I intend to keep my reviews short.
Last Jedi, the VIII installment in the Star Ward Saga will be difficult to reviewed in short. It is not a complex movie, it basically follows A New Hope formula, added bit of own twist and interpretation of things but watching it left a complex mixture of emotion within.
Last Jedi picks up where episode VII left us, which is not easy since I could hardly recall much from that installment. Generally, the villainous First Order is on the rise, the Republic has once again became the rebel resistance and being chase across the galaxy. Rey manage to locate Luke Skywalker but he is too occupied with guilt and self pity that he refuse to return to the battle. In the mean time, there is a side story about Kylo Ren/ Ben Solo inner struggle with the dark side. Though the movie hinted that there may be still spark of prodigal son in him, there is no-one else to pick up the villain role, so we can be assure that he will not be returning to the good side but will remain with the dark side. The show ended with the resistance being cornered in a planet, chased by Kylo Ren, and Luke came to save the day, which provide the resistance an escape route to continue the fight in episode IX.
The CGI is as expected, though not many space battle sequence is shown. The battle cruiser still bring back lots of memories. However, unlike the initial trilogy, there are no depiction of vast diverse of star wars, but just focus on the battle ships. There is of course creation of cute creatures for marketing purpose. Very smart of Disney, in the last movie, they succeeded in making BB8 into one of the most sought Christmas gift. This round, they created some big eye bird like creature with snow fox. Though all the characters tried their best to play their role, Mark Hamilton looks tired in his role, which it is a pity to see Carrie Fisher in her last role.
What works? The formula which works for New Hope works here. Resistance being underdog. New spark of hope. So much going on the whole movie, felt like watching a adventure movie. But, I can understand why so many fans were disappointed the way Luke Skywalker was written. After graduating through the initial trilogy, he was depicted as a self pity Jedi master. If I had not watch episode 4-6, I would not like the Luke here. The other side story was OK, but serve rather as a side dish, it did not add anything to the main story. And the main story of Rey is rather average, it just did not engage us like Luke in episode 4. Simply because episode 4 is solely about Luke while introducing a worthy villain. Episode 8, is a bag of adventure. Too much going on. They have to be politically correct. They had to introduce cute product to sell later. They had to manage the expectation of the original fans. In the end, they manage to end up with a good movie. Just not an epic one.
ratings: 3 half poink~!
comments: best Star Wars movie is still Rogue One
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