The Last Jedi

I have been to three screenings of Star Wars: The Last Jedi, the eighth entry into the Star Wars episodic saga and when I went into it the first time, I was feeling the hype that was left at the end of The Force Awakens back in December 2015 and after I left the cinema on the third screening, I had only one thought. What will happen in Episode 9? (THERE WILL BE SPOILERS IN THIS REVIEW.)

Throughout the past year, Star Wars as a whole has been a mixture of news regarding different projects under the Star Wars name. From the firing of Phil Lord and Chris Miller (The Original Directors of Solo: A Star Wars Story) and Colin Trevverow (The Original Director of Episode 9) and all of them being replaced by Ron Howard for Solo and JJ Abrams for Episode 9. And the Battlefront 2 controversial issue with “Lootboxes.” There was still a new hope for the fans of a Galaxy Far, Far Away with the anticipated release of Star Wars: The Last Jedi.

Within the story of The Last Jedi, it mainly focuses on the resistance fleeing from the first order as they hunt them down for destroying “Starkiller Base” prior in The Force Awakens. Rey is still on the planet of Ach-To with Chewbacca and R2 looking for Luke Skywalker and Kylo Ren is conflicted with his emotions after killing his father, Han Solo.

Already after 30 mins into the film, I was engaged and ready to see the mysteries that were set up in The Force Awakens pay off here, however, with the mystery of Supreme Leader Snoke’s identity and Rey’s parentage being revealed as junk traders, it felt like that the build up that was made in The Force Awakens was just there for JJ Abrams with his love of mystery.

The things that The Last Jedi got right in spades for me personally were: The portrayal of Luke Skywalker due to the experience with Ben Solo and his Jedi Academy being destroyed by Solo. It felt like this was someone who wasn’t himself at all because of trauma that has happened to him. In addition, the appearance of Yoda in the film and the things he did were amazing to see and all done back in practical effects rather than prequel-heavy CGI. Also, all the acting was amazing and evolved a lot, mainly from Adam Driver as Kylo Ren as you could easily see that this is someone who was conflicted by his emotions and Daisy Ridley as Rey, from the beginning of The Force Awakens to now, her acting has improved a lot and you could easily tell she wasn’t forcing any emotions to be released.

But, with The Last Jedi, there is one plot point that wasn’t required to be in there which left no overarching impact to the plot (apart from the boy at the end of the film), the plot element involved Finn and newcomer Rose infiltrating a Casino planet looking for a codebreaker to break onto a star destroyer. This entire sequence I feel went on way too long with no major impact to the story and the conflict between Poe and Holdo could have been easily sorted her telling him what the plan is rather than have it lead to a conflict for no reason.

Overall, I found The Last Jedi to be an amazing film apart from the Casino filler, one of the best Star Wars films and it is one as a young actor and one currently making a film too, I truly recommend.