"The Last Jedi" Notes for a review.

I was going through some old notes and documents I'd set aside, and found some scribbled impressions of The Last Jedi. Suffice it to say that I wasn't too impressed with the film. Going to park them here, mostly to keep the blog (semi) alive.

1). Can’t anybody play this game?
The movie opens with the zany Republicans gettting hammered in a space battle. These people seem rather inept, leaving no fighter cover for their own fleet and sacrificing their bombers for no return.

Hurray! Finally, Admiral “It’s a trap!” Akbar finally gets killed off. He should have been fired three movies back.

Leia beaming from one ship to another like Star Trek? The force is strong in this one. Why do they even need spaceships? Leia as admiral? What precisely are her qualifications?

Laura Dern as admiral: waiting around for something to turn up. She’s not trying to nail down how the bad guys are tracking her fleet; nooooo, she just lets it get wiped out ship by ship. I know! Lets put all the personnel on transports, dump them on a planet conveniently in system where there’s this conveniently abandoned rebel base. (Does EVERY film have an “abandoned rebel base” – is there a real estate firm specializing in this??) Anyway, we’re going to dump them on this planet the First Order types are counted on to be too dumb to check out, cloaking devises or no, and sacrifice our last big warship. Good move!

Hair-brained scheme to break into the Imperial ship and find the tracker. Haven’t they got techs to clean their own house?

Then we have Rose Tico (Kelly Marie Tran). Fanatic admirer of Finn (John Boyega), a hero from an earlier film. Finn has more sense than anybody in the whole film. Things are going to pot all around him, and Finn’s gonna light out and find his friend Rey. But there we’ve got the fanatic Rose Tico, like a young Hitler Youth, zapping deserters like it’s Berlin ’45, which if there was any justice in the universe, for these people, it would be. The same people are deserting, because these people are clueless.

And they want Luke to come bail them out again?  Doesn’t this guy EVER catch a break? Going on 40 years now, this guy has been bailing the Republic/Resistance out of one disaster or another. How many death stars he gotta kill? Talk about a poster boy for PTSD. No wonder he wants self-imposed exile in paradise, specially since the screen-writers won’t ever let him have a love interest.

He’s also right about the Jedi. They’re nothing but trouble. They either go bad, or they’re so busy worrying about place settings and mumbo jumbo, as well as running their scam as the  Republic’s politburo that they are too stupid to spot the Sith Lord right in front of their faces. On the subject of Sith Lords, there’s all this nattering about the “balance in the Force.” Doesn’t that mean you’ve gotta have Siths as well as Jedi Knights? Naahh, these people are trouble.

The girl Jedi Rey is alternately too earnest or just irritating. She brings trouble to Skywalker, wrecks perfectly nice rocks and terrorizes the nice care-takers on Luke’s rock. Chewbacca smells up the place and eats birds. Then, R2D2, unfortunately given a bit part in favor of the bouncy ball robot, plays those old 45’s. Just get lost people, and leave Luke the hell alone.

2). The Republic/Resistance Sucks

What’s so great about this Republic or whatever that the rebels/resistance want to bring back? I mean, 40 years since they blew up the death star, 30 since they blew up the second death star and they still can’t manage to get anything constructive set up? Just more wars.

What do they want to restore anyway? The Republic where the Jedi Politburo were “guardians of peace” so guardian-like that they can’t spot a Sith Lord right in front of their faces? The Republic of the useless Senate and the Trade Federation. Woo, woo, what a great country.

Well, at least Ryn doesn’t have acne problems like Palpatine or Snoke, and he’s interesting for an imperial leader. Of course, there’s the whole kill Han the parent thing. But can you blame the guy for being pissed that when he woke up in the middle of the night, to find that his gaga, battle-fatigued Jedi Master was standing over him ready to kill him? Yeah, I’d burn the temple and go a little nuts too.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch (a/k/a abandoned rebel base) Finn actually has a plan. He’s gonna dive his rattle-trap scooter thing into the First Order/Imperials big “Death Star Tech” siege gun. That’s as good a plan as any, but along comes Hitler Youth Rose Tico to crash his ship out of the air “because we win with love not hate” or some such thing. Yeah, and the death star cannon survives to crack the abandoned rebel base like an egg.

No wonder no allies come. These guys are dummies. Wipe them out for God’s sake

But no such luck. Miracle escape at last on the Falcon. Notice Leia and the “spark” group of the resistance abandon the Poor Bloody Infantry at the end to escape in the Falcon? Woohoo, they miraculously get through the First Order Fleet! Free now to recruit another 100,000 suckers for the next installment of rebels vs. imperials.

Seriously, who is dumb enough to join up with these losers? The sheriff on whatever planet they wind up on ought to put them in the lockup.