Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017) - Second Thoughts

After having seen The Last Jedi three times, I finally have some concrete thoughts about the film. My overall positive impression of the film has not changed, but there are some things I have begun to notice that I’d like to share with you. Two of the three things I'm sharing here are going to seem harshly negative, and while they are more or less blemishes and might detract from the film, they don't 

WARNING: spoilers for The Last Jedi follow. Please do yourself a favor and don’t spoil this movie for yourself. It is far better if you know nothing going into it for the first time.

But really though: don’t spoil this movie for yourself. I knew nothing going in, and that made a lot of what happens in the film impact me that much more; if you want my spoiler-free thoughts on the film, you can find them here. Anyway, here’s my observations.

1. Anytime after the first viewing, this film drags. I didn’t notice The Last Jedi’s length the first time I watched it that much, but upon second and third viewings the pacing of the film’s second act is pretty slow. Most of that I felt was because I wanted to see what was coming (Kylo and Rey before Snoke, the Luke and Yoda scene, Holdo’s suicide run, etc.) more than what was actually happening. I don’t see this as a bad thing, and it actually felt better the third time than the second, but it’s something worth noting. It kind of reminds me of The Empire Strikes Back and how we go back and forth between Luke’s training and Han and Leia on the Millennium Falcon: the film slows down a lot before its fantastic climax, making it a bit of a chore to get through sometimes. I don’t necessarily think that anything needs cut from that second act (I didn’t really mind the scenes on Canto Bight, the casino planet; actually, besides the animal cruelty message thrown in at the very end, I liked the sequence, mostly due to its emphasis on war profiteering), but it might have been nice to have a smidge of the cinematic fat trimmed.
2. Kylo Ren is one of my favorite characters in the Star Wars saga. After The Force Awakens, I liked Kylo, but The Last Jedi added so much complexity to him and made me love him that much more. I like how we don’t really get a sense of his true motives until we see him turn on Snoke, showing that he just wanted to get off his leash and was willing to feign anything – even a turn to the light – to achieve that goal. I can’t think of another character that’s been as conniving or as cunning as Kylo Ren, and Adam Driver’s portrayal of this character is something truly special. 
3. Rose is my least favorite character in the Star Wars saga. Rose, played by Kelly Marie Tran, is a worse character than anything that has come before her, and that includes Jar-Jar. Her character has absolutely nothing to do in this movie until the final moments where she saves Finn from his sacrificial death, and that one moment is the undoing of everything her character stood for in the beginning of the film. She remarks how her sister gave her life for the Resistance in a bombing run, yet she won’t let Finn do the same when he arguably has a better cause for wanting to destroy the First Order. Why is she worse than Jar-Jar Binks, you ask? It’s simple: every terribly dumb thing Jar-Jar does, in particular his insistence on giving Palpatine emergency power in Attack of the Clones, is done for what he thinks is the good of the group. He doesn’t want to cause the rise of the Empire, and I believe that he has no knowledge of Palpatine’s plot to take over the galaxy; he never has an inkling of a desire to sabotage the Republic. Rose, on the other hand, knowingly and willingly takes away the best chance the Resistance has for escape by “saving” Finn’s life. It’s a dumb choice, and the fact that she says it was made for love that we never knew existed until that one moment makes it (and her kissing Finn) completely ridiculous. Every time I have seen this film, I have hated that moment more than anything else in the film, and it infuriated me after my third time watching it.

Overall, I really like this film. I still think it is best experienced in a theater, and I probably will see it again at some point. I do have some gripes with the film, but it is still one of the best directed and best acted Star Wars films to date.

My grade: 94/100