 each time, and if they don't get it, they get angry. They give it a one. And I mean they literally go online, and give it a 1 somewhere/everywhere.

That's a very childish reaction. No?

So, my initial reaction to The Last Jedi was pretty much in-line with what I should've expected. I really enjoyed it, like I did with all but three of the eight movies, but I didn't love it, like the first two episodes.

Initial viewing puts it as not as good as Empire, Star Wars, or The Force Awakens, but better than Rogue One, and Return of the Jedi. (Let's just not discuss the prequels from now on.)

Now, here's something that is so very, very true:

So many star wars fans would have been MAD ONLINE after Empire. Its like we completely forgot the immediate reaction to that movie.

— FILM CRIT HULK (@FilmCritHULK) December 16, 2017

I was 6 years old when I saw Star Wars for the first time. Despite not seeing a lot of movies in my young life, Star Wars was the best I'd ever seen. It was my favourite. I was just about to turn 9 years old, when The Empire Strikes Back was released in theatres, and I remember being so disappointed with it. My young brain couldn't process what had happened, but I knew I didn't like it. When I was almost 12, Return of the Jedi came out. I loved it so much! I remember telling somebody that I may have enjoyed it more than Star Wars. (I have problems calling Episode IV "A New Hope", so just know, when I say, "Star Wars", I usually don't mean the franchise, I mean the 1977 Life-Changer.)

It took me years to come around on Empire. I was probably 15 years old before I started appreciating it more. I was probably almost through high school before I realized it was my favourite movie of all time. It still is. If you were to ask me, "Cam, what's your favourite mo..." "Empire." But that took a long time. Ask any fan, old enough to have seen the original trilogy in the theatres, and they will likely say that Empire is the best of the series. Keeping in mind, what Film Crit Hulk just tweeted, most people didn't feel that way, at first.

I'm not saying The Last Jedi is the new Empire. I'm saying don't be dismissive of it just because you didn't really love it after watching it once.

EXPECTATIONS

For years, I've realized that anything that can make me laugh and cry (or even be near tears), automatically falls into my This is Really Good category of entertainment. Obviously, things can have either and still be good, but if it can do both, then it must be good. Buffy The Vampires Slayer wasn't a great show because it was funny -- it was, of course -- but it was great because... well, have you seen The Body (S05 E16)? That's one of the best episodes of TV I've ever seen, and I'm a blubbering mess each time I see it. (I always seem to forget just how much it affects me, until I'm watching it.)

The Last Jedi hit emotional notes, and it made me laugh. Because I had some problems with it (in a minute!), I can't say I didn't like it. But why didn't I love it, when I think I actually should have? I had to think about that (which I've done) and I'll need to see it again. But it did get an emotional reaction out of me, so that means it's automatically an Enjoyable Movie.

Maybe it's better than that. Maybe?

After The Force Awakens came out, I think most of us had expectations of what was likely to be in this episode:

1. Rian Johnson would continue the story that J.J. Abrams delivered to us with The Force Awakens.
2. We'd get more information on who Rey's parents were. If it wasn't revealed in this movie, we'd at least be one step closer to who they were, and find out in Episode IX.
3. We'd possibly find out who Snoke was, and where he came from. He looks old enough to have been around during the original trilogy, so there could be a connection to previous movies (even... even the prequels). Like Rey's parents, if we didn't find out in Ep. VIII, we would in IX.
4. Carrie Fischer died after production was complete, but Rian Johnson said he didn't change anything to take that into account. I had an assumption, going into TLJ, that Leia would die.
5. Poe Dameron would be a hero, doing heroic things.
6. Rian Johnson is a very competent filmmaker. Whatever it is he's crafted, would be great.
7. Luke would be somewhat stoic, because he was, for the most part, in RoTJ.
8. C3PO would be annoying. (He wasn't in the original trilogy, but was in everything else.)
9. Domhnall Gleeson (General Hux) would overact.

Was there more? Maybe for you, but that pretty much covers it for me.

BUT THEN...

Whether I was completely conscious of these items above, going in, and how they played out, or not, I can say that when my expectations weren't met, they were disappointing on some level.

Point #1

You know when the way this whole thing would play out should've been obvious? As soon as Luke took the lightsaber from Rey and tossed it over his shoulder. Replace Luke with Rian Johnson, Rey with J.J. Abrams, and the lightsaber with the script of The Force Awakens. That's what happened there, in that scene. Did you pick up on that at the time? No. Does it make sense now? The only way it could be more obvious is if Luke gave the fourth wall the finger. (Keep in mind, Rian Johnson had to start working on the script while The Force Awakens was still in production; he likely had a draft of that screenplay, but could do just about anything from there.)

So he decided, unbeknownst to us, but obvious now, that he'd not follow the path that JJ Abrams appeared to lay out.

So, with that in mind...

Point #2

Rey's parents went from being in JJ's infamous Mystery Box, to almost being a red herring. There was nothing special about Rey's family. She's not a Skywalker. This whole franchise was about the Skywalkers, and she was the hero from The Force Awakens. It stands to reason there's some great connection between her, her parents, and the Skywalker family, right?

Nope.

Yes, of course she's special, but no, there's not some awesome link to the previous movies. (Maybe JJ goes back to this in Episode IX.) We expect a reveal, and get... junkie parents looking to score a quick buck. Well, I wasn't expecting that.

Point #3

Snoke dies, and we find out nothing about him. I know some people say his death made no sense. That it was cheap. I think those people had expectations of him. He was also in JJ's Mystery Box. Rian Johnson squashed him in that box.

Personally, I really liked the death. (Yes, the physical action of it, but also...) In Star Wars, Darth Vader was the baddest motherfucker in the galaxy. Sure, Tarkin seemed to outrank him, but Tarkin wasn't a badass. In Empire, we find out that Vader has a master. For Vader to have a master, that guy must be next level badass. (Oh... I bet that was against expectations in 1980!) In Return of the Jedi, we get to meet the Emperor, and, sure enough, he's really, really powerful. This diminishes Vader in our eyes. By killing Snoke, and by showing Hux to be less-than-powerful in his role, Rian Johnson leaves Kylo Ren as the one true antagonist for the next film. (Or, at least, at the beginning of it. We don't know what happened to the rest of the Knights of Ren.)

Point #4

During the entire film, I expected Leia to die. Then she did... n't. And didn't again. And again.

As mentioned above, since Rian Johnson said he didn't change anything after her death, that set an expectation (with me) that she dies in this film. Sitting there for 2.5 hours expecting her to die is a little bit distracting. Now that I know she doesn't die, this won't be tugging at my brain during my next viewing.

So, for Episode IX, we'll either get a CGI Leia (I hope not!) or an Irish Good-Bye.

Point #5

Poe Dameron was a hero doing heroic things... and failing. Actions have consequences, and we're not really used to seeing the good guys constantly failing. Hopefully he learned his lesson. I expect him to, at least.

Point #6

Rian Johnson knows what he's doing. So much so that Disney has given him the go ahead to develop his own Star Wars Trilogy. They loved his movie, and the experience of collaborating with him. So, how could TLJ be anything but really good?

I've read comments from people that say the story didn't make sense, or that there was too much going on, or that he didn't know what he was doing, etc. Truth is, if you have read that Film Crit Hulk article -- seriously, if you haven't, go do that -- he did write a very good story. It wasn't a black-and-white, point A to point B, original trilogy story, but that doesn't mean he failed.

Okay, the porgs were cute, and got some laughs, but did they serve any purpose? As Kim said to me, "Even the Ewoks served a purpose." So maybe Rian had a small mis-step there.

It was really only the editing that bothered me. Just when a story arc was humming along nicely - cut to one of the other story arcs... and then cut to another... or back. The story wasn't the issue, for me, it was the editing. But, again, this will likely not bother me as much during subsequent viewings, since I'll expect it. 

Point #7

Was Luke ever funny? No. So why now? (Tyler says, "People change, you know." That's true.) Did it bother me while watching the film? No. But in digesting what I watched, it was something that I realized didn't feel right.

Point #8

Okay, Threepio was perfectly fine. Next issue...

Point #9

Gleeson's portayal of General Hux, in The Force Awakens, is one of my least favourite aspects of that film. Rian Johnson may have felt that way, too, as he ended up making Hux a doofus. Do I prefer TLJ Hux to TFA Hux? Definitely. But did it feel right? No. It felt out of place. I expected one thing, and got something decidedly different, for no apparent reason.

CONCLUSION

At this time, I'd give the movie a 7/10. There were some great moments, some good laughs, and even a couple of emotional moments. For me, it just needs time, and a chance to simmer in my brain for a while. At least my expectations will no longer play a role in how my brain processes the film.

Maybe, like Empire and Jedi, we need to see Episode IX to find out that The Last Jedi was exactly the middle movie that it needed to be.

It has the potential to be an 8, maybe even a 9.