Last night I was part of a team of four expert reviewers at an exclusive screening (at the Burlington Mall) of Star Wars: The Last Jedi. Our thoughts on the film, in no particular order…
The First Order fights just like the U.S. military during World War II. All of the officers are incompetent and make decisions that lead to defeat by numerically inferior forces. However, it doesn’t matter strategically because they can keep cranking out an infinite number of additional starships and other weapons.
Characters in the movie are obsessed with their parents and connections to those parents. Yet the film comes out of California, which led the no-fault divorce revolution that resulted in the U.S. having the world’s highest percentage of children living outside a two-parent family (some stats). If the parent-obsessed filmmakers are representative of Californians and most of them think that parents are important to children, why would they run a winner-take-all family court system in which one parent will inevitably be discarded? (unlike neighboring Nevada, a 50/50 shared parenting state)
Californians like to talk about their commitment to equality (way better than “inequality” certainly!) and how people are entitled to various human rights, e.g., to shelter, food, health care, etc., simply by showing up and identify as “human.” Yet the characters don’t accord equal rights to human lives. A whole space ship of colleagues can be blown up and that isn’t nearly as sad as if one more fleshed-out character is injured.
Californians also like to talk about their passion for science and hatred for those who are “anti-science”. Yet they’ve made a movie in which the vacuum of space carries sound waves and bombs fall under the influence of Earth-style gravity regardless of where in the universe they happen to be.
As with previous Star Wars films, the movie doesn’t make obvious economic sense. They have capable robots, but people still lust after money. Why isn’t there an infinite supply of everything? Population growth does not seem to have kept up with the improvements in tech. In fact, there is no place in the entire universe that is as crowded as today’s Los Angeles or San Francisco. The richest people in the galaxy are arms dealers, but why should they make more than a normal return on investment? The First Order seems to be the legitimate government and also the consumer of 99 percent of the weapons. Why wouldn’t they run their own arms factories or use low-bid contractors?
Why can’t these advanced folks have some better autopilots? When the goal is to have a space ship fly “straight and level” (see above for how Earth-style gravity operates everywhere!) it is necessary to have a human pilot on board. Also, why not swarms of drone attack aircraft?
Speaking of gravity, the description of the Force sounds a lot like Isaac Newton’s first theory of gravitation. Maybe the Force will turn out to be gravity?
The Star Wars screenwriter’s task has been greatly simplified compared to in the 1970s and 1980s. What would characters say when they think the entire galaxy is about to be doomed by an evil dictatorship? When the universe as they know it is coming to an end? Simply go to Facebook and cut and paste from any discussion of a proposed federal law or state election.
Related:
People have done some interesting pondering on some of this:
Droid armies have been tried (and defeated) in the prequels
Some have posited that the technology to make new droids may have been lost
This is fun https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/9a3mmp/the-disk-formats-of-star-wars-rogue-one-spoilers
I remember reading something sometime about the general level of tech and UI (aside from the weird availability of spacecraft, everyone is poor and the UI are generally cruel jokes) In “the force awakens” Rey is basically starving on a junk planet while owning a hoverbike and living a few minutes ride from a working millenium falcon
It’s a comic strip version of WWII (including analogs of fighter jets, bombers, submarines, aircraft carriers, etc.) with exotic settings. That’s all.
Off topic: “greenspunity” defined at http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=7804
Hey Phil,
You better thank God for the U.S. military during WWII.
Guess the first order still allows modifying the millenium falcon’s hyperdrive without a new certification.
@Anonymous
Actually everyone should be thanking the Russian military who did most of the work.
As a long-time Star Wars fan, I highly recommend it. The story was great, and the characters well fleshed out. There is a lot of screentime for for Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher, which is good for long-time fans.
Hard to get a seat at my local theater, I think this one’s a winner.
Speaking of WWII. Back in my day we would run around and play soldier. Now kids run around and play jedi knights. Try as Last Jedi might to promote feminist pacifism, what the kids love about the series is the fighting. They run around with their plastic, collapsible light sabers and battle day after day, in shifting teams of changing alliances.
Discount whatever dopey philosophical drivel us adults pay attention to — the latest Star Wars movies are all about the fighting. Last Jedi, like Rogue One, was big on self-sacrifice for the greater cause. The battle is the big thing. Rogue One was a non-stop series of battle scenes. Last Jedi was full of battles and fights.
Kids want honourable combat and glory. Take that pacifists — you cannot deny the basic human urge to fight.
I seriously doubt that just because the movie was made in California it reflects the thoughts, ideas & passions of Californians. How could you even extrapolate that? You go on a California rant because a movie was made there?
Can’t you just enjoy the movie without trying to intellectualize it?
I’ve walked out of the theater upset at the sheer stupidity of the movie.
Can any fan explain the reason why so many pointless scenes made it in? For instance, the whole subplot involving Finn and his new friend seems to be geared solely to the China market, as it doesn’t advance the plot at all. One could argue the new freak menagerie at the casino will help Disney sell more toys to anyone who doesn’t know any better. It’s not even funny.
Benicio del Toro does a poor impression of Lando Calrissian and the whole thing blows up to no useful purpose. No wonder Harrison Ford no longer wanted to have anything to do with the franchise.
What about the scenes where we finally learn what Luke had been doing all these years … milking the tits of ugly sea creatures and spearing depressed looking fish with the galaxy’s longest needle.
At one point it looked like the ‘caretakers’ dressed up in nun habits and Snoke’s red dressed guards are a subtle jab at the Catholic Church… Fear not, as the whole thing collapses under its own stupidity. It’s not made clear what or who Snoke really is and for all his cunning ability he falls (literally) for a “who’s on first” type of joke.
Hamill hobbles around looking dejected all the time, while all the tension with Leia in previous movies is gone as Carrie Fischer is visibly in much poorer health than the previous movie. She can barely utter a few lines and in the closing scenes she is forced to use a walking stick.
I just hope Mark Hamill extracted at least $5M extra in order to drink the green milk in the tit scene on the island.