Disney Ruined Star Wars IV

Episode IV - Absolutely No Hope

The last time we were together, I had just finished my in depth look at the disaster that was Episode VII. Now I'll turn my attention to the next film, Star Wars Episode VIII- The Last Jedi. It was released on December 15th 2017 and was a critical success but received vociferous hatred from many of the hardcore Star Wars fans for a number of reasons. I too have a few reasons I dislike the film, although there are one or two things I liked. So, Let’s just jump right in an talk about this, the second of the Rey Star Wars movies.

Right off the bat we need to talk about the gigantic bantha in the movie; the incredibly long, boring and pointless space chase or as I usually refer to it, the OJ Simpson white Bronco chase in space. Couldn't the writers find any other way to move the plot along, because this wasn't it. First of all, since when do Star Wars do ships need to worry about running out of gas? ( Yes, I know they don’t use gas, they use a liquid metal fuel inside a fission reactor). The only time anything remotely related to fuel is mentioned, is the scene in The Empire Strikes Back, where Han is looking for somewhere to fix the Falcon, he says, “Besbin, it’s pretty far but I think we can make it.” Was he referring to a lack of fuel or was he just talking about the amount of time it would take to get there in real space without being spotted by the Empire? Nowhere else in Star Wars is anything close to the idea of refueling a spacecraft ever mentioned. Do we, think that Luke stopped at some deep space Shell station to refuel his x-wing and grab a bottle of blue milk on his way to Dagobah? No, then why did the writers decide to invent this problem for the Resistance? It certainly wasn’t to increase the tension of the movie because this slowed it to a standstill.

They obviously, didn’t invent this chase to have time for some character development, because they didn’t do that either. Poe Dameron isn’t developed at all, in fact he regresses, instead of finding out something that drove him to join the Resistance and see him grow as a leader, he comes across as a hot shot pilot just out for glory no matter the cost. Just another low ranking officer who can’t understand why a superior officer won’t share their plans with him. In fact he just seems like a jerk for most of the movie. He even goes as far as mutiny, which gets him stunned by Leia. Finn, also takes a step backward as a character. Once again, when things get hard he tries to run, if it wasn’t for a Resistance guard he would have succeeded. We don’t learn anything new about anyone in that fleet.

Then there’s Leia’s amazingly silly Mary Poppins-like return to her ship after being blown out into space. First of all, don't these ships have shields? One would think that the bridge would have extra protection to avoid just such an occurrence. Maybe they turned them off to save fuel, like we would turn off the air conditioner to save on gas. Whatever, it happened, so there she is floating out in space and she taps into her latent Jedi power to fly back into the ship. I don’t really have a problem with that, it just looked so fake and silly. Have her in any other position than that one or maybe have her pull a wire or a conduit to her to pull herself in and it would have been ok but the way they did it just looks dumb.

We are introduced to two new characters in this film, the Maintenance Tech Rose Tico and Admiral Amilyn Holdo. Rose is the guard who stopped Finn from running away, she likes Finn, hate Canto Bight and her sister was killed in Poe Dameron’s suicide mission against the First Order Dreadnaught earlier in the film, but other than those things we never really find out too much about her.

Admiral Holdo is the single-minded commander of the doomed fleet who can’t think of any way out of the situation she finds herself in. She makes an empty sacrificial gesture to save what was left of the Resistance.

After the Resistance evacuates their first base they are pursued by the First Order. They jump into hyperspace but finds Kylo Ren and Snoke himself right on their tail when they come out of it. Leia and Admiral Holdo figure out the First Order can track them through hyperspace but only one First Order ship has that capability and they decide right there without any kind thought process that they’re out of luck and destruction awaits. Why didn’t the writers just have the Admiral order everyone on the Raddus to abandon ship, shuttle them over to the other ships in the fleet. Order them to scatter, and jump into hyperspace in 50 different directions, then meet up later at some predetermined point, like they did in The Empire Strikes Back. Seems like a much better solution than just running until you run out of fuel (see above) and are destroyed.

So while the fleet is slowly be destroyed one by one Poe, Finn and Rose come up with a plan to disable the tracking feature of the First Order Star Destroyer. It involves finding the Master Codebreaker (computer hacker or “slicer” as they are called in all the Legends books). To do that they have to escape the endless chase and the First Order, find their way to his location, convince the slicer to take the job, get back to the fleet, get aboard the Star Destroyer, find the tracker, disable it and make their escape. Easy peasy, right? They find out that the slicer is on the planet of Cantonica (really?) at the gambling mecca of Kanto Bight.

Kanto Bight could have been a really cool place with lots of adventures to have, but for whatever reason they just wanted to use it to show how evil capitalism is. They could have had lots of fun exploring the glittering casinos and had lots of cameos like the Max Rebo Band playing a set, a mouse droid running around

or a Gungan being escorted out by security after breaking every bottle behind a bar. There should have definitely been a Hut holding court somewhere, all of this mixed in with the usual wide selection of strange Star Wars aliens. They could have written it to be a gorgeous place that had the undercurrent of evil, they wished to illustrate. However, the writers were not that subtle. They came right out and let you know how they felt about the place. They showed us the scene of the animals and the children being beaten and tried to make you connect that with the businesses of the casino patrons. Just because someone is rich and sells weapons, doesn't mean they’re ok with kids and fathiers (space horses) being abused. Finn and Rose wouldn't have even had to go there if the Resistance would have taken my advice about their little chase. I did however, like the slicer they found, DJ, played by Benicio del Toro. He wasn't the slicer they were looking for but he thinks he can get the job done.

He has a very interesting speech pattern and mannerism and he was pretty funny too. Sure, he sells out Rose and Finn to save his own skin but that might make him the smartest most rational person in that galaxy. He makes the best choice he can, given the situation, unlike so many people in these movies.

Finn and Rose are somewhat successful in their mission getting DJ instead of the Master Codebreaker, they get back to the fleet and sneak onto the Star Destroyer but at the same time Admiral Holdo decides to evacuate everyone to the planet Crait. After DJ sells out the mission he is released while Rose and Finn are going to be executed. General Hux starts firing on the ships transporting the Resistance to Crait and Admiral Holdo comes up with a harebrained scheme to help them get away. She sets a hyperspace course right through the First Order fleet, crippling the main ship and destroying others. Why couldn’t she just set the course into the navigation computer and escaped with everyone else? I think it was because the writers didn’t want someone that Poe had issues with on Crait. That way he could do what he wanted without interference from a higher ranking officer.

Now the Resistance is on the strange planet of Crait. The strangest thing about Crait, is the fact that the writers actually invented a new planet instead of just recycling one from another film. I was really surprised that they didn’t just land on the moon of Yavin from Episode IV.

Crait is kind of a red velvet cake like planet with red soil under a white crust and very smart crystal fox-like creatures. I actually liked Crait and wished they would have spent more time exploring it.

Was the plan to end up on Crait all along or did they fall back on that when their only plan failed? I guess at that point they didn't have a choice but they must have known that their situation was hopeless. It did give Poe and Finn a chance to get their acts together and become real leaders for the Resistance though. The Resistance is locked inside a old Rebellion base on Crait and they’re trapped. C-3PO even says they way in is the only way out, then the First order arrive with some kind of steampunk AT-ATs. Poe and the other pilots, including Finn and Rose (who escaped the crippled flag ship and made they’re way down to Crait), attack using these strange dirt surfing pod racers, unlikely craft that seem like the should be slow and very unstable, given that they a dragging a part of the ship through the dirt. It makes for interesting patterns in the soil but is pointless otherwise. If you watch it again you will notice that there is not one single shot that comes from the ground surfer pods, not one! So was this just supposed to be another suicide mission like Admiral Holdo? Regardless the scene is just a reboot of the Hoth assault from The Empire Strikes Back, right down to foot soldiers in trenches

This time the First Order has a giant siege cannon, which seems to surprise everyone except Finn. It is amazing that he knows so much about every level of the First Order, all there technology and their weaknesses. The cannon punches a hole in the door of the base in one shot. Then from out of nowhere, here comes the savior of the Resistance, Luke Skywalker, looking rather younger and better kept when last time we saw him. He isn’t berated by Leia for abandoning his responsibilities and his family, he just gives her the dice from the Falcon, where he got them I don’t know, then strides out the burning door. He stands confidently in front of the First Order army and Kylo Ren has every gun they have fire on Luke. After a ridiculous amount of firing, Hux calls a halt to it, but out of the red dust walks Luke and in one of the funniest moments of any of the movies, he looks up at these giant machines and with no expression on his face and brushes a single particle of dust of his robe.

Kylo Ren is shocked and goes to the surface to confront his uncle, but it quickly becomes apparent that Luke is just a Force projection and isn’t really there. Luke dies after this encounter, vanishing into thin air like Yoda does in Return of the Jedi.

Suddenly in the Crait base, C-3PO announces that there could be unmapped ways out of the cavern. Gee, thanks 3PO, we wasted all those lives in the dirt surfers when we could have been looking for a way out. Plus it would have made better tactical sense. A place with one opening and a maze of passages is much easier to defend. However this distraction gives the crystal foxes, who apparently are on the side of good and right, time to lead the Resistance to an avenue of escape. Poe and company, just have to move a literal landslide of rocks but don’t worry Rey who has had two days with the force can move it, should be easy for her right? And, wouldn’t you know it she just happens to have the Millennium Falcon parked right there, well, isn’t that convenient?

Luke’s whole role in this movie is another bone of contention. First, he won’t train Rey, then you find out that he made a same mistake in the training of Ben Solo, pushing him to become Kylo Ren. Instead of learning from his mistake and growing as a teacher he just quits. He thinks there shouldn’t be Jedi in the galaxy, and won’t train Rey but changes his mind and gives her a few lessons. He gets upset with Yoda when he sets fire to the tree holding the Jedi texts and eventually make his appearance on Crait. Once again he can’t see the big picture. He doesn’t understand that there might be beings all across the galaxy that will still be gifted with the Force and maybe they would be better off with a teacher than trying to figure it out themselves. He never realizes that a person isn’t dark or light but both in one and their choices define the path they will take. In fact at the end of the movie there is a child on Canto Bight that has the Force and now he will have to navigate the line between dark and light on his own. Who knows if that kid will become another Kylo Ren or Darth Vader but without a wise teacher, the chances are greater that evil will rise.

One of the aspects of the movie I did enjoy was the connection between Rey and Kylo Ren. At first we don’t know where it comes from because we had never seen anything like it in any Star Wars media before. I thought it was really cool that they were actually able to be where the other one was in a way. You saw it when water dripped from Kylo’s hand after talking to Rey while she was on Ahch-To and Kylo snatching Rey’s necklace from her neck. They even have a fight where things are destroyed where Rey is and where Kylo is as well. The viewer wonders how and why this connection exists and the filmmakers do a good job of building that tension. Then turn around and ruin it by saying it was just a trick of Snoke to lure her to the First Order and find the location of Luke.

Speaking of “Supreme Leader” Snoke, he was built up through the entire first movie and most of the second to be this god-like being that held the fate of the galaxy in his hand. If he is strong enough in the Force to establish this link between Rey and Kylo and hide the fact it was him from Kylo, says he is stronger than anyone we have ever met. When we finally see Snoke in the flesh, I just wonder how he can be so strong in the Force. He doesn’t seem all that interested in turning Rey to the Dark Side and claims to know everything that will happen but it all come to a real anticlimactic end when he is betrayed by Kylo Ren and chopped in half with Luke’s lightsaber.

After Snoke is dead, there is a stupid Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon type fight scene with Snoke’s guards. The guards are dressed in all red just like the Imperial Guard in Retun of the Jedi but their armor and their weapons are like something out of a Bruce Lee movie. After defeating the guards there is the inevitable moment where Rey wants Kylo to come with her but Kylo, just like his grandfather 53 years before, just sees the path to unlimited power within his grasp. Kylo can't see the better choice and it will cost him dearly.

That’s about it for this movie, I’m not going to address the vitriol surrounding Rey’s parents because that is resolved in Episode IX, needless to say, the fans were not happy with the build up that was made and then the revelation that she was abandoned on Jakku. Next time we’re together, I will be writing about Episode IX The Rise of Skywalker.

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