Salem Watches Star Wars: On The Last Jedi Weekend

OK, there's actually spoilers in this one... for a month-old movie.

I saw it. So, after my trepidation last week, how did it measure up?

Star Wars: The Last Jedi is... a movie. Goodnight, everyone!

[Salem's attempt to sneak out has been intercepted with Erin carrying a very large shotgun.]

Thanks, Erin. That brings to mind the perfect metaphor. Star Wars: The Last Jedi is what would happen if you took a bunch of Star Wars, dropped it down the barrel of a very large shotgun, and fired it one-handed without aiming at a theatre screen. Minus the monetary damages and police inquiry, of course. Now please put the shotgun down?

There's a lot to love here. There's a whole lot of things that work really, really well, but there's also a lot that either doesn't work at all or could have been easily avoided (and made for a tighter, more focused film). Let's talk about the good, shall we?

I have found my spirit animal, and it is Grumpy Luke. Grumpy Luke, living on his own on an island, surrounded by the bones of an ancient religion and waiting to die. Grumpy Luke, who so casually tosses his (and his father's) lightsaber over his shoulder and stalks away. Mark Hamill may have voiced reservations about how his character was handled, but I think he did a magnificent job with what he was given, and I feel what he was given wasn't all that bad. I've heard complaints about how he wouldn't have tried to kill Ben, given his choice to save Vader, but in the context of the scene, he faltered for a moment and that's what caused the whole thing. "Just one faltering moment causes catastrophe down the line" seems to be a running theme with Jedi, as what created Vader was Obi-Wan's cockiness and underestimation of Darth Maul that caused a worthier teacher to die. The entire sequence with Rey and Luke on the island is really great, and I wish the movie would have focused more on this.

And speaking of Rey, she has finally grown some kind of character with the revelation of her parents being absolute nobodies that sold her for beer money, and is starting to earn what she was given in the first film now that her defiant self-image has been shattered. Something seems visually off about her, though, and I can't put my finger on it; given that it's been 2 years between movies but mere seconds on-screen, the difference is a little jarring.

Most of the rest of the cast does well. Leia, Finn, and Poe are well done, Poe especially getting a lot of character arc, and you can't screw up Chewie and R2. I've heard complaints about Leia's "Mary Poppins" moment, but given we saw her Force sensitivity first flare way back in Empire and it's been 30 years, I'm more than okay with her having a strong Force moment.

Kylo Ren finally becomes interesting, with a more fleshed-out backstory and real personal vulnerability. His moments of flirting with the Light really make me hope that by the end of the next movie he and Rey switch places, with Rey falling to the Dark side and Ren redeemed, but having to live with the atrocities he's committed. The throne room fight scene, with the most hilarious red herring of the entire series, is fantastic. Hands down, the best fight scene in all of Star Wars, topping my previous of Chirrut taking apart a squad of Stormtroopers in Rogue One. When I try to explain what I like about fight scenes to people, I always point to Liam Neeson in Rob Roy. Swinging a sword for more than a few seconds turns into hard work, and Rey and Kylo take a real beating from Snoke's guards, nearly losing several times.

Now onto the things that don't work.

Admiral Holdo. Look, I was going into this biased, as Holdo herself is a meme already, but I'm going to look past the joke of Vice Admiral Gender Studies and criticize her by her actions and her words. From the moment that Poe first speaks to her, she takes every opportunity to be insufferably smug and snide. I understand that Poe was recently demoted and has a reputation as a hothead, but I've been in a position of leadership. I wasn't the admiral of a military, but even I know that if you have a recently disciplined hothead under your wing, you let him know that you're aware of that, but you keep him at least somewhat informed and you give him something to do. Holdo basically blows him off and at no point even drops a hint that she has a plan other than "Keep flying that-a-way." All she had to say was "Thank  you for your input, Commander, there is a plan, and this is what I need you to do" and then tell him to go make sure all the ships are properly fueled or something in case we need them. Holdo reminds me of those Civil War generals that were promoted because they contributed monetarily and became war heroes, but were absolute disasters when it came to actual leadership.

Which brings us to Canto Bight. If Holdo had told Poe there was a plan, there would have been absolutely no need for Finn and Rose to go there. There would have been no need for a Disney film to bash rich people, no need for an alien horse race, and no need for us to pretend that Finn and Rose have any chemistry whatsoever. And no need for Benicio Del Toro's squinty, stuttery face to show up and be absolutely pointless. The entire casino planet subplot was unnecessary, and only served to distract from the opportunity for more quiet character moments and training sequences between Rey and Luke, or the opportunity to maybe make the already tech-savant Rose the one that breaks the security on the Imperial ship.

I'm torn on the salt planet. It was a neat idea, and those crystal foxes are adorable, but there were parts that worked and parts that didn't. The face-off between Luke and Kylo Ren was hilarious, as the movie turned into an absolute anime by the end of that sequence with Luke's casual "See you around, kid." The salt-speeders were terrible, though. They had no guns, no offensive capabilities on display, and couldn't even fly, instead just sort of skimming on a single ski. They weren't even really big enough to damage anything they crashed into, despite how bad of an idea Finn had.

Also, let's stop fooling ourselves. Captain Phasma is not a good character. Captain Phasma is a waste of a character. She shows up, looks cool, gets smacked down in a humiliating way, and exits the movie ingloriously. I give up. They're not going to do anything with Phasma.

There was a good movie in there, somewhere. The Force Awakens was a better movie, even if it did play it safe, but I'd have left a good third of this movie on the editing room floor, as it's so incredibly uneven in its current state. This is still worth a watch to keep up with the Star Wars mythos, but it's a hard sell.

Salem (has not) Watched a Movie: Star Wars: The Last Jedi

That wasn't a typo. I haven't seen it yet.

Spoilers? I don't know. Can I spoil a movie I haven't seen?

I'm not boycotting it or anything. I literally don't care enough about Star Wars to worry that they're casting the wrong types of people or pushing the wrong types of messages. Hell, I was there for the prequels. Whatever they do, it can't be worse than that.

There's a woman at work who is a massive Star Wars fan and was part of the training process for my new job. She's asked me several times and gets increasingly frustrated when I tell her I haven't yet. Curiously, she's a little confused as to why she hasn't gone to see it a second time, but we'll get to that.

I meant to go on Christmas, when I had a 3 day weekend. I meant to go on New Years' Day, when I had 5 days off. I meant to go this last weekend when I had another 3 day weekend, and every other weekend in between. And granted, I'm in the middle of a major depressive episode, but I went to go see Thor: Ragnarok and Justice League. I even had a $5 movie ticket coupon that could have gotten me into a 3D showing, and I kept putting it off until it expired.

I've quite enjoyed watching the YouTube criticism videos. The memes are fantastic. Luke's Milk and Swolo Ren in particular, and I have no idea if she's a good character or not, but I get a giggle out of Vice Admiral Gender Studies.

What I haven't enjoyed are the conspiracy theories about an insidious plot to undermine western society. Granted, while there are some things to criticize (such as the one-of-each casting that looks like the attractive, yet non-threatening, racially diverse cast of a CW show - thanks, Cat Grant), I don't think Alex Jones needs to worry so much about Star Wars. On the flip side, I also do not enjoy the hyperbolic two-pronged assault of "Star Wars being a triumph in diversity" and "anyone who criticizes it is an evil Nazi Gamergater MRA Drumpfist manbaby." Seriously, knock it off. Stop being so obnoxious about your celebration, and stop attacking anyone who disagrees with you over it.

The Chinese have a word for this now, by the way: "Baizou." This translates roughly to "white lefties" and translates literally, or so I'm told, to "libtard." I don't know if it's related in any way, but despite casting an Asian in a prominent role and putting her front and center in the marketing (which China usually loves), China went to go see The Last Jedi once and never went back.

I guess you could say The Last Jedi had a little trouble in big China.

I'm so not sorry for that.

I think the thing that spurred me to write this was this incident. One guy, somewhere, anonymously edited a cam version of The Last Jedi to remove the prominence of the female characters, which probably took maybe just a few hours, uploaded it to ThePirateBay, and set off yet another internet firestorm. No declaration of intent, just a description of what he did, and some jumped-up lefty lifestyle blog gave him exactly the reaction he was assuredly looking for.

I really should go and see it sometime this week, but I can't help but shake the feeling that I've already had the Star Wars: The Last Jedi experience.

Salem's Shameful Sci-Fi Secret

I'm going to be upfront here. I don't like Star Wars.

Let that sink in. I'm a big Doctor Who fan (obviously, if you've been keeping up with me here). I love Star Trek. Especially Deep Space 9. I've been reading Marvel, DC, and a few of the indie companies for decades now. I even keep up with the lore behind Transformers (not the Bay films, pls). But Star Wars has never really resonated with me for some reason.

I remember, as a kid, seeing the films on television around Christmas or Thanksgiving, depending on what part of the world I was living in at the time. I'd seen, through bits and pieces, but probably never the whole way through, the entire original trilogy, albeit not in the proper viewing order either due to never actually having sat down to watch them and whatever various bits got cut out for commercial breaks. I got a bit swept up in the Episode 1 hype. I mean, being a nerd, I was supposed to be excited, right? Star Wars, in the theaters, for the first time in my lifetime. I didn't camp out waiting in line or anything (I hate queueing. Avoid it at all costs), but I visited some friends who did on opening night. And when my friends and I went to go see it, we threw popcorn up in the air and cheered appropriately when a giant spaceship flew across the screens for the first time. I pity the usher who had to clean up after that showing.

The hype died shortly after seeing Episode 1, of course. Didn't end up seeing either of the latter films in the prequel trilogy until much, much later. I still don't think I've seen Attack of the Clones the entire way through, due to falling asleep pretty much every time I attempted. I've probably seen the RedLetter Media Plinkett reviews more than I've seen the actual movies. For the record, they're right. Lucas is a maniac that needs to be reigned in sharply.

Only.. I think I might like Star Wars. A little, at least. I clearly know that I'm not fond of the aspects of it that are Sword & Sorcery In Space. I can't stand the Jedi Order. They strike me as hypocritical, repressive, overly judgmental, and prone to propaganda at least as much, if not more, than Palpatine during his power play. I've never been fond of stoic warrior monks at the best of times, and when they have a council with executive power in government, that just rubs me the wrong way. I have a feeling that I'd need fitting for a cybernetic arm regularly if I lived in the Star Wars universe for very long. Temptation to mouth off to a Jedi would just be too much for me.

And I won't even get into my theory about how movies 2-5 could have been avoided if Obi-Wan hadn't been such a dumbass right now.

So I recently sat down and watched the Classic Trilogy and, worryingly, I could clearly identify things that I enjoyed. Mos Eisley. Jabba's Palace. The Millenium Falcon. The Cloud City of Bespin. Lando Calrission. Boba “What Exactly Did I Do To Justify All This Fan-Worship” Fett. The bounty hunters on Vader's ship. And the lynch-pin of all of these elements: puckish rogue Han Solo.

I realize that while I dislike a majority of Star Wars, what I'd really like is a series of films about Han Solo. The world of smugglers and bounty hunters, alien crime lords and blockade runner ships. I want a movie where Han didn't so much shoot first, but didn't even give Greedo the chance to fire. Given my relative unfamiliarity with the Star Wars canon, I'm open to suggestion if anyone's got a good recommendation on any Solo-centric stories, visual or print, I might enjoy.

In the meantime, I made a physical concession to the series.