The Last Jedi: Evil Hugh Hefner says hi

[nineveh_uk]

Anticipating a busy week, and having discovered that the Odeon is £6 Mon - Thursday, I decided that I would pretend to be doing something while actually just sitting in a comfy seat and bought myself a ticket to the final showing of The Last Jedi. This turned out to be a particularly good idea as I came down with a slight cold, and anticipating that I would have to leave in good time and could then relax kept me going through a frustrating afternoon yesterday. I had seen it a couple of weeks ago, but a second viewing turned out to be a very good idea. The things that had annoyed me a bit were less annoying when I knew they would come to an end, and the things I had enjoyed I really enjoyed. Though it still had obvious weaknesses in construction, and like a lot of films would have benefited from being half an hour shorter, I ended up liking it more on a technical level, too.


The audience

As heard, in this order, on leaving the cinema.

*

- So that was subtext.

- Yeah. Subtext.

----

- That little green guy turns up, burns down a tree, then buggers off.

----

- That stupid Disney ending.

*

Not a bad summary!

Me

One day I shall write beautiful polished reviews, but not this day. Today, I use bullet points.

* I enjoyed it a lot. I'm not a Star Wars Fan (TM) - no action figures in childhood, first saw the complete films at the cinema when they were re-released, so although of course I'd picked up a lot about them before that I don't really feel a sentimental attachment. But I do enjoy a fun adventure film with spaceships, and I've really enjoyed the new trilogy for delivering me a fun adventure film with spaceships.

* Overall, for all the spaceships and planets and the Force, it's a very character-driven film. The weakest parts are where that gets away from it. I found the Canto Bight casino section dull: the best comment I've seen on it suggested that its weakness is that it reminds one of the prequels with its pointless chases and CGI.

* Speaking of character-driven plotlines, I don't think the execution of the Poe vs Holdo sub-plot was particularly successful, but I appreciated what they were trying to do. When Poe remarks that Holdo isn't what he had expected, one knows exactly whohe had expected.

* Someone sensible has had the First Order install some surveillance tech at last. It's still a bit baffling that a civilization that has developed Droids doesn't have remote control/autopilot, though. Those bombers don't need people in them! Or perhaps they just put a higher value on people being involved in combat than people not dying in combat. Or the Resistance could only afford the cheap version and the sophisticated electronics cost extra. Also, the First Order don't appear to have learned how to aim their guns yet.

* After two films with design that went heavy on the DW Griffiths/Leni Riefenstahl/John Martin inspiration, The Last Jedi didn't really go there. I admit that Skellig Michael looks beautiful and the plot didn't really allow for much by way of big crowd scenes and "disasterscapes" though.

* I loved the iron. I've seen the laundry on the royal yacht Britannia, which is pretty small compared to a Dreadnaught but was still coping with a ridiculous 8 uniform changes a day at times (crew were of course charged for having their uniforms laundered).

* Hol(e)y Freudian symbolism, batman! Though Star Wars symbolism never has been exactly subtle. Is that a lightsaber in your pocket?

* I am one of the people who loved the Rey/Kylo Ren dynamic. I'm not sure that I'm a shipper, because really I'd be happy with any ending. The world's most awkward ride in a lift! The terrible attempt at chat-up lines (when you're quoting what your granddad said to your uncle in an attempt to impress a girl, it's possible you're doing it wrong...*). Awkward Force Skype - who doesn't find it tricky getting to know a penpal? I liked both characters in the first film, and I like them even more together. People who each think that the other is everything that they stand against and yet find themselves working together †, and the erotic potential of corruption... Together they could bring order to the galaxy! Or at the moment, not. I'm not sure that I've seen Adam Driver in anything before, but he's perfect casting in his ability to give of a constant whiff of petulant desperation, as if he were spraying it on from a can of Lynx every morning.

*I have to link to twitter's glorious emo Kylo Ren here.

†I think that I may need to re-watch Babylon 5.

Comments

[moon_custafer]

It is one of those plotlines where they really have to stack the deck in order to steer events in the direction the theme requires (Looking at you, The Net (1995)), although I handwave it as “Holdo knows the First Order is somehow tracking the Resistance, and has to consider the possibility of a spy in their midst, so she’s cagey about revealing their destination.”

[nineveh_uk]

Yes, the handwave works fine, but if we're supposed to have some sympathy for Poe then there has to be a possibility that Holdo is evil (as opposed to just female) and so the film itself have that sentence of her and Leia saying "IT might not be that they're tracking us, there could be a spy on board, better not tell anyone". Stupid.

[lilliburlero]

I loved the Skellig Michael bits: I like to think it actually is Skellig Michael in-universe, Luke is hanging out just off the coast of Kerry, even though I can't imagine how that would work in space-time. Space puffins! Amphibious nuns! I want them to have their own movie. Like something by Sylvia Townsend Warner, IN SPACE.

I can't quite take Kylo Ren seriously, in that I can't quite pin down how seriously the films mean us to take him. Adam Driver's face is so gormless (and he doesn't half bulk up funny). It was pointed out to me that he looks a bit like a younger Alan Rickman, and while I can see that in my semi-prosopagnosiac way, I was quite indignant because the quality of their villainy is so different.

[nineveh_uk]

I don't see why it couldn't be Skellig Michael somehow transported in time and space through the Force. Though the fish nuns would take some explaining.

I think that the films mean us to take Kylo Ren seriously as a character, but not necessarily as a very deep-dyed or competent villain. He spends far too much time crying for that, and I can't see him lasting very long at the head of the First Order. I like him, but then I like conflicted villains and find his particular quality of patheticness an entertaining (and I confess not entirely unsympathetic) take on the type.

I see what people mean about a younger Alan Rickman, though I think that Rickman is more handsome, whereas Driver means that I have finally grasped what people mean by "jolie laide".

[tree_and_leaf]

when you're quoting what your granddad said to your uncle in an attempt to impress a girl, it's possible you're doing it wrong...

To be fair, I'm not sure that quoting any of his granddad's attempts at chat up lines would actually have made it any better!

[nineveh_uk]

That is a very good point. Or his grandmother's, come to that. "Would you - would you like to join me in the legislative youth programme?"

[tree_and_leaf]

Leia must have been really influenced by her adoptive parents, is all I can say.

[bookwormsarah]

I loved the Last Jedi and really want to see it again. I was a huge Star Wars fan - toys, lightsabers made out of sticks, a tree stump in the playground spending most lunch breaks as an x-wing etc... I particularly enjoyed the Rey-Ren scenes (definitely not a shipper) and thought the film did a beautiful job of showing what a messed up bratty teenager Kylo Ren still is, how he doesn't really want to be like that but can't see anyway out of it.

My favourite moments were Luke stepping on board the Falcon again, particularly his shout of "R2!", and his reunion with Leia. I thought it was a perfect end, and there have been some hilarious speculations about him force-haunting his nephew throughout the next film.

The Vue in Manchester is only £4.99 a ticket! I am still quite ridiculously excited about this.

[bookwormsarah]

I am also rewatching Babylon 5 and am currently halfway through the second series. I had forgotten quite how good it is.

[sonetka.livejournal.com]

The Rey/Kylo scenes were brilliant and by far the best parts of the movie for me (OK, not "by far", Luke was also excellent). I was rather disappointed that she rejected his offer so quickly -- I had been hoping that she'd decide to hell with it, killing the past is her best option after all, she'll do it. Then the third movie could be the others trying to get her back from a mental prison, just as ROTJ had Our Heroes trying to get Han back from his physical prison. The gambling planet/find the tracker plot just seemed to go in circles; not a bad way to pass some time but you just end up right where you started. I am really wondering how they're going to manage to the last movie, though; the Resistance has approximately 20 people and unless they're going to do CGI Leia for the whole thing, it's going to be all new cast now.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

I enjoyed those scenes the first time round, I really, really enjoyed them this time. I suppose that we haven't really been given a reason why Rey would feel any conscious pull to the Dark Side, at least when it comes with the First Order, the subconscious allure notwithstanding. She might be curious, but they haven't set her up to choose it. If Kylo had done a "you and me, babe, let's run away together and leave the FO and Resistance to it while I get my head straight" I can see her being tempted to think that was a good way to bring him back to the light side and then find later that it wasn't that simple.

It'll be interesting to see what they do wit the next film. Assume that actually there is a Resistance rescue on its way, they were just caught up in a fleet action somewhere else when Leia called?

Luke was indeed excellent. That wsan't an easy part to pull off at all, but Hamill did it extremely well.