Why Star Wars: The Last Jedi was a Colossal Disaster

I really don't think it's possible to make a movie worse than The Last Jedi.

*glances at Netflix*

Okay fine, it's possible. But not easy. This film failed on so many levels that its problems can't even be fully discussed without taking up more time than the actual movie. It's so bad that even without the context of the other films in the saga, it's terrible as a stand-alone one. It's a complete insult to Star Wars fans, and more importantly, an insult to George Lucas and everything he worked so hard to create. Now, I know The Last Jedi came out almost three years ago, but despite a few references to it here and there, I've never really talked extensively about why I dislike it so much. So today I'll go through just a few reasons why I often call The Last Jedi a "dumpster fire."

First, a quick disclaimer: This is all my opinion, not fact. I'm aware that there are many, including some readers of mine, who enjoyed the film. Good for you! This is nothing against you. This article is a vituperation of the movie itself, not the fans. It's an explanation of my opinion on it, and you're just as free to express yours. Nobody is a "fake fan" for liking or disliking any of the Star Wars movies. So with that said, let's do this.

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Trilogies have to be planned out

The Force Awakens (Episode VII) was not great, but it didn't ruin the trilogy by any means. It even had some promising character arcs. But if the first movie in a trilogy is going to have some messing around, then the second one needs to solidify the story and start really shaping the characters. The Last Jedi does none of that. The character arcs don't advance at all, except for the worse, and the storyline is so pointless that it literally could have been taken out after The Rise of Skywalker and the basic story of the sequel trilogy would still be the same. More on that later. But even Daisy Ridley herself said that Rian Johnson was given complete creative control over the film, and that he didn't keep anything from J.J. Abrams's draft for it. He completely rewrote the script. You can't do that in the middle of a trilogy. Imagine if you were cooking an elaborate meal in a restaurant, and while you were doing it, you told another chef to take over and do whatever he wanted with the dish. It doesn't work that way; whoever is cooking a meal has to follow the same recipe. For the sequels, the result was incoherency.

Of course, the best model for how this should work is the original trilogy, which was just about perfect in every way. Sure, some aspects of the plot were decided upon while the films were in production, but it's clear that the creators knew what they were doing, and not just playing mad libs. And the character arcs are actually legitimate and intriguing; Luke starts out as a whiny farmboy longing for adventure who matures into a fearless and powerful leader; Han Solo is a greedy pilot who eventually learns to put relationships and morals before money; Vader is an evil powerhouse bent on ruling the galaxy and destroying everything in his way, but he is redeemed and brought back to good against all odds; et cetera. Which brings me to my next point.

The character development is nonexistent

Seriously, there are no interesting characters in this film. Sure, Kylo Ren has a good arc throughout the three sequel movies, and so does Poe (despite being kind of a ripoff of Han Solo or Lando). But in this particular film, everyone is so bad. It's not a problem with the actors; they're actually really good at what they do. But it's painfully clear that Rian Johnson didn't take the time to create good characters for The Last Jedi. In fact, most of the characters in this film just get continually worse. You can't relate to any of them, because they have very little depth, and most of the time they just don't make any sense. Let's take a closer look.

Holdo up, who's this?

I'm not even a movie director, and I think it's pretty difficult to create a character as bad as Admiral Holdo. It was clearly Rian Johnson's and Kathleen Kennedy's attempt to inject feminism into Star Wars that backfired spectacularly. I'm going to try as hard as possible not to get into politics here, but here's the thing: Diversity in movies is great, but the most important thing has to be creating good characters, not just using ones that suit your political agenda. If that is the first priority, the story itself suffers. Modern politics must be kept out of Star Wars. When I go to watch a movie, I want a break from that stuff.

Admiral Holdo was a terrible addition to this film. For one thing, Admiral Ackbar was still around, and he would have made a much better leader. He had experience, and he was a character people loved in Return of the Jedi. Instead, they use this inexperienced person who is completely incapable of directing an army. And that's where Rian's politics backfired: Holdo was a terrible leader. Rule number one of leadership: Make sure your people know what your plan is, especially in a situation like the one the Resistance was in. Holdo's fleet was reduced to a very few people, and what remained was being chased down by the First Order, who had infinitely more resources. These people were barely hanging on to their lives, and had to rely on Holdo to help them escape. But she didn't even tell them what the plan was, and every time Poe confronted her about it she shut him down. Apparently the message was that everyone was supposed to trust Holdo because of her gender. But that is completely irrelevant to leadership, and all Rian Johnson ended up doing was making this woman look like a terrible leader. He even tried to give her a seemingly heroic death: sacrificing herself to let the other members of the Resistance escape. But her idea was so bad and unnecessary that it was painfully obvious that it was the opposite of heroic. I'll get into that "Holdo maneuver" later.

Not the Luke I knew

This is an especially hard one to let go. Luke Skywalker is one of the most well-known, beloved, and relatable characters in the Star Wars saga. He begins at a very low point and rises up to become a powerful leader who is positive, hopeful, and sacrificial. He resisted the pull of the Dark Side and defeated Palpatine, redeemed his father Vader, and led the Rebellion to victory. He never gave up. And yet The Last Jedi turns him completely around, into a sad hermit who has run away from the war, abandoned the Jedi, and become completely unwilling to connect with or help others. That's not who Luke is. Some people try to claim that anyone would do that if they were in his position and it makes sense for him to change like that. But he is the one person in Star Wars who would absolutely not do that!! Mark Hamill himself recognized this.

"Who is this guy? How did the most optimistic, hopeful character in the galaxy turn into this hermit? That's not what a Jedi does! A Jedi is optimistic, a Jedi has tenacity, he never gives up."

Sadly, Disney forced him to stop saying that.

Luke is the embodiment of hope in the Star Wars galaxy. Even when everything seemed lost, he never gave up. He was the only one who still believed Vader could come back to the light. He was even the "New Hope" that Episode IV refers to! And now he's just a cranky old man hiding from the fight? It's extremely saddening that Rian Johnson would have the audacity to do something like this to such a valuable character.

And he doesn't even improve by the end. They try to make it look like he does when he "comes" to Crait and distracts the First Order so the Resistance can escape. But why does he even come as a Force projection and not as his real self? As soon as he finished with Kylo Ren on Crait, he died on Ahch-To. Why not come if the end result was the same?

Leia Poppins

As a character, Leia didn't change much between The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi. But there's one event in The Last Jedi that I have serious issues with. I'm referring, of course, to the part where her ship is shot by Kylo Ren's TIE escort and she is pulled into space. Sure, in Star Wars, it's possible to survive that. Kanan Jarrus does it in Rebels. But Leia is not a Jedi. Yes, she has some Force sensitivity and was trained as a Jedi for some time, but she's not on the level of someone like Kanan. More importantly, Kanan was only outside of his ship for a few seconds (and he still almost died), while Leia was just floating there for who knows how long. But suddenly her eyes open, she reaches out her hand, and goes flying back to the airlock. So, essentially, she's now a space Mary Poppins. It's just a totally ridiculous scene.

Oh, and on that note, how did they open the door to pull Leia back in without getting sucked into space themselves? Food for thought.

An a-Rey of abilities

Since I'm writing this after The Rise of Skywalker, we now know where Rey's immense powers came from. That's all well and good, but by the time The Last Jedi ended it still didn't make any sense. If Rey seemed like a Mary Sue in The Force Awakens, she really was one in The Last Jedi. She didn't train at all, seemingly didn't have Jedi parents, and was only a poor scavenger, yet somehow she could fight extremely well trained guards (and Kylo Ren), fly ships perfectly, perform Jedi mind tricks, and more. Of course, we learn in The Rise of Skywalker that this was largely due to being a descendant of Palpatine, but 1) why wait to reveal that for so long, and 2) why force the writers of Episode 9 to bring in an old character to explain this new mistake and make it look clearly forced?

Rey was never a very deep character, and The Last Jedi certainly didn't help with that.

A Rose by any other name just might make some sense

The character of Rose Tico was unnecessary and confusing. It's not the actress's fault; Kelly Marie Tran seems like a nice person and a good actress. It's sad that she received so much backlash. But this character just doesn't make sense. Rose's skillset pretty much doesn't exist, and she doesn't bring much to the table other than a few shots fired and a few cringeworthy lectures about morality which are totally hypocritical. Seriously, Rose's views of ethics are pretty messed up. When she first meets Finn, she scolds him for trying to desert the Resistance, calling him a coward and saying that her sister died in the bomber raid (at the beginning of the film) as a sacrifice to save everyone else. According to her, every human life is very precious and should be worth sacrifice. That's true, and that's what she believes. Or...is it? In the middle of the film, when she and Finn are on Canto Bight looking for the codebreaker, they go and rescue a whole bunch of poorly treated racing animals, and leave the slave children who are taking care of them. This is incredibly twisted. Not only do they make it look like the animals are more valuable, they probably get a bunch of poor children in big trouble. That would be bad enough, but then the Crait speeder scene happens. Finn is going to heroically sacrifice himself to destroy the battering ram cannon, and at the last second Rose rams into his speeder, stops him, and tells him, "It's not about winning, it's about saving the ones you love." ARE YOU--

*calms self down*

What's that all about? She literally said the exact opposite thing to Finn earlier. If that was so, then what was the point of her sister's sacrifice? A little consistency would be nice.

Not quite Finn-ished

I don't have a ton of beef with The Last Jedi over the character of Finn, but there is something that kind of bothers me. In The Force Awakens, Finn gets totally crushed in a fight with a random trooper, yet holds his ground against and defeats Captain Phasma in The Last Jedi. One, he probably shouldn't have been able to do that. Sure, he could have matured and strengthened somewhat, but not enough to make a change that drastic. Phasma is really, really powerful. Two, Finn and Phasma's relationship should have been developed more. They were fierce enemies because Finn deserted the First Order, and that plot line should have carried into all three films of the sequel trilogy. Perhaps Finn could have fought Phasma instead of the random trooper in The Force Awakens and been totally demolished. Then the one in The Last Jedi could have been a stalemate, Finn having matured, and then in The Rise of Skywalker he could have beaten her in a final showdown. Instead, in the first main meeting they have, Finn's just like, "I'm in charge now! I'm in charge now! Me!" and in the second one...well, you know what happens in the second one.

Going up in Snoke

Sorry about all the name puns. I can't help it.

Snoke's not a bad character. He's voiced by Andy Serkis, which makes him even better. The problem with Snoke is that he's kind of useless. Sure, in The Rise of Skywalker we learn that he was just Palpatine's puppet for a while. But that was clearly not the plan at the beginning (because there was no plan), and when The Last Jedi was being written, that was not in anyone's mind. We now know from Daisy Ridley that putting Palpatine in Episode IX was not decided until later. So Rian Johnson's decision to kill off Snoke in The Last Jedi was totally pointless. Snoke could have been a cool character, but he ends up serving no purpose and being used mostly for filler.

Okay, we've covered characters. Let's move on to some other issues, since there are definitely more.

There's plenty of humor, but no one's laughing

The Last Jedi was not short on jokes. No Star Wars film would be the same without them. But Star Wars humor is not supposed to be Marvel humor. Marvel movies can get away with just being a bunch of jokes because stories about superheroes on earth are not supposed to be taken seriously. But Star Wars is kind of designed to be taken seriously. Sure, there are elements of it that are impossible and unrealistic, but there's nothing inherently silly about it. I don't just see a Star Wars movie to laugh. But in The Last Jedi, many of the jokes are "Marvel jokes." Take for example Poe's "your mom" joke directed at General Hux. Or Rey asking Kylo Ren to put a shirt

on. Rian Johnson wanted us to laugh at those, but no one did. We were all cringing. Many times, it just felt too forced.

But that's not even the main issue. The big humor-related problem with this film was that the jokes came at all the wrong times. It immensely overused the technique of bathos (making a scene anticlimactic by quickly changing the mood from serious to trivial and trivial to serious). Bathos is not necessarily a bad thing when used correctly, but it was done very poorly in The Last Jedi, and there are many examples. For one, in the opening scene where Poe is urging Leia to trust him and they go forward with the desperate bomber attack, the mood is interrupted by Leia's line to C-3PO, "Wipe that nervous expression off of your face." Immediately after, the bombers starting destroyed and everyone must grieve at all the casualties. That's the wrong place for a joke like that. Are the viewers supposed to take the scene seriously, or not? Another example is when Luke finally reappears and Rey hands back the ages-old Skywalker lightsaber to him in an emotional moment, and he proceeds to toss it over his shoulder and walk away. Or when we finally meet Finn again after his lost fight against Kylo Ren, and he's walking around in an inflated suit with water spraying in every direction. But probably the worst instance of this is in what is supposed to be the climactic point of the film, where Rey is brought before Supreme Leader Snoke. There is nothing inherently humorous about this scene; it's quite the opposite. Yet there are multiple instances of bad bathos here. As soon as Rey walks in and Snoke says, "Welcome, young Rey," the scene switches to a shot of Finn and Rose walking by a clumsy droid that bangs into the wall. Soon after, Rey tries to grab her lightsaber from Snoke's throne, and it circles around the room and hits her in the head. And later on in the same scene, when Rey and Kylo Ren are fighting the Praetorian Guards, one of the guards falls into a pit and pieces of his armor go flying back up out of it. Audiences laughed at these instances, but there shouldn't be anything in there to make them laugh. If it's supposed to be a serious and solemn scene, it should be treated as such the whole time. Once the jokes come, the seriousness is dead.

Overall, The Last Jedi was supposed to be a serious kind of film. All the Star Wars films are somewhat serious, but some are more than others. Revenge of the Sith, for example, was very grim, and it stayed that way the whole time, with very little humor thrown in. The Phantom Menace was more lighthearted (though it did have some serious scenes, which George Lucas did a good job of keeping serious). But the plot of The Last Jedi was a serious one, and it ended up being a comedy. It tried to please both sides of the isle, and ended up pleasing none of them. No one knew whether to take it as a funny movie or a serious one. Comic relief is a good and helpful tool, but it was used very poorly and at all the wrong times in The Last Jedi.

That throne room scene

I mentioned Snoke's throne room scene above from a humor standpoint, but this scene has a serious problem content-wise too. What I mean by that is, the Praetorian Guards are deeply mischaracterized. There were eight of these guys, who were trained extremely well and knew how to fight Jedi and ward off threats like the one they faced. They were not stormtroopers; they were Snoke's personal bodyguards. And yet they are beaten in two minutes by Rey and Kylo Ren, neither of which are full-fledged Jedi, and both of which would have been manhandled in a fight with any Jedi from the prequel era (except maybe for Coleman Trebor. RIP.). That Ren and Rey could win a fight like that is totally unrealistic, and an issue that I haven't seen get much attention. Maybe the guards were just stunned at seeing Snoke killed. But it's still rather difficult to understand.

The useless plot

Think about the sequel trilogy as a whole, and the story it tells. If it were to be summarized briefly, the vast majority of that summary would be of events from The Force Awakens and The Rise of Skywalker. That's because in The Last Jedi, there were almost no key events and no important plot lines. You could skip over this film, and you would understand most of the story of the "trilogy." So, essentially, the plot used for this film was useless. If anything major took place in the film, it only worked toward the trilogy's ruin. And the few parts that actually mattered flew right by and weren't given enough screen time (Rey's training, for example). Even with its unhelpful story, The Last Jedi had major pacing issues.

A Whole Lotta Head Scratchers

Ah yes, no Star Wars movie is complete without a mother lode of plot holes. Well okay, that's not entirely true, but The Last Jedi certainly didn't fall short when it came to them. Here are some of the weirdest ones.

1) How exactly did Rey get to Crait near the end of the film? Presumably, she escaped the First Order ship (where she had gone before Snoke) on Snoke's escape ship, but how did she leave undetected? Then, she arrives on Crait in the Millennium Falcon with Chewbacca. Why did she need to change ships? Did she meet up with Chewbacca somewhere? Wouldn't an attack from a First Order ship be more surprising to the First Order? A little clarification would be nice.

2) Why didn't the First Order use more of their resources in taking down the Resistance fleet? For a good portion of the film, the few remaining Resistance ships are being chased by the First Order, which seems content to just follow them and wait until they run out of fuel. But...why? The First Order had infinitely more resources that they were deliberately holding back. They could have easily gone in full force and gotten the job done. Why didn't they just end the war there and then?

3) And now we come to the biggest plot hole of them all, and the moment that some say broke Star Wars forever. Of course, I'm referring to the infamous Holdo maneuver. Here's the thing: Star Wars is a shared universe. The Star Wars canon is not controlled by one person. The people who do control it are trusted not to make decisions that will ruin it for everyone else. Rian Johnson broke that trust. The Holdo maneuver, when put into perspective, creates a huge issue for so many other events in the past. If it is possible to simply ram into another ship at lightspeed and create massive carnage, then why was this technique not used by the Rebellion against the Death Star - or both of them? Why wasn't it used by the Clone Army against the Invisible Hand (General Grievous's ship)? Why wasn't it used by the Naboo against the Trade Federation control ship? Why wasn't it used in literally every space battle ever?? Hyperspace doesn't work that way, and Rian Johnson has created an enormous conflict within what is supposed to be a shared Star Wars universe.

And on that note, why did Admiral Holdo feel the need to be inside of that ship? She had many other options that didn't involve dying. She could have set it on a timer and escaped with the rest. She could have made a droid pilot the ship. It just goes further to show what a useless and shallow character Holdo really was. She was not a hero, despite what Rian Johnson (and Kathleen Kennedy) wanted us to think she was.

The overarching flaw

Perhaps one of the main reasons for all the issues I've laid out is the fact that, well, Rian Johnson wasn't really trying to make a good movie. Don't take my word for it though; here's what Rian himself said a while back:

"I would be worried if everybody across the board was like, 'Yeah, that was a good movie.' It's much more exciting to me when you get a group of people who are coming up to you and really, really excited about it; and then there are other people who walk out, and just literally saying, 'It was the worst movie I've ever seen.' Having those two extremes, to me, is the mark of the type of movie that I want to make."

Essentially what he's saying is that he wants to pit fans against each other, by completely dividing their opinions. You don't have to be a film director to know what a destructive approach this is, not only in general for the quality of a film, but especially for Star Wars in particular. There isn't freedom to make a Star Wars film in that mindset, because of what an impact it will have on the fanbase and on the saga. Look no further than the impact of The Last Jedi to see how it turned out. Rian Johnson got what he wanted - at the expense of Star Wars.

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You can often judge the quality of a film by how excited fans are for the next one. The excitement level of fans for The Phantom Menace was through the roof. For The Rise of Skywalker, however, it was extremely low. A lot of people even told me they weren't going to see it because of how bad the prior film was. Many of those who did go see it had very low expectations. Regardless of what you think of The Rise of Skywalker, it's hard to deny that there was not a ton of hype for it. And The Last Jedi gives a big clue as to why.

Star Wars used to be the project of a young director with a dream, who was not in it for the money, but was simply pursuing what he loved. But since the franchise was sold to Disney, it became something entirely different. Now it's just an enormous way for Disney to make money. There's a reason they're coming out with new content literally all the time, and it's precisely because the more Star Wars they can make, the more money they will get. Unsurprisingly, quality has been replaced with quantity. That's not to say everything Disney has come out with has been bad. But the standard has changed.

The Last Jedi is the foremost example of all this. Ultimately, it didn't matter what kind of film it was. As long as it had the name "Star Wars" in front of it, Disney knew it was going to make them billions. Perhaps if Rian and the rest had taken a little longer to write a legitimate script, it could have been better. But instead they felt the need to "get the new thing out" as fast as possible. The result? A truly terrible film.