Bonjour. Je m’appelle Catrina Valsan et je suis une élève de 5e secondaire. Pour mon projet personnel, j’ai décidé de rédiger des textes. J’ai choisi d’écrire des critiques sur trois films. J’ai fait des choix de films assez différents les uns des autres et qui plairaient aux gens de mon âge. J’ai décidé de le faire en anglais, car l’anglais est ma langue maternelle et la langue avec laquelle je suis le plus à l’aise. Les films que j’ai choisis sont à l’origine en anglais. Je crois que nous devrions toujours apprécier des œuvres artistiques dans leur langue d’origine, alors je croyais que l’écriture anglaise serait également plus appropriée pour mon projet. Voici la troisième critique.
Occasionally funny, but overall amusing, the Last Jedi’s antagonist seems to be its own director. While fun at certain points, it drags in the middle, leaving you unsatisfied.
Upon first viewing, I left the cinema feeling irrationally angry. After checking online, it seems like many others felt the same way as me. Audiences were getting mad at the useless plot lines, unanswered questions and Luke’s characterization. After watching The Last Jedi a few more times I can see why.
Watch the trailer here:
The movie starts off with the Resistance (led by General Leia, played by Carrie Fisher) fleeing their base, as The First Order knows their location and is coming to attack. Poe Dameron leads a counterattack against the First Order. He deliberately disobeys Leia’s commands to retreat and employs the bomber fleet. They are able to hold off the attackers but at a heavy cost. Their bomber fleet is destroyed. The Resistance escapes through hyperspace, but The First Order manages to track them (this is met with surprise as it is surmised that hyperspace tracking is impossible). The First Order attacks again, incapacitating Leia and forcing the Resistance to take on a new leader, in the form of General Holdo (Laura Dern).
Meanwhile, Rey (Daisy Ridley) has landed on Ahch-to and tries to persuade Luke (Mark Hamill) to teach her the ways of the force. She came with R2D2 and Chewbacca on the Millenium Falcon. Luke, however, is disillusioned by his failure to stop Kylo Ren and has retreated to the island to die. He has renounced his faith in the force and the Jedi, believing “It’s time for the Jedi to end.” Thankfully, Luke’s old friend R2D2 the droid manages to convince him, and thus begins Rey’s teachings. Rey eventually begins communicating with Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) through the force. She at first is hostile to him but eventually talks to him and believes he can be redeemed. Luke discovers this and angrily shouts at her to stop. She angrily storms off, believing she can turn Kylo Ren to the lightside. She takes the Millenium Falcon to go meet Kylo Ren. He doesn’t seem too pleased to see her and brings her to his master, Snoke. Snoke encourages Kylo Ren to kill Rey, but in a turn of events, Kylo Ren kills Snoke instead and he and Rey square off against Snoke’s guards in my favourite scene of this movie. Once they are all dead, he pleads with Rey to join him. She declines and they fight for possession over a lightsaber.
During this time, the Resistance is stuck on their ship, which is running out of fuel. They can’t jump to hyperspace because it will use the rest of the fuel and they will be tracked anyways. Finn and Rose decide to go aboard the main First Order ship to disable the trackers, but to do this, they need a hacker. They end up going to Canto Bight and finding a hacker. They get to the First Order ship and are caught shortly after. The Resistance decides to use cloaked escape pods to scape their main ship and inform Rose and Finn. The hacker turns out to have betrayed them, and the First Order begins firing on the escape pods which are headed to a nearby planet, Crait. Then ensues a short fight between Finn and Captain Phasma.
Meanwhile, Admiral Holdo has stayed behind on the main ship. She realises the escape pods are meaning attacked and tries to incapacitate the main First Order ship. She jumps to hyperspace right into the main ship and slices it in half. This interrupts the fight between Finn and Phasma, and Rey and Kylo. Rey, Finn and Rose manage to escape in the chaos.
The resistance is now able to descend to Crait and move into an abandoned rebel base. Finn and Rose meet the remainder of the Resistance. The First Order soon follows, with a completely unhinged Kylo Ren now taking control. They begin advancing on the Resistance, who are barely able to fight back. When all seems lost, Luke appears, much younger than seen before. He says goodbye to Leia and steps out to face the First Order. Kylo Ren goes to meet him personally and they have a brief confrontation. The Resistance realises that he is doing this to stall and give them time to escape, and they hurriedly do so. They meet Rey, who helps them escapes and boards them onto the Millenium Falcon.
Kylo Ren slices through Luke only to reveal that Luke was never there, it was just a force projection. In reality, he is still on the island of Ahch-to. Kylo realises that Luke played him for a fool and screams. Back on Ahch-to, Luke succumbs to the exhaustion and becomes one with the force in a very emotional scene, staring at a binary sunset, echoing the scene that started his journey on Tatooine, with the beautiful Binary Sunset theme by John Williams playing.
Rey now has everyone on board and they set off. Only a few remain yet they still have hope. Rey and Leia are saddened by Luke death, yet they tell the resistance that not all is lost, they still can inspire hope. The movie ends with a young boy staring into space with a resistance ring.
The Last Jedi presents itself as a move that is more focused on diverting your expectations than actually being a good movie. In my opinion, the director, Rian Johnson was too focused on trying to make the movie different and unpredictable, to hold true to that line uttered in the trailer by Luke, “ This isn’t going to go the way you think.” It’s as if Luke is warning us about the movie. I believe this thinking is what brought down the movie.
The movie certainly drags out near the middle. I found myself praying for the Rose and Finn parts to hurry up, and I had no interested in the hacker, played by Benicio Del Toro. The Canto Bight scene seemed to be a waste of time, as it was placed so randomly into the movie and brought nothing to the plot. It seems like a waste of the characters and an attempt to show off the budget.
Not to mention the answered questions. When Disney first pitched the idea of a new trilogy, no overarching plot was constructed. This meant that the plot had to be constructed by the director as they went along. 3 movies meant different directors. The first director, J.J. Abrams, worked on The Force Awakens, introducing a new plot, new characters and setting up a whole bunch of mysteries and questions to be answered. For The Last Jedi, the new director, Rian Johnson, had to work off of what J.J. Abrams set up. He obviously did not know what to do with the character of Phasma, which explains why she was so abruptly disposed of. It also explains why Snoke was killed off in such an unsatisfying way. Sure, the throne room scene was amazing, but the fans are outraged by how Snoke was never given an explanation or backstory. J.J. Abrams created him, and Rian Johnson did not know what to do with him.
The performances were very good in the movie. Most particularly, Adam Driver and Daisy Ridley’s performance of Kylo Ren and Rey respectively. They were equally the most interesting part of the movie. They had a great dynamic. Mark Hamill played Luke perfectly. He captured the devastation and shame that Luke felt after having failed Kylo Ren. Carrie Fisher delivered a beautiful performance as Leia. She had filmed all her scenes before she passed away, though it seems she managed to say a goodbye to the fans in the film, when she is talking to Luke.
It seems fans are unhappy about the portrayal of Luke. He is revealed to have hidden himself on the island of Ahch-to, cut off from the force and hoping to die. He is ashamed at how he couldn’t prevent Kylo Ren from rising to power and murdering the other students. He is later revealed to have contemplated murdering him for a second. Fans think this is uncharacteristic of him, as he was always shown to be an optimistic character and very kind.
After first seeing the Porgs, the little bird creatures found on Luke’s island, in the promotional material for The Last Jedi, I was worried that they would be a very awkward money grab and were only inserted in the movie to make money. However, after some research, I soon learned that the Porgs had a more practical purpose. The scenes of Ahch-to were filmed on Skellig Michael, an island in Ireland. Puffins inhabited the island, and so they could be seen flying around in the background. The crew had to come up with a way to explain these creatures, so Porgs were created. They were cute, yes, but had a minimal role in the movie thankfully.
The movie certainly isn’t a carbon copy of The Empire Strikes Back, like fans were worried, but it bears some resemblance. They feature the main hero going to a remote island to receive training from an old Jedi. The hero then goes off to meet the main villain, believing he can be turned to the light side. The old master then dies after passing on what he knows. There is a battle on a white planet with AT-AT walkers, but the similarities seem to end there.
The comedy in this movie received some controversy. Comedy has always been a part of Star Wars, with the droids being comic relief. My perhaps favourite moment is during the battle of Crait. Crait is a white planet, and it seems the showrunners realised it was similar to the battle of Hoth. They inserted a soldier touching the white surface and licking it, muttering “salt”. This movie is certainly the most comedic movie of all of them, with quick jokes interjected all about. Sometimes it makes sense, like Luke’s stunt with the feather, while others fall flat (like Poe pranking General Hux). Overall I’d say the comedy doesn’t seem to take up too much space.
John WIlliams certainly outdid himself this time. He provided yet another gorgeous soundtrack. Every moment is beaming with beautiful symphony. I could feel the emotions when Luke died, I could feel the uncertainty of Rey when she was trying to find her parents. When Holdo hypserspaced into the First Order ship, the choice of cutting the sound was absolutely perfect. The sound design and mixing was outstanding in this movie.
Visually, this is the best cinematic movie in the Star Wars Universe. Every scene is breathtaking, all the shots are nicely paced and are filmed in high definition. The special effects are outstanding and believable. Most aliens were done with practical effects, as well as the droids. However, the CGI characters were amazing as well. To my surprise, Yoda returned as a puppet, echoing the original trilogy Yoda. I found this to be a nice touch.
Overall, the saving grace of this movie are the astounding visuals, performances from the actors, beautiful soundtrack and throne room scene. The rest seems like a contrived mess. Although it isn’t perfect, this movie does provide ample amusement. I give it 65%.