Hey everyone so today we have a Guest post for all of you written by Levi Eddie Aluede. I think the title really says it all so let’s delve into another person’s perspective of the film and please do let us know in the comments below what you all think!

Rian Johnson’s Star Wars: The Last Jedi was daring from the start, for the first time in history a Star Wars logo was red. The title, ‘the last jedi’ manifested murmurs of an even darker sequel than The Empire Strikes Back, often hailed as the best film in the saga for it’s risky story directions and deep character development.

It’s as if fans were hoping Disney would be predictable and copy and paste the plot of the original trilogy again, at least they would ensure good movies right? Good, safe, movies. But Rian, wasn’t having any of that, a champion of independent film with his incredible last outing in the time travel sci-fi Looper. Rian wanted to shake things up, he wanted to push Star Wars a little further than it had been before, in a lot of ways he succeeded.

The main plot of The Last Jedi is likely the best Star Wars plot yet. The main villain and hero of a franchise put aside their differences and team up in a brutal fight scene, no ballet twirls but a badass female jedi throwing punches at Praetorian Guards – Rey using Kylo Ren’s lightsaber, Ren using his grandfather’s lightsaber. It’s iconic imagery for any 21st century blockbuster film. But there’s a catch, there’s 2 other plot lines in this film, they’re long, sometimes interesting, but mostly don’t go anywhere. Needlessly splitting apart fan favourite Finn from the main story we’re so invested in, giving us more Poe not interacting with anyone apart from Leia and finally, the choice of dropping in Captain Phasma utterly randomly in the final act of the film – where the hell was she? Did she just get out of the trash compactor?!

And guys, are we just going to ignore the fact they did literally copy and paste scenes from Return of the Jedi (Rey & Kylo in the elevator/Vader & Luke in elevator), (Snoke shows Rey the losing resistance battle/Emperor shows Luke the losing rebel battle) – they went so far as to take specific lines. For me, this is too far –  but oh damn, did Kylo just kill Snoke?! And it’s that kind of jump from faithfulness to outlandishness that makes The Last Jedi so incredibly divisive. But it’s not just here The Last Jedi impresses and disappoints, it’s even in its design.

From iconic and legendary cinematography – unfathomable sound design and imagery, see Admiral Holdo’s Kamikaze death and the moments where Luke Skywalker, the last jedi, stands against the entire First Order army – these are many of the other moments where The Last Jedi leaves me in utter awe at it’s filmmaking quality and scope.

But there’s still the other side of the coin, shaky CGI and wacky character design in Canto Byte pulled down some of that awe, it’s apparent that Star Wars can in fact get too wacky. And not too mention production design that clearly mimicked Earthbound Monte Carlo, Star Wars has never been at it’s best when it takes inspiration from real places designed by human beings on Earth, remember the diner scene in Attack of the Clones? Isn’t this a long time ago, in a galaxy far far away? Why does the diner look like a classic American 50s diner? I thought we were going to new places.

Consequently, my thoughts on Star Wars: The Last Jedi are irrelevant, is it good? Is it bad? Who cares? Because it’s Star Wars, at this point I’m more invested in an ongoing behemoth budget TV series. And a TV series must keep reinventing itself. Thus, the point is, it may not be perfect, but Star Wars: The Last Jedi does enough new to spark the flame, that will light the fire that will be a new direction for not just the Star Wars narrative, but also for the saga films’ integrity as being judged as seperate pieces of work. Thank you, Rian Johnson and thank you to everyone who worked so hard to make this film.

@levisnafu

Enjoyed what you read and interested in more about The Last Jedi?
Have a look at our spoiler and non spoiler review. Or an in depth analysis of some of our favourite characters; Kylo, Rey, Poe and many more!