"Let the past die."

This is not going to go the way you think!

Luke Skywalker, The Last Jedi

(Nota bene: There are some spoilers in this posting.  Some people might consider them to be large spoilers, but from a certain point of view*, they're actually quite small.  Regardless, they are spoilers.)

So, at last**, my comments on The Last Jedi. 

It was okay.

For a Star Wars movie, that's an epic condemnation. This is one of the longest running and certainly the most profitable franchises in the history of franchises - in fact, you can almost consider it to BE the history of franchises - and as such, the expectation is that it will entertain, astonish, and touch the audience.

Which it does, from time to time. Sadly, it also confused and irritated, which is not a good combination for any movie.

To be fair, there were parts of this movie that I loved. It's full of excellent performances and great bits of sly humour, much of which comes from Luke Skywalker.

I was unexpectedly touched to see Luke return to the story. It’s been 34 years since Mark Hamill last played this part, and I was pleasantly surprised to see how much of the naïve farm boy from Tatooine remained in his performance, and disappointed to discover that he's unlikely to appear in the next film.  It would have been gratifying to see Luke's character develop based on his experience in this episode, perhaps finally fulfilling his destiny and bringing balance to the Force.

In his absence, there are other candidates for the role of redeemer. The Force-powered long-distance relationship between Kylo Ren and Rey was brilliant, and the chemistry that builds between the two characters bodes well for the conclusion to the trilogy.  Kylo Ren is one of the better parts of the movie: the character showed unexpected depth, and in some ways I'm finding his story to be more interesting than Rey's. And, yes, the question of Rey's background is answered, in a fashion that perfectly matches the theme of this movie and sets the character free.

In fact, that's the most unexpected thing that this film does: it deliberately cuts ties to the past.  As characters from the other movies become fewer and fewer***, we are presented with a story that, as Luke says, will not go the way that we think.

However, the good parts of The Last Jedi are strongly overshadowed by the flaws, large and small.

The plot has a terrible Rosebud**** error, where a character has knowledge that he is explicitly unable to have based on the timeline of the film, and a pointless subplot regarding an authority struggle in the Resistance that seems to take place only for the purposes of conflict between characters.  People have done their best to explain these problems, but really, if your plot points need defending after the event, something has gone a bit wrong with your story.

Similarly, the Canto Bight sequence has been strenuously debated after the fact. I appreciated the points being made in the segment, but let's be honest, it did nothing to advance the plot - if anything, it took up time that could have been better spent elsewhere, perhaps with Luke and Rey.

 

There are also a lot of little problems, things that don't quite work:  Maz Kanata's odd cameo (who IS holding the camera for that?); the sudden discovery that light speed vehicles can be a weapon, Phasma's wasted potential as a character; Snoke's back story; people flipping over between shots; and a score of other flaws and missed opportunities.

And, last and least, the blatant children's-toy-marketability of the porgs was almost insulting.  Ewoks were bad enough, Jar Jar Binks is legendary for the negative fan response that he received, but porgs were such obvious product placement that they might as well have been drinking Coke™.

Large and important things happen in The Last Jedi, and it beautifully sets up the question of what will happen next.  And it's already made well over a billion dollars - $1.27 billion at the time I'm typing this, a huge success by any standard.  I just wish that I'd liked it more.

  - Sid

*  Did everyone see what I did there?  If not, Google away, it's an Obi-Wan Kenobi joke.

** https://theinfiniterevolution.blogspot.ca/2016/03/is-it-okay-to-call-you-bill.html

*** With that in mind, I was surprised that they didn't take advantage of a clear opportunity to remove Leia from the story.  Shooting for The Last Jedi had finished several months before Carrie Fisher's death at the end of 2016, but post-production on the film didn't finish until September of this year.  That would have given them lots of time to do a minor rewrite, one that would have actually made a lot of sense, building on the events of The Force Awakens to further establish Kylo's desire to turn his back on the past and be his own person. It's admirable that instead of taking the easy way out, the producers decided to leave Ms. Fisher's last performance untouched.

**** In case you're not a movie scholar, in the film Citizen Kane, a reporter spends the entire film trying to determine the significance of Kane's final word:  "Rosebud".  Unfortunately, he dies alone, and as such, no one would know what he said.  Various people have tried to explain this in various ways over the years - and various people are trying to explain the flaw in The Last Jedi in a similar fashion.

"Time to leave the battlefield."

 

"A life this long – do you understand what it is? It’s a battlefield, like this one… and it’s empty. Because everyone else has fallen."

The Doctor, Twice Upon a Time

And so, with the 2017 Doctor Who Christmas Special, we say a poignant, introspective goodbye to Peter Capaldi's Doctor: not fighting the Cybermen, not struggling with the Daleks, not foiling an evil plan, but simply hoping to save a life that would have been lost to the tyranny of war, mixed with the Shakespearean question of whether to be or not to be.

The episode introduces the idea that a Time Lord might deliberately refuse to regenerate, and by so doing, succumb to whatever death has initiated the process.  It also sharply reminds us of what the Doctor has lost over time, the manner in which both friends and foes have fallen by the wayside, finally leaving nothing but memories - a metaphor which is clearly illustrated by the avatars generated by the memory-harvesting Testimony, a ship created by scientists in the far distant future.

As Bill Potts' glassy avatar reflectively points out during the episode, letting go of the Doctor is hard.  It's been fun watching Capaldi and the writers move his Doctor away from the stiff, formal character of his first appearance, adding sunglasses, hoodies and Doc Martins to his wardrobe, and the electric guitar* to his repertoire. (Not to mention his increasingly unruly hair as the series went on.)

It's been equally rewarding to admire Capaldi's skill as an actor. I've talked before about the partnership between writer and performer, and the writers' need to work with each new actor's specific talents while being faithful to the character of the Doctor.  In Capaldi, the writers were presented with an experienced actor who had obviously developed his craft over time, and took full advantage of Capaldi's impressive ability to imbue his performance with emotion and power.

That ability was immediately evident in his first full episode, where his contemplations on the process of re-creation and replacement resonated strongly with the Doctor's own existence, and the writers were smart enough see what they'd been given and to take advantage of it. Capaldi's tenure was marked by resonant soliloquies and emotional monologues, or exchanges such as his epic, unforgettable rant on war from The Zygon Inversion in his second season.


Capaldi's final scene pays tribute to both his Doctor, and the Doctors who had come before him.  He finally decides to give in to regeneration, and as he readies himself for the change, he delivers a reflective, touching retrospective on how the next Doctor should lead his life, followed by the long-awaited appearance of Jody Whittaker, whose first word as the Doctor is, quite aptly, "Brilliant..."

 

One could assume that the Doctor's youthful regeneration is an unconscious response to his decision not to end his existence, and perhaps this will be addressed in the new season.  Sadly, we will have to wait a while for the answer to that question, or indeed any questions about the new Doctor.  The BBC, after presenting the most anticipated regeneration in the history of the show, decided that they should wait until the fall of 2018 to start the new season of Doctor Who.

 

Wait, did we not just go through exactly the same process waiting for the 2017 season? (Because there wasn't one in 2016?)  Coincidentally, Game of Thrones has also delayed their next season  - until 2019 - and both shows are doing a reduced number of episodes.  Ah, the confidence that all of these people have in the loyalty of their fandom - hopefully it's well placed.  Careful, though:  the Star Wars producers seem to be fully capable of popping out a movie once a year like clockwork, and it's a well known fact that the Dark Side has cookies.

Not a threat, just a warning...

  - Sid

*Which he comes by honestly - it's a well known part of Capaldi's biography that he was in a punk band called Dreamboys with Craig Ferguson (yes, that Craig Ferguson) circa 1980.

Nailed it.

From now on, we're Terrans. Decency is weakness and will get us killed and the lives of everyone on this ship and the Federation are at stake. So you do what you must, whatever you must, to anyone. 

Captain Lorca: Despite Yourself, Star Trek: Discovery

And there you have it, the mid-season premier of Discovery: mirror universe, little goatees for everyone, as predicted.  Long live the Terran Empire...

- Sid