Partly because Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi was released today and partly because I am not really happy about spoilers, or feeling like I need to reveal events from the movie just to be one of the first (thousands) of people to be able to claim to talk about the movie, I am going to just talk about my impressions rather than specifics.
First off, I was very happy with SWEVIII:TLJ (hereafter referred to only as SW8* for simplicity sake) over all. The best way I could think of to describe the film to someone who has not seen it yet (The Kid earlier today), was that it very much felt like a movie in the Star Wars universe, but that it did not feel like any of the other Star Wars movies. Similar to the same way that Rogue One felt like a Star Wars movie, but not of the numbered seven.
Another way I feel that better describes (sort of) the movie, is that its tone and the way the story was told reminded me a lot of The Clone Wars animated series. The way that the story followed certain characters, actions of characters who were not part of the main cast, all reminded me of the way that The Clone Wars would often tell their stories, if the particular story did not follow Ahsoka, Anakin, or Obi-Wan. Even a couple of the sets looked almost too clean, like they were computer generated, but were in fact real objects, but I suspect that that was a visual choice by the director. And having only seen Looper, I think Rian Johnson did a pretty good job with this IP. My childhood Star Wars is still intact (Ewoks and all), and I look forward to what his plan is for the next Star Wars trilogy.
Was it a perfect movie? No. In one instance, there was part of a story-line, that while I liked it, I was not particularly happy with how it played out. I also wish that some characters were handled a little differently, but that is the way a Star Wars movie goes. Maybe it is because I either did not listen to fan theories about characters and their yet undisclosed backstories, or that I just dismissed them outright. And after the initial teaser, I did not watch any of the trailers, partly because Conklederp was not watching them, but I heard that some of the subsequent trailers contained spoilers and I personally wanted to try to remain spoiler free for as long as possible.
But it was still a Star Wars movie. Entire planets are still treated like a single city, time is still handled pretty loosely, and John Williams music is still there. And actually, I felt that the score for The Last Jedi overall sounded more Star Wars-y than his score for The Force Awakens, and I am not just saying that after watching the movie, but listening to the soundtrack as well.
The point of all of this is, is that I really enjoyed TLJ and while I would love to see it again, there are three other movies that are currently out that I would like to see as well before they leave (1, 2, 3). Will you like it? Maybe. Unless of course you were one of those people who was banking on Chewbacca being Rey's father, and that Emperor Snoke was really Arvin Sloan's twin brother who was running a secret black ops organization out of SD-6 under the guidance of Jack Bristow, but that is something we will talk about next week.
Until then, keep your cups full, but your minds fuller.
~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
I liked it too! Just saw last night. And yes, it isn't perfect, but it was good. I think I'm finally ready to accept new Star Wars as they are, and not as I always wished they would be.
ReplyDeleteAlso, it's quite clear that Chewbacca is Rey's true father figure, if only she can just see it for herself.