Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017) - First Impressions

Because of the complexity of The Last Jedi and how interwoven the film’s quality is with its major plot points, I am going to treat this a bit differently and more shortly than my normal reviews. After I watch this film a second or third time, I will publish a much longer spoiler-filled review; this is more of a first impressions post than anything, and I promise there will be ABSOLUTELY NO SPOILERS in the words that follow.

I have never reacted to a film like I have The Last Jedi. I have never been so shocked by the way a film’s plot has progressed or by how one single movie can take the lore of an entire franchise as deep and rich as Star Wars and make you ask questions about its central core.

I want to make one thing very clear, though: I still don’t know how I feel about this film. There’s too much for me to process after just one viewing for me to give it a specific score, and if you see it I bet you will feel the same way. So much happens in this film, and while that makes it so good, it also makes it an extremely hard film to digest in just one viewing – especially if you’re already a Star Wars fan.

For that reason, I’m going to make my explanation of The Last Jedi’s plot very simple: it picks up right after The Force Awakens…and that’s all you need to know. Seriously, though, Rian Johnson has done an incredibly good job with this story to the point that the less you know going in, the better off you will be for it. He twisted and turned me through the most intense cinematic wringer I have ever been through: there’s surprises at every corner, and all of them land incredibly well. There’s one minor issue with the film – involving the depth of a subplot with Finn and a new character – but apart from that, this film is paced and edited nearly perfectly. You might start to feel its length towards the very end, but its two-and-a-half-hour runtime flies by for the most part: this film is a perfectly-conducted orchestra.

The performances in this film are also stellar. A lot of this is tied to The Last Jedi’s complex character development that I won’t go into, but this is what I will say: everybody is at the top of their game. Mark Hamill’s return is well worth it and is probably the best performance he has given as Luke Skywalker, while Carrie Fisher’s final performance is also quite good. Daisy Ridley, Adam Driver, John Boyega, and Oscar Isaac all do stellar work with their characters’ respective arcs; I was most impressed by Driver and his ability to make Kylo Ren the most multi-dimensional character I have seen in a Star Wars movie.

Also, porgs are cute. Deal with it.

Overall, though, saying anything else about this movie would either be saying too much or repeating what you already know (the visual effects and John Williams’s score are both excellent, for the record). I think The Last Jedi is a film that needs to be experienced to be truly grasped, and it will make you so overwhelmed by its end because it takes Star Wars in entirely new directions. It is the Star Wars film I will remember seeing for the first time for the rest of my life.

My recommendation: See this in a theater, you must. 

My grade: 94/100