Many people think Star Wars: The Last Jedi is an excellent film. On the Twitter the other day, one person told me that it is better than The Empire Strikes Back and that I should go and fuck myself. Someone else said they enjoyed it so much that they are going to get its opening crawl tattooed on their wife’s back, so they can read it while engaging in sodomy. Even the national press love it, writing things like ‘it’s impossible not to be swept away’ and ‘it’s so good it makes me want to eat my fucking hands’.
Here’s why they’re all wrong.
Remember The Force Awakens? Rian Johnson doesn’t
Director Rian Johnson is only 43, so I highly doubt he’s gone mental yet. But after watching The Last Jedi it’s quite clear that he’s completely forgotten that The Force Awakens happened. That must be why he doesn’t follow up any of its genuinely interesting ideas, like the origins of The Knights of Ren and the importance of Rey’s psychedelic fit when she strokes Luke’s lightsaber.
Some have applauded the manner in which Johnson subverts every expectation, dismissing all of the questions raised by The Force Awakens as unimportant. “It’s genius!” says Claire on the Twitter. I must admit, it would be really clever if I wrote a sentence and then immediately followed it up with one that doesn’t connect at all. We’ve run out of biscuits.
Admiral Ackbar should stand a better chance of surviving in space than Princess Leia
When Princess Leia is sucked into the vacuum of space, dies for a bit, but then uses the Force to fly herself back to her ship, I was actually sick on my lap. I heard gasps of wonder during this moment and I can honestly say that is the closest I’ve ever come to murdering hundreds of people at once. If you liked that scene you are an utter disgrace and I hope your home gets repossessed.
Everyone knows that Ackbar stands a much better chance at surviving in space. He’s a fish that breathes out of water for fuck’s sake. Who’s to say he can’t last a couple of minutes without air? He probably stores oxygen in his massive gullet, anyway. But no, he dies, and with it, so does Star Wars.
Everything with Finn and Rose is 84% shitter than Podracing
Finn and Rose ride these fucked-up camel sphinx things and it’s shit. It actually made me appreciate the Podrace sequence in The Phantom Menace. It’s about 15 minutes long, which is hilarious. Plus you could just watch it on a loop nine times instead of sitting through the rest of that bilge. If you did that with Finn and Rose’s scenes you’d lose your mind and start agreeing with Empire Magazine reviews.
Snoke is so powerful. He even stands up at one point
Again, there’s a serious lack of synergy between The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi here, because the former clearly had bigger plans for the Supreme Leader. I mean, he has witnessed the rise and fall of the Empire, survived an awful skiing accident, lured Kylo Ren to the Dark Side, and is powerful enough to turn people into Fantasia broomsticks by just lifting his finger. They probably at least intended him to walk around a bit and do some star jumps.
But in another one of Johnson’s brilliant, bold moves, he has him outsmarted and killed by his inexperienced apprentice. He did have a shagadelic dressing gown, though, so I guess it all evens out.
Luke Skywalker doesn’t die at the end of the film; he dies in the first 40 minutes
There was much wailing and gnashing of teeth when Mark Hamill read the script to The Last Jedi. He said he fundamentally disagreed with everything Rian Johnson had written about Luke Skywalker. He was obviously referring to the scene in which he drinks green pus from an anteater cow’s tit.
Luke also contemplates murdering a teenager, which is mental. That’s only justified if they come to the dinner table stinking of a danger wank.
You haven’t got Alzheimer’s. I can’t remember the plot either
It’s unfair for me to claim that it’s even possible to remember the plot to The Last Jedi when there isn’t one. I thought I found it earlier today when I was re-stuffing the cushions on the sofa, but it turned out to be a 2B pencil and an old dog biscuit.
Something about The Resistance running away from The First Order, who are stronger than ever despite losing an entire planet gun in last film, seems to ring a bell. I think there was also meant to be some Grey Jedi stuff about the balance of the Force, which would have tied into Rey and Kylo’s arcs quite nicely, but it quickly got bored of that idea and threw red salt around instead.
Fuck it, The Last Jedi is structurally, thematically and tonally a bigger shambles than your mum and dad’s marriage. Not only does it cut off everything that came before it, it makes it impossible for anything to follow. There’s no story, absolutely no character development, and, despite it meaning to be one of the darkest films in the saga, it’s stuffed with hilarious, Marvel-esque moments like Rey getting tickled with a leaf and Luke dusting off his shoulder. And Yoda looked rubbish.
Capitalism has killed Star Wars and turned you into gurning, cretinous sheep
Remember when Poe made a ‘your mum’ joke? That was funny, wasn’t it? You know, he was trying to wind up Hux by mentioning his mum. It’s really amusing because people don’t like it when you insult their mum, do they? Do you remember? It was really funny and everyone laughed. He made a ‘your mum’ joke. In a Star Wars film. It was really funny. It was probably the best bit. You know, when he had Hux on the phone and then nonchalantly made a joke at his mum’s expense.
Now that I think about it, it’s hard to understand how anyone could say this isn’t the best Star Wars film ever.