The Last Jedi - Why I Loved It

hey there i'm stephan and welcome to my channel that may have an uploaded videos in for like about a year you ready for a really long video about a movie i like again because i decided i really want to talk about how much i enjoyed the last jedi and you know judging by all these people who watch this video apparently other people want to see more videos like that too so i guess it all works out now this isn't necessarily to devalue other people's criticism of the film i'll address the most popular critiques of the film here and there but i mostly want to get my perspective on the why i personally really enjoyed this film if you love it too then this may just be a video where you sit back and agree with me and maybe find new things to appreciate if you didn't enjoy it you may find this to me a non-judgmental space where you can maybe learn why someone might like it so much well let me clarify if you're the kind of person who decided that it was your job to go and harass the people who made this movie because they made a Star Wars movie didn't like you're a [ __ ] child and a bad person okay everyone else though you can stick around you don't have to like the movie to watch this video I'm just gonna explain why I did and if you didn't like it that's fine I assume a lot of people who really meet the movie though will let me know whether I want them to or not so all that said I'm gonna say right off the bat the film is not flawless I don't believe a perfect film can even exist entertainment is too subjective of a medium for that to be realistically possible I've never seen a film I couldn't see flaws and no matter how much I enjoyed them so this isn't a video what's happening to ignore the fact that the film is flaws as all films do but to discuss the positive aspects that supersede most of those flaws for many viewers so all that said let's put the film into context before jumping into it the last Jedi is a movie that has been ridiculously hyped not as much as the force awakens was but arguably there's just as much pressure for this film as there was for the previous entry the force awakens had the job of reintroducing us to the Star Wars universe something I'd say it did really well yes it was intentionally and obviously drawing heavy inspiration from the original Star Wars trilogy for many of its aspects and especially its story structure but that kind of broad appeal is exactly what I'd argue was needed to get people excited about Star Wars again for those new to the franchise it was intended to evoke a similar feeling to how the original Star Wars made people feel in 1977 and for longtime fans it was mostly meant to just be a nostalgia trip for both however it also needed to create something to make look forward to what came next and for most people in the audience it seems like it succeeded hell even a few very loud people who hated it with a burning passion seem to have an unhealthy interest in both it and the following film personally while I really enjoyed myself watching the force awakens I was also genuinely worried that the next film would try to play things by the numbers too closely and that we'd be set up for an extremely predictable third film and finale and the movie we got the film opens with a somewhat superfluous text coral this time around which may seem like a complaint but I actually don't mind this at all you could just cut it so that the force awakens in the last Jedi where one big long movie and you'd still understand what was happening here the format of the main line Star Wars series demands the text Karla's you know basically tradition and in doing so it allows you to basically develop characters and plots off screen which can be a bit of a storytelling cheat for instance I was always a little disappointed that Luke went from headstrong apprentice to Jedi Master and basically a blink of an eye between films so given that I appreciate that in this case we're getting a fairly linear path from the previous film to this one however as much as I like that on one level it creates some small problems which I will discuss later so moving past the tech scroll we see the rebels sorry the resistance wait no actually let's just stop here for a moment because this is sort of a problem that's transferred from the force awakens onto this film the force awakens understandably given the poor execution of this in the prequels tries to avoid discussing the political landscape of Star Wars as much as possible however in doing this we're basically left in the dark about what the dynamic was between the resistance the New Republic and the first-order I mean you can you can Intuit basically what the dynamic is between the resistance in the first order specifically well then everybody was basically confused about how the New Republic fits into that unless they decided to read the extend the universe novels but that's not something that should be required to understand the film I wish they had added some sort of scene that made it clear that the resistance was not a part of the New Republic officially Leia went off and made that on her own because the New Republic wasn't taking the first-order seriously unfortunately that didn't happen and they couldn't really fix that in the last Jedi so we're just sort of stuck in this area but since those are the only two factions now since the newer public was destroyed in the previous film I guess whatever as it stands now basically the resistance in the rebellion are the same thing and even this movie thinks that they're basically the same thing so we open on the resistance playing the base we saw them at in the previous film as they're about to be attacked by the first order from here we get into a big ol action sequence that starts with Poe Dameron clowning on general Hux from the previous film which I seen people take issue with but I'm not exactly sure why my guess is they see him as a Tarkin substitute and therefore don't want him to be diminished as a menacing presence but he's barely in the previous film and in this film he's portrayed far more as a spineless toady than anything resembling the Menace of kylo Ren I mean look at this dude his face is all twisted up like he's constantly smelling a nasty fart I don't feel we're undermining some big dominating presence by clowning on him but this brings me to a broader critique that I don't get from the detractors at all people who think the humor in this movie is just too silly for Star Wars which is just I mean it's an odd thing to say if you're a fan of the original trilogy we're fine we're all fine [Music] Star Wars has always spent a significant portion of his runtime on goofiness and jokes in order to keep people and mostly children engage this is nothing new if you don't like this humor that's perfectly fine comedy is in my opinion as subjective itself it can get but claiming that it's not appropriate to the tone of Star Wars is just I'll say it is straight-up incorrect anyway let's get into discussing the action in the sequence which I really love in fact this film has my favorite action in the entire franchise in the force awakens they call Poe an amazing pilot and stuff and they really tried to sell that but it didn't quite succeed for me in this movie however I bought for the first time that Poe is is supremely talented pilot because I really saw it and got that sense in this first scene I don't see many complaints about the action in this movie either so I don't think it's all that controversial to praise that in the grand scheme of things and within this big ol action sequence we get Poe destroying some cannons on a huge ship called the dread-nots so that it can't use them to attack the bomber ships that are coming in and Poe ignores Leah's order to pull out of the fight determined to take the dread-nots down this leads us into a bomber run sequence which is very classic Star Wars with the world war 2 influence in the visual of the bombs falling and it doesn't make much sense in space since you know obviously there's no gravity but it's Star Wars and Star Wars has never seemed to care much about how space works so in terms of filmmaking for Star Wars effective visuals come before making things make sense in space it's also a genuinely sobering scene for me to see Leia distraught as soldier after soldier dies especially as we focus on the death of we later learn is Rose's sister in this one sequence to me made a point about the cost of war far more deftly and succinctly than rogue one but full disclosure I hate rogue one I really did not enjoy that movie and I don't want to be too negative in this video so I will not get into that this is a positive space mostly it also like that we even get a small glimpse into the last moments of the first-order commander as he comes to terms with his own death this sequence establishes in your mind the consequences of war and death right off the bat and it's not even that crazy for Star Wars to cover that topic seeing as do you remember dak in the Empire Strikes Back right now I feel like I take on the whole empire myself yeah you go dak you could take on the up Oh nope oh alright I guess I guess he's dead oh and oh my god all right well I'd by deck you [Music] now something you're gonna notice as we continue on is that I'm not gonna cover every single point you're in there I'm going to cover a lot because there's a lot I want to talk about but not everything needs to be covered so a lot of them just gonna gloss over for instance this part where Huck skates melee ated and then this whole scene was Finn waking up and all that I I'll touch on it like I just did but there's not much to say about it at the moment so I won't I will say however that this transition is frickin great and this is where we get to the begin the huge sticking point for people in the movie Luke is a grump in this movie he's not obi-wan he's not Yoda he's an old jaded sad man isolating himself for what he believes is the good of the galaxy a lot of people take exception to this they hate how this is how Luke is portrayed and they blame Rian Johnson for destroying their hero now obviously give me my feelings for this film I don't agree that it was a bad choice but let's assume that it is for a moment if you follow the logic the person who you should be mad at here isn't necessarily Rian Johnson all right let's break it down Luke is on this island because he believes that Jedi are bad for the galaxy I need to be allowed to die and not create more problems he believes us so strongly he's closed himself off to the force itself so if you have a problem with this I have to ask what's the alternative here no matter what with this movie Luke being on the island and people needing to find him was the premise of the previous film given that info what reason were they supposed to give for him being on this island is he hiding if so that would make him cowardly and Luke being a coward is far more out of character than becoming disillusioned the first order wasn't even in power when he went away so there's nothing to hide from really is he supposed to just be bummed about kylo Ren well he is but if that were the only reason then him just sulking instead of trying to address the problem and fix his mistakes would also be unacceptable and what is he supposed to be ignoring the first order and the ones in death and destruction they've been causing ignore the death of his best friend in the previous film if he were connected to the force he would have sensed both of those things and likely tried to help if he thought he could is he being held there against his will I mean if that were the case that would make him a pretty weak and ineffective Jedi wouldn't it he could use the Force to call there for help at any time if you really wanted to so that's just not an option worth considering boring given all that he has to be closed up from the force otherwise he'll have either been callous or cowardly to not come help at any point and he needs a good reason to do that the only conceivable reason for that to be the case would be if he saw his use of the horse as a negative and his own intervention on the galaxy's behalf also as a negative so all I said if you truly believe that it's wrong for Luke to be the way he is in this film your problem isn't really with this movie it's with the decision at the start to have Luke be missing in the first place the decision Rian Johnson was given the responsibility to explain JJ Abrams and Lawrence Kasdan chose to include this mystery in the film with the hand he was given Rian Johnson created the only story you could tell all maintaining Luke status as hero nether that's all the way I'm gonna talk about how I really enjoy the portrayal of Luke in this film it's not a retread of Yoda or Obi one or qui-gon as far as he had a character it's an extremely Mark Hamill take on an old jaded Luke it's new ground for the role of mentor in Star Wars as well as new ground for Luke himself which I'll remind you we haven't seen in 30 years that's 30 years of off screen development of his character also on a personal note I just got a thing for grumpy old mentors it's a trope that almost never fails to be fun for me the more sarcastic the better and Luke in this movie is plenty sarcastic and I love it and another great transition weight wears on they did the same trick twice but it works so good both times that I really don't care and let me just say before we move on that I absolutely love Hamels performance of that line you could tell just by how he says it that he knows what the answer is and he's scared to hear the answer next we get our very first scene with kylo Ren in it Snoke it's on something that I believe is a fairly subtle through line throughout the film he talks about the potential of Carlos bloodline and about making him into a new Vader and whatnot and I'll touch on the bloodline stuff later but for now keeping in mind the scene is our very first glimpse that Snoke in the flesh as well as his fabulous gown that he's wearing I actually really like it and he's a pretty great visual effects feat the fact they're not even a fabric here is real is really impressive because all looks great but the real crux of the scene is establishing that kylo is suffering internally after killing Han you thought it would finally remove his inner turmoil and conflict but it just made things more chaotic inside it's a great humanizing touch to add the easy choice would have been to just establish him as thoroughly evil from here on out but retaining and injecting complexity into his character was really the better option here this all culminates in Snoke to writing kylo first pathetic attempt to mimic Vader with his mask and kylo taking the insult to heart and destroying the mask another decision I completely agree with as the mask is unsuited for a character with as much humanity is rent being able to look at his face to take advantage of atom drivers acting ability is important in this film and probably in the future as well we pick back up with Luke refusing to go with Rey alluding to mysterious reasons as to why and then we get a montage of Luke's daily routine Rey gets distracted and discovers a force tree thing and then has another talk with Luke in which we get this bit who are you from no what no one's from no Jack alright that is pretty much nowhere just keep that in mind for later as well I'm gonna come back to it he also mentions that the Jedi need to die but has not explained why yet we go from there to Leia demoting Poe and chastising him for getting so many resistance fighters killed from there we said if the beacon Rey will use to find them and then the first order tracking him through Lightspeed then kylo Ren flies out basically does the same thing Poe did to the order at the beginning in the film taking out their only means of defending themselves with the X wakes and we get a great emotional sequence where kylo Ren and Leia feel each other's presence and kylo Ren hesitates and killing her and decides he won't kill his like he did his father and I really enjoy that decision it would have been redundant to have him do it again and it's far more interesting for him to refuse and it gives you that small hope that he could redeem himself before they snatch it away later in the movie and then we get a sequence in which we see lay I used the force for the first and sadly only time some people disliked the sequence but from my first viewing I absolutely loved it and a not insignificant portion of that was hearing Laius theme as full splendour in the background John Williams did an amazing job at the music in this movie unsurprising to anybody who's heard John Williams's music Luke mentioned in Return of the Jedi that lay I would use the force eventually and I'm really happy we got to see it happening before we unfortunately lost Carrie Fisher Lana frankly was sidelined in the previous film and I think it's safe to say that giving her more time to shine is a positive in any fans book we come back to Luke to give us some time with him in the Falcon one last time it's real really great sequence and I absolutely love how he just lights up and Kent Herbert's back to his old self for a short amount of time when he sees our - again my only complaint here is that it really makes me wish we had gotten more of him interacting with our - in the movie I enjoy all the scenes that he and Wright share together but our two just hanging out with them similar to how he did in Dagobah little bit all nice I mean maybe even some more interactions between Chewie and r2 as well as much as I don't mind the ports I would prefer that double act if we wanted some comedy speaking of the Borges I'm just gonna go back role bit this is probably the funniest gag with the pores in the movie where chewy has cooked them and then they're all looking at the cooked pork for a second I thought he was going to actually feed a pork to the porks instead he just felt guilty about eating them which that's a that's a good gag and you know mixing your chili [Music] going back to the actual scene are to shamelessly manipulates Luke's emotions and the audience's emotions with a distress signal from the original Star Wars film and in doing so commences Luke to teach Trey the basics of the forest and why the Jedi need to end next comes another controversial point in the film Admiral hold up I enjoyed her character in this film this is another critique I don't fully understand at least when it comes to the character itself I've seen people say that it should have been Admiral Ackbar which is know like seriously the vast majority of audience members would not have been able to take that seriously I wouldn't be able to take that seriously not even a little bit Akbar is a gag character at best at this point whole dough can actually emote and speak like a human being and give an actual performance while Akbar's character is limited and his voice precludes him from doing anything serious regardless of the talent of the voice actor also anyone who thinks that a legacy character should have filled this role clearly doesn't understand what the role is meant to be because you're not supposed to trust hold oh the first time you see her that's why it's valuable to make her a brand new character because you don't know her you know po-po is one of the heroes of the previous film therefore you trust him you don't trust her and it sets you up for the twist of him being completely wrong to do this super heroic guns blazing thing it's a very intentional storytelling decision and the fact that people were saying oh well this established character should have been here this established character should have been here shows that they don't actually understand what was happening from a storytelling perspective now this may be a good time to actually discuss Poe's character arc I really like it there's a few small issues at the end but as an arc I definitely appreciate taking the traditionally heroic character and forcing them to deal with the realities of leadership and the issues of being a shoot first ask questions later sort of character say what you want but Poe has a very definitive arc in this film that makes me believe that he could be leading the entire resistance next time we see him as long as we ignore the fact that he probably should have been executed at some point but ley is obviously playing favorites and treats them a bit like a surrogate son so I'll let that logical loophole slide let's just say that Leia is biased which she is remember this line hate you they should not be saying that but obviously they just like them so they're just gonna let him get away with it it's not fair but it does explain it back to the actual point the movie Ren PO gets put in his place by hold oh right away which I imagine causes a lot of audience members to immediately rally against her because generally people already like PO this like I already said was a very conscious decision and meant to set you up for having the rug pulled out from under you when you realize pose heroics were exactly what hold Oh calls them out for your impulsive dangerous the last thing we need right now meanwhile we cut a fan getting ready to abandon ship he wants to take the beacon ray will use to find them away from the ship as it seems doomed and he doesn't want her or let's be honest himself to die in the force awakens Finn found someone to fight for in Rey however he never seemed to have any loyalty to the resistance itself he somewhat tricked them into saving her in fact in this film he goes from just having someone to fight for to having something to fight for Finn still freshly escaped from the first order all he wanted was to be away from them he sidetracked that for Rey but he hasn't been given any reason to help the resistance throughout this film he's shown the value of helping not just the people he cares about but strangers as well people he doesn't know who need his help regardless and that's really what the plotline between him and Rose is all about the value of helping those in need and the ripple effect that creates it also provides a much needed change of location the a plot is on secluded Island with water rocks and grass kind of boring if you don't go elsewhere the B plug is on a monochromatic spaceship in which death seems inevitable and that's just a total downer this let's say C plot takes us to a colorful vibrant space casino which provides a lot more lighthearted adventure than the rest of what's happening now is that a little a tonal yeah there's a running clock and the characters are goofing off a bit but it's pretty short and frankly there's not much better options in this scenario I think they picked the lesser of two evils here and even so I still think the sequence in canto bite isn't we're all fun and engaging there is a problem with it but I'll get into that later because it's not really a writing problem as much as an editing problem also John Williams is jazzy kind of Caribbean sounding theme for the casino is just one I kind of skipped ahead of it there so let's go back to roses introduction Rose is a good character in the third act being perfectly honest I think she got mishandled but at heart her character is a perfectly good addition to the cast for the vast majority of the film she's unique in the Star Wars world and that she's not much of a fighter as she is an engineer something I liked but then they also again kind of muddled a bit at the end when she's in a fighter for no reason but let's say they're under stash hopefully she isn't doing a whole lot of fighting next movie because I think it's great to have a not combative character in Star Wars that isn't the Droid but as someone whose strengths aren't in fighting she idolizes the people who fight for the cause including Finn when they first meet she quickly realizes he's attempting to escape however and that respect goes down the toilet for a bit which is good because fangirl rose for the entirety of the film would have been pretty annoying together those who come up with a plan to possibly save the ship and Finn takes it to the only person he knows in the resistance who is conscious poe who makes the decision to keep this from whole dough which after you see the entire film is a terrible decision they end up hanging for Maz Kanata points them in direction of the master code breaker who Rose and Finn head out to find then we get probably the most novel narrative and filmmaking choice in my view the shared visions between Rey and kylo Ren this is an absolutely novel way to ensure that Rey and Ren have an evolving relationship over the course of the film even though they don't interact with each other physically they barely know each other at the end of the force awakens the first meet at the end of the second act but over the course of this film they're interacting from the beginning of a second act all the way to the end of the third act and Johnson hasn't gotten enough credit for the seemingly small and simple decision and just as a catch-all for people complaining about this stuff that's new in terms of force powers let's keep in mind that Jedi couldn't move stuff with their minds until Luke suddenly decided he could do it in Empire so for every single one of these scenes Rian Johnson made sure these two actors were acting against each other on an actual set even though they're never seen in the same shot together and that's a fantastic choice for getting the best out of their performers a director not warring as much about that could have just had someone reading the lines back to them dispassionately instead and not spent the time and money on making sure they were really interacting and I appreciate the extra care taken into making sure that these two acted the best they could the decision to have us not see what they see as well as a pretty great one but the majority of these scenes is just cross-cutting to imply the connection and extremely effective I also like kylo ren's calm inquisitive curiosity about what's happening as a student the force is probably more rare for him to run into something he doesn't understand while Rey might just assume that it happens to most force-sensitive people as she's still new to it following this we get one of my favorite things about the film the exploration of what the force actually is this is our first real exploration the force since Yoda talked about a vaguely on Dagobah back in Empire and here we get a similarly mystical but also a bit more substantial explanation that draws from East Asian philosophy as most force related things have always done we also get this bit I really like sarcastic Luke in this new explanation the force becomes more explicitly a parallel to the idea of yin and Yan interestingly here Luke says that the force is balanced and obviously accepts that but he still holds the Jedi idea that the light side is all you should strive to explore I'm not sure where we'll end up landing when it comes to this episode and I might potentially explore this though with JJ Abrams directing again I'm not sure that'll happen but it seems to me that strict adherence to light or dark might be the biggest problem in the Star Wars universe that even Luke can't see but again I'll get into that later there's a lot of things I'm gonna discuss later so I apologize for that but eventually we get to it this scene is also where we discover Luke has closed himself off from the force after another small tantalizing bit of dialogue between ray and kylo nikomia monster yes we follow Finn and Rose to Kanto bite where we see the one thing above all else that led to their plan failing I find this kind of funny but it also plays to the theme Rose and Finn impulsively just parked at the first place they found to run into the casino instead of taking the time to follow the rules so they could simply get off the planet with the guy they needed had they parked somewhere appropriate the plan might have actually succeeded ill-conceived as it was but with the best intentions Finn and Rose were too impatient to do things right also here is where we get a bit of social commentary showing the hierarchy of life on Kanto bite and the exploitation that comes with all the glitz and glamour of the casino now your appetite for the social commentary will vary this lines a very well my own personal beliefs concerning things like the wealth gap and whatnot but I'll avoid going too deep into the right now I mainly just want to say that both this here and the moment where they discuss war profiteering in the Star Wars universe were very compelling to me and I'd love to see this explored further in Rian Johnson's own Star Wars trilogy in the future next up we get Rey messing around with her lightsaber basically explaining by her staff why she's already pretty good with one and didn't need to be trained physically in this film or the previous film and then we get the deepest cut into the Jedi from Luke one that rings true is on a fairly objective level legacy the Jedi is failure also you get a little bit of insight into maybe why Rey does what she does in the third act beyond just wanting to help kylo Ren you believe that he wasn't gone that he could be turned and I became a legend put simply Rey wants to be special she needs to be special this was established in the force awakens she obviously even by the end of that film doesn't know any big secret about herself she just know she was abandoned but she was raised on the story of Luke Skywalker with a secret parentage and ties to an ancient order of warriors she like lots of people probably spent 12 years of her life hoping beyond hope that she was destined for greatness she was surrounded by a world that didn't care about her forced to participate in a junker economy that forced her worked for portions of food and made upward advancement impossible her only way out was hoping someone would come and save her from being herself look at her face when Luke says he became a legend and keep that in mind for later also this [Music] another mention of the Skywalker bloodline keep it in the back your mind we soon get a flashback of everything that went wrong with Ben's solo and Mark Hamill's performance here is just great I mean he doesn't great job this attack film but this is also this is one of the good moments next we get a grim poor shadowing of Admiral Hall those eventual fate and reminder of what's at stake for the resistance also even they refer to themselves as rebels which I find kind of funny but some people for some reason took exception to his use of God's speed instead of may the force be with you but frankly out of all then it picks that one is the dumbest like is there only one possible line they could use in all situations that's absolutely ridiculous anyway let's move on we come back to FID and rows in a Cell and were introduced to deejay played by Benicio del Toro in nearly every way his character is meant to evoke Han soul basically tricking the audience into trusting him in play because of what they experienced in previous films I'll discuss why near the end this is also where we get the big chase scene with the puppy horses and at this point I think I understand what the real issue is with these scenes for some people people seem to feel this stuff is too long and wish stuff had been cut out but I'm really not sure cutting scenes is actually the solution in this case in fact Kanto bite is already really streamlined all things considered if any one of these scenes were cut important stuff later would be completely messed up however the issue with these sequences for many people is real and there's a more subtle problem at play here the Kanto bites stuff and this sequence more specifically probably needed a break between different sections specifically I think there should have been a scene between this scene what's your story well in this stuff of the puppy horses but that small change this subplot likely would have felt a lot better for people and they wouldn't have complained anywhere near as harshly about it I think this is a scenario where a lot of people know how they feel about something but as is often the case when someone doesn't know anything about filmmaking misdiagnose a situation I'd likely put the next sequel to rain kylo Ren bond in between these two sections the one where kayo kind of convinces ready to go look in the darkside hole and then when Finn and Rose end up having to go with DJ cut back to Rey doing the trippy force mirror stuff that may have fixed the pacing issues people have this section to a decent extent though I can understand why they also may not have one to cut this next sequence in half but that may have been the lesser two evils in this case though to be completely and totally fair I'm saying this at hindsight and different people will have different opinions on how this should have been cut so that's it's not objective and for all I know it actually would have lost something by cutting up that sequence with Rey and this was the lesser of two evils I can't really know because I haven't read ative and watched the entire film myself and I'll never be able to watch with fresh eyes anyway so I'll never really know and neither will anyone else so again this is not an objective thing that they should have done it's just something I think they could have done that might have mitigated the criticism of this section in particular but I could be wrong speaking of all that next we get a scene where Luke opens himself back up to the force and instantly he and Leia feel each other's presence then we at kylo Ren I'm right talking again and this conversation is by far my favorite one no not because of that because of this why did you hate go Father give me an honest answer I didn't hate him I really love this line there's so many implications in it that are just really interesting to unpack it's easy to assume even with kylo Ren obviously being torn up about killing Han that at least on some level he resented or hated Han but here he just straight-up says he didn't hate him he knew he loved his father and in his mind killing him was making the ultimate sacrifice for the dark side he was giving up something he cared about because somewhere in his twisted psyche he believed it was the right thing to do and now is as good a time as any to address this but the pastime kill it if you have two people have been staking we thought that what kylo ren's says here is what Rian Johnson is saying needs to happen to the franchise but the only way you can truly believe that is if you're not taking the entire context of the film into consideration remember this is the villain saying this and here's something else to chew on Luke and kylo Ren are telling Rey the same thing they are both telling rights who let the past die though kylos you know more aggressive about it they believe this for different reasons but in the end both of them are revealed to be wrong remember what Luke harps on with the force balance on one end of Luke and kylo demanding an end to everything Rey idolizes and on the other end you have Rey and Poe idolizing the past so much that they set up to do things just like in the stories they love and this also proves to be a mistake the balance between those two things is to acknowledge and at times indulge in what you used to love about Star Wars but to also make sure to create something new and exciting from that love build upon it rather than mimic it that's assuming that there was any meta commentary intended at all which it's very likely that there wasn't any and it just sort of came across that way anyway I should just make a general statement about that real quick everything I'm talking about here everything I'm saying about like deeper meaning it's in this movie and all that stuff I am not in any way claiming that that was the intent of the writing of Rian Johnson this is just what I see in the story and what I get out of it and it should never be misconstrued as a declaration of intent anyway let's move on we get another flashback from kylo Ren's perspective ren claims Luke attempted to murder him Rey refuses to believe him but finds herself drawn to a tribute looking for answers that she wants this sequence is obviously reminiscent of the cave on Dagobah that Yoda sent Luke to though I really like that it's less obvious in its messaging unlike the pretty blatant visual metaphor of Luke destroying himself if he destroys Vader you could define numerous meanings from this visual it's very vague and it really helps to feel mystical and mysterious to me it's like it took a page out of the George RR Martin's school of magic visions and prophecies from here we get the bit where Rey and kylo Ren truly bond and touch hands and we finally see them on screen at the same time which is just great visual storytelling in this shot of Luke blasting apart the hut is just awesome and they did it practically which makes it even more cool from here ray and Luke clash let me get a fuller picture of what happened to Luke and Ben solo with Luke's second flashback where he stops leaving out parts and now is when I'm going to note that they filmed the stuff three different times depending on what the person talked him to Rey was saying which is a very nice touch I'll also discuss the fact that for many people this is their biggest problem with Luke's character in the film and while I don't intend to tell people that they're wrong for feeling that way I will explain why it doesn't bug me frankly it doesn't bug me mostly because I find it interesting for a Luke to have made this mistake you can hear the noises representing what Luke sees in Ben's mind right here and given how this role we've seen raised visions be it's not that crazy to think that someone's seeing death and destruction that viscerally someone who's already experienced war and death and may not want to experience it again could decide that there's only one answer Luke wouldn't have actually killed him as we see him is telling but for the small moment he considered it and if snow was already twisting Ben's mind how this could just confirm everything Snoke said to him is pretty obvious from here ray decides that she's gonna do what Luke did for Vader and turned Ben's solo to the light side Luke may have been brought down in her mind but she's still trying to live out the story that she loves use it to bring meaning to her life Luke is even more convinced that he and the Jedi just create problems he goes to burn down the tree with all the books in it but his dates Yoda shows up and burns the books for him again this could and has been taken as Yoda believing that you need to destroy the past as well but if you pay attention to his words you get a different message now let me just say that this was my favorite scene in the theater by far it was a complete surprise for me and I was really happy to see Luke and Yoda talking one last time Yoda giving Lucas final lesson on what you have lend strength mastery failure also yes failure most of all the greatest teacher failure Luke saw his failure and the failure of his predecessors as a condemnation of everything that Jedi ever taught and in doing so attempted to throw out all the good that the Jedi have done as well you didn't burn the tree because the past needs to be destroyed he burned it because Luke was obsessed with the past and burning the tree is a symbolic removal of that obsession the film lands on the idea that is important to teach the next generation how you and those before you failed so that they don't make the same mistakes you did repack what they grow beyond Luke's arc is all about how he failed in being a teacher and just gave up which when you think about it is completely within his character Luke was never perfect one of his biggest character flaws was giving up too quickly when he couldn't see a road to success the impossible one he overcomes by the end of this film next we get a sequence where we see a bit more of DJ who refuses to help without being given something in return that's something being roses necklace left to her by her sister who died literally hours before DJ then shows Finn the tenants of his own philosophy he believes there's no difference between the good guys and the bad guys he's a full-on moral relativist obviously the film does not agree with this either given DJ's eventual reveal as a traitor and of course you know the fact that his star wars next one get a scene where Poe confronts hold oh and in doing so finds out that she's fueling the small transport ships and he misunderstands her plan now this is usually when people ask why didn't she tell Poe her plan from the beginning well that's why they didn't know how they were being tracked through light speed because pote decided not to tell hold oh you know like an idiot so as far as she knew there was a spy in the resistance and from hold O's perspective it could easily be the guy who got their entire bomber fleet wiped out or someone the obviously impulsive guy might tell which is why even when he incorrectly interprets her plan it's still in her best interest to not tell him what it actually is now why Poe wasn't thrown in the brig after discovering the plan is something worth bringing up that's an epic I can absolutely agree with he should have been locked up immediately but since I like the majority what's going on here I am to be perfectly honest overlooking that as we do with all movies we like and if you say you don't do that with movies that you like either you don't like any movies because they're all flawed in some way or you're lying in which case stop it ray decides to have herself captured intentionally again outright mimicking Luke's decisions in Return of the Jedi meanwhile Finn and Rose break into the destroyer and Poe does a mutiny and we get probably the best joke in the film while Finn and Rose sneak into the destroyer Rey is brought to Snoke and DJ chooses to show a bit of his humanity [Music] and for the record here I don't think this is a trick or anything right now DJ thinks that everything's going smoothly PJ isn't a monster he's just a guy who will look out for himself first and foremost he saw the medallion was important to Rose and already found plenty of money on that ship he stole not to mention the stuff that Laura Belle Ian was about to pay him and he probably figured that it meant more to her than it ever would to him it's not like it looks expensive or anything so yeah I think he just honestly did a nice thing here because he wanted to Plus you know it does the obvious narrative thing of making you think oh he's like a han Solo guy and then like nope he betrays everybody because he has no loyalties so you know it's a twofer adding some depth of the character and misdirect in the audience meanwhile whole dough shows off why she's Admiral by seizing the first opportunity to foil Poe's mutiny I also like how c-3po refers to the mutiny as quote-unquote not correct protocol though small side note I wish they'd kept his right arm no particular reason I just liked it and of course fin and Rosa's plan fails when Captain phasma keeps them from even approaching the flux capacitor thing they were using to track ships also do not mess with Leia Organa then they load the transport ships and whole doe stays behind to pilot the ship while everyone else escapes now as for why they didn't just have a droid do it first off rude obviously droids are sentient beings so don't be racist secondly the captain always goes down with their ship thirdly here's a real point in the very first Star Wars film ever made it was established that life signs could be read inside ships and escape pods there goes another one hold your fire there's no life-forms it lets a short-circuited if they couldn't read life signs on the ship they'd notice that there was a problem and find the transports I just out and it picked your nitpick so there and now we return to tangent town with me the guy who goes on tangents as Snoke meets ray darkness Rises night this line is extremely interesting to me ever since the prequels we've heard talk of balancing the force and in the prequels it didn't really make much sense because the Jedi knew that they outnumber the SIP and therefore they should have known that balancing the force would ultimately mean less Jedi but anyway here I get the implication that the force is kind of always going to balance itself between light and dark and I find that very interesting and it got me thinking specifically it got me thinking about the famous rule of two that the Sith had why only limit yourself to a master and an apprentice when the Jedi trained a bajillion other Jedi constantly people have always said it's because there's always infighting that tore them apart but I find that explanation pretty weak however try this one on for size they stick to the rule of two because it makes them stronger think about it why was Darth Sidious so much more powerful than any individual Jedi in the Jedi Order including Yoda powerful enough to be able to cloud their sight and keep himself hidden from them when he was literally right in front of them well let's consider what balance means in order for something to be balanced they need to be equal and if people harnessing the dark and light sides of the force are unequal in number how would the force balance itself my theory the Sith discovered that the more apprentices they trained the less powerful they themselves became because they would basically be giving some of their share of the dark side to those apprentices so when the Jedi Order trains hundreds of Jedi to use the light side and the Sith only trained a handful the syph get more power on an individual level more easily and it also explains why rey is so powerful in the force so quickly and for that matter why Luke was with very little training as well it really goes a long way to explain things that don't necessarily need to be explained but are fun to think about gonna speed things up now as I've talked about most of the big topics I wanted to get to at this point Snoke tortures Rey the resistance begins to escape and DJed betrays Finn Andros and fun fact about this moment you're wrong maybe that is such a good line and it was not in the script apparently Benicio del Toro brought it to Ryan Johnson and they just went with it and I'd like to take a moment to note how I really liked Benicio Del Toro's acting here DJ isn't being villainous he isn't being like ha ha ha I got you he's ashamed of himself he actually feels bad because he likes these people and I like that touch to his character I'd like to see the character come back so the resistance begins getting blown up as a result and IDO I guess if Rose and Finn keep this to themselves nobody has to know that it was them imposed fault that so many people died I don't know maybe they just didn't tell anybody I wouldn't after this we get the big scene where snow gloats and tells kylo ben to kill ray and kylo instead in a very clever sequence tricks smoke into allowing himself to be murdered instead this erroneously of course comes across as Ben being redeemed but it's more complicated than that I know some people have a problem with Snoke not being quote-unquote explained here but I'll be honest I just don't care about that not even a little bit it was never set up as some big mystery that needed solving and I see no reason to get hung up on it let's go ahead and talk about this fight scene now this is the best bit of combat in Star Wars we've gotten this far the original trilogy focused more on emotion than action and the prequels had mostly just over choreographed fights outside of it's still very good duel of faith sequence but here we get a generally inventive and fun fight sequence India people point out that a dagger disappears in the middle of this shot here which again I don't care why would you care that's like pointing out a continuity error between shots in a film it's not detrimental to the viewing experience unless you go out of your way to look for it and it definitely doesn't affect how good the choreography and the scene as a whole is it's such a weird thing to bring up and use to devalue an entire action sequence that one really gets to because it's like it's one shot it doesn't actually matter and it doesn't devalue an entire sequence made up of many shots that together create something worth more than a single shot could ever be worth you know that's that's what a movie is so yeah that's really annoying to me anyway after all the guards are dead we get the reveal Ben has no intention of switching sides he was just seizing power and then we get another bombshell do you want to know the truth about your parents there would nobody there are filthy junk treasures showed you want for drinking money raid doesn't have any special lineage she doesn't have special Skywalker jeans or Kenobi blood she's not a virgin birth she's not the chosen one she's just right and as ryan johnson noted in the commentary for this film this is the worst possible news for Rey to get for Luke finding out the father he thought was a virtuous hero was actually the evil man who killed obi-wan Kenobi was the worst possible thing he could hear for Rey it's just finding out that there's nothing about her past that makes her special you have no place in this story you come from nothing you're nothing the stories told ray that she could only be special if she was like a secret Skywalker or something else something had to make her special of course we know that Rey is special we're watching her movie she's the hero and not having special parents doesn't change that and that's really such a positive turn for this to take and the only one I personally was ever going to be satisfied with no matter what it would be disappointing for her to simply be yet another Skywalker not to mention it would raise serious moral questions about whomever left her to be a wage slave for a criminal like unkar plutt above all else if luke skywalker had done that and that would be what would ruin him for me but this is a story about a relatively normal person a nobody and I just I really like that Rain Man clash and everything comes to a head when holder uses Lightspeed to cut through the first order fleet and now I guess I have to discuss them it picks about this actually one moment I recorded a whole big long explanation talking about how yeah this would be costly it would cost money it's a very specific thing look at the how the damage spreads out you had to make sure nothing was in your way you gotta make sure the aim was right all this stuff all the stuff explaining why this isn't you know a thing that you should nitpick but really how joyless and annoying do you have to be to see that and go that doesn't make sense we're watching Star Wars the entire point of Star Wars as George Lucas wanted to make a Flash Gordon with laser swords in Samurai have some fun and I said this was gonna be a judgment-free zone but I'm sorry I'm making an exception here learn to have fun if for some reason you hate this because no one's done it before Star Wars is not science fiction it's science fantasy embrace the fantasy or I don't know stop watches Star Wars because that's what it is ma'am anyway I said I'm sorry again that was a little judgy and I said I wouldn't be judgmental just I'm moving on now so now if Anna Rose have to make their escape and here's a serious complaint I actually have with a movie I don't like how quickly and easily phasma goes down here and this is a case where the original scene that was created for this film was way better than what we got the deleted scene has been dead to rights surrounded by stormtroopers awaiting phasma's command but finn calls phasma out when i put a gun to your head you shut down start killer shields the other troopers see phasma as a coward and we get this great moment where we see her basically shoot them all down like a sharpshooter cowboy when she sees them turning against her and then when it's down just finn in phasma we get that great rebel scum line and he manages to gun her down and defeat her that feels far more climactic and satisfying to me and I would have accepted that as her death as it stands the version in this film is less interesting and fairly disappointing for me unless she somehow survived that like she did Starkiller base if she did survive and we get a better story for her the next film I'll retract this complaint and I won't even ask how because again who cares so let's speed up again kylo Ren takes command as supreme leader and everybody has decreed for what I'm gonna call the fourth act of the film and I'm a little torn about this there's still another half hour of film up here and it does get a bit draining especially because the movie feels like it's had its climax I like a lot of stuff in this finale but part of me really wishes they'd found a way to simplify it and end it you know right about here and I'll also say that I understand people's problem with what comes up next the resistance does some action stuff to keep the laser battering-ram from knocking out the door pose show character growth by not risking his troops lives unnecessarily which is all great and it looks like Finn is going to sacrifice himself for the cause ROS rams into him and stops him from doing so and says this not fighting what we hate save what we love and then she kisses him and this all kind of comes out of nowhere and I'll give people this telling fin that sacrificing his life is bad after hold oh did something similar genuinely muddles the story and hurts the film I really think we could have done without this know there's a lot of good stuff in here they generally tricked me into thinking fin was about to die and that moment of suspense is very emotional and real but I don't think it's worth it when they end up confusing the issue and adding a new theme to the film in the final stretch there's probably something better they could have done here instead all that said let's get to the good stuff Luke's final stamp apparently people wanted more from this but really there's nothing more in character than Luke resolving a situation with non-violence he won in Return of the Jedi by throwing away his lightsaber after all and it's great that this facilitated a final scene with Luke and Leia and this line is just great strike me down and anger and I'll always be with you just like your father what I'm a little less certain about is Luke dyeing hair and I kind of say this for just selfish reasons to matically it makes complete sense for this to be where Luke says goodbye but on a personal level I loved Mark Hales performance so much that I desperately want to see more of it but on the other hand the binary sunset was such a wonderful idea so really I just hope we get to see Luke again in the form of force go stalking array in episode 9 just so we can get a bit more of him before really saying goodbye to the character for good especially with Carrie Fisher no longer being with us so ready lifts rocks and saves today Kyle gets Punk'd Finn has a new crush the resistance survives and we get a final moment where we see some slave kids Finn and Rose met inspired by them and the legend of Luke Skywalker and the film ends by basically telling the kids and the audience that they can be a Jedi too and what I loved when I have left the theater almost more than anything else is that I have absolutely no idea what's gonna happen in the next film there's potential for basically anything to happen I imagine the Knights of Ren should be involved though they're mentioned the force awakens at me we haven't seen anything about them so far so they should come back so you know put that on the wish list on a personal note while I noted how I enjoyed the through line between the force awakens in the last Jedi I hope the next film jumps forward in time like a few years I mean honestly they're probably gonna have to given the fact that they need to address the absence of Leia but this is a situation where so much has happened to these characters within what amounts to at most like a couple of weeks couple months it's really time to give them some room to breathe and I guess full disclosure I didn't even watch solo I wasn't interested in it and I'm actually glad that they're pulling back on some of the other you know Star Wars story films because again I was not interested in those films I want to move forward I don't want to move backwards but I'm still very excited for the future of Star Wars more excited than worried and if you didn't understand why before maybe you'll understand a little bit more now I mean I hope so I spent like eight hours straight writing this script when I wrote it and then I spent a really long time editing it all that to express why I love Star Wars the last Jedi and why I'm excited for what comes next so hopefully at this point even if you don't feel the same way you get why I do and that's really always trying to do here so hopefully I succeeded and I will end the video now that's it bye

Channel: undefined

Views: 665,308

Rating: 3.8271873 out of 5

Keywords: star wars, the last jedi, review, video essay, film, movie, luke skywalker, rey, mark hammil, daisy ridley, kylo ren, finn, poe dameron, episode 8, ep8, ep, trilogy, rian johnson, j. j. abrams, jj abrams, george lucas

Id: AOESuLUOk6g

Length: 48min 53sec (2933 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 11 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/1MNW35]

Enjoyed ! Thanks for posting and thanks to the dude who made it.