Thoughts On The Last Jedi, Episode II

I don’t get it. Why would you post a picture of–

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…

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Ohhhh.

Spoiler.

Sure. Technically, though, that is a wing.

I’m just gonna go into the bullet points and ignore you.

Where everyone will ignore you.

• The Force.
• It binds us.
• Penetrates us.
• Nibbles on our ear just the way we like.
• Maybe some prostate milking.
• We’re getting ahead of ourselves.
• Zip!
• Zop!
• Pew pew pew.
• And hope.
• Gotta be honest: I’m a bit fucking hoped out with these Star Wars movies.
• There’s too much hope.
• How about bitter disappointment, Star Wars?
• Inappropriate sexual arousal?
• Ennui?
• Any other emotion than hope, and I need blank-faced British women with pointy chins to stop blathering about it.
• (Here’s the closest I’ll come to an actual review: The Last Jedi is better than Rogue One in every way, but especially in that I did not want to shoot the lead character out of an airlock 20 minutes in. The first flick in this current trilogy (let’s call it A Nu-Hope) was more fun than this, partially because the second act wasn’t spent watching Lucy and Ethel wander around Space Caesar’s Palace interacting with mostly-finished CGI.)
• None of this bullshit matters, or at least it shouldn’t to adults: there are no ideas here.
• Quite a few long articles have been written about how The Last Jedi sits in the #METOO thing, or that Poe Dameron is toxic masculinity, or how the porgs represent the Baltic States during the Cold War, but you should remember that all the people who wrote all that bullshit got paid to do so, and if they had any useful skills, then they wouldn’t write for a living.
• Anyway: the plot, as it was.
• Did it start with pew pew pew?
• I think it started with some pew pew pew.
• Oh, right, the thing with the bomber ships that weren’t B-Wings and everyone died heroically or whatever except for Oscar Isaac.
• Oscar Isaac was, once again, doing his Al Pacino in 1973 impression.
• Carrie Fisher shows up and says “hope” a lot.
• Listen, I loved Carrie Fisher just as much as the rest of you, but the woman couldn’t act.
• Also: they should have killed her off onscreen because I’m already dreading the opening funeral scene of Episode IX.
• Then there is a low-speed chase across the galaxy, much like O.J.’s Bronco ride, and we learn that spaceships in Star Wars now require fuel.
• And if you run out of fuel, you immediately start drifting towards the shoulder as though your Mon Calamari capital ship were a 2002 Toyota Camry.
• Then there’s an old guy and British girl on an island with turtlemonsters and penguin-things and Tobacco the Space Monkey, and it rains there quite a bit–which you would think would make it a terrible place to store antique books–and we see the third variation on “Jedi training” in eight movies.
• This version is just as shoddy as the other two.
• A refresher:
  • Gymnastics in a swamp with a frog-person on your back.
  • Raised from childhood to be a creepy, sexless, incompetent space-Franciscan.
• And now Iteration #3: waving a lightsaber at some rocks while psychic-Skyping with a dude who keeps sexy-whispering at you.
• Is there a gymnasium on the First Order ships where Kylo Ren does his chest exercises?
• And is their Force-link always open?
• “Rey, let me tell you about the Dark Side.”
• “I’M IN THE GODDAMNED BATHROOM, BENJY!”
• “Don’t call me that.”
• “GET OUT!”
• “Let me watch.”
• “OUT!”
• Then the Finn and Whatshername go to a place to get a thing and Justin Theroux is there for some reason.
• If we’re grading Therouxes: Paul>Louis>Justin.
• And just when you’re not expecting it: BOOM Benicio Del Toro out of nowhere.
• Every time I see Benicio Del Toro onscreen, I think to myself, “Why wasn’t that guy a huge star?” and then he says his first line and I think, “Oh, right.”
• Just say the fucking lines, Benicio Del Toro.
• (An aside: Benicio Del Toro’s character’s stutter = General Grievous’ cough. A completely pointless and distracting tic that substitutes for character development and will undoubtedly be given a stupid origin in some upcoming SW novel.)
• Some bullshit about a necklace?
• A double-cross, maybe?
• Stampeding the dog-horses?
• Whatever: they get the thing or maybe they don’t or maybe it never mattered in the first place and I am cranky at this point because there has been no pew pew pew for at least an hour.
• More hope.
• Laura Dern is far too tall.
• Get to the transports.
• The Rebellion/Resistance/Revanchists/Redoutables spend a good quarter of every single day of their lives getting to the transports.
• It’s like their first move.
• Second move, of course, being Direct Frontal Assault.
• “Okay, half of you get to the transports. The other half, fly right at them. May the Force be with you.”
• Then there’s a planet made of production values.
• Very photogenic planet.
• And the Reboobulizers have an excellent plan: a big door.
• A large door will surely hold off the enemy.
• Hey, it’s Luke!
• And he’s got a plan, too!
• “I have a plan.”
• “Get to the transports?”
• “No.”
• “Direct frontal assault?”
• “Kinda.”
• “Kinda?”
• “You ever see Superman II?”
• And then Luke Skywalker Superman II‘ed his nephew.
• Random thoughts:
• I spent a good 80% of this film waiting for Billy Dee Williams to show up; I don’t know how the idea got in my head that he would appear, but I kept looking for him.
• So glad Max Katana or whatever the fuck Mrs. Magoo is called came back.
• Supreme Monster Snoopy’s guards looked like they were wearing the protective suits that the “attackers” in self-defense courses wear.
• At one point during the pew pew pew, Oscar Isaac’s X-Wing performs a handbrake turn, and I congratulate the filmmakers for having the restraint to not include the sound of screeching tires.
• Although, speaking of sound: John fucking Williams, man.
• “Why are we all standing here like this?”
• “It’s the end of the movie.”