Star Wars VIII – 2017 – The Last Jedi

I’m kinda impressed by anyone that attempts to write and direct a sequel to such a well-known saga as Star Wars. Everyone kinda knows the story already and chances are big that you write something that die-hard Star Wars fans consider contradictive against the franchise canon. I, myself, don’t consider myself to be a die-hard fan though. I think there’s way too much information to keep track of anyway. And besides, what can you do about it? You need to watch the movie as it is, not as how you would have liked it to be.

I think Rouge One had similar problems but I thought it was a nice piece of storytelling. I don’t care about the nitpicks. Not in this film series anyway. Likewise, I’m looking forward to Solo, another sidetrack story. I think it can be quite entertaining. And It’s entertainment I’m looking for when it comes to Star Wars movies. You shouldn’t take it too seriously. With that said I must state that this movie would have been so much better if there weren’t so many gags in it. It’s really tiresome that they need to joke every other scene just to satisfy younger audiences. Ok, the franchise belongs to Disney now, but still, they could have kept it a little less silly.

I think this Epidose VIII follows more or less directly where the last episode ended. I can’t remember so much from the last film but I do remember that it started to get really interesting in the finishing scene. It was kinda a homage to the earlier films to re-introduce Mark Hamil as Luke Skywalker. Here, he has a bigger part and that’s something I really enjoy. Mark was never a great actor but here he does a very nice job. Luke Skywalker is his part, that is what he does best.

Carrie Fisher’s also in the movie. Why wouldn’t she be? She always had a part of great importance. Sadly, she has now passed away and it’s unclear if she will be featured in some way in the next episode. I’ve read that the studio isn’t going to CG her. But we’ve heard lots of rumors regarding this and that in the past. I won’t be sure until I see the movie. I’m not sure it’s a bad idea CGing her either. Depends on how it’s done. There should be a reference and a homage either way. That’s how I feel about it.

For me, the story works fine. The main thing isn’t the story though. It’s about how the special effects hold up. I must say that they are very nice. You recognize yourself in many parts and some of them are something new. You know, the 1977 movie was so ahead of its time and I feel that this keeps up with it. I mean that this also seems to be state of the art special effects and it looks awesome. I especially thought of how the effects when the star destroyers exit from light speed. They just stop dead in space. I really liked that effect.

But as I said. The humor is a little too much. It seems to me that the actors aren’t comfortable with delivering one-liners at times either. I even think there was a joke in there that was already told in some of the other movies. Which one slips my mind right now. But as a whole, I really enjoyed the movie. And you shouldn’t read too much into the title – The Last Jedi. Just sayin…