My Further Thoughts On The Last Jedi: SPOILERS!!!
Hey guys from Planet-M, today I’ve got another Star Wars post, but this time I’m going to go over a few key elements in the film “The Last Jedi” that I did not like. Last week in my spoiler-free review of the Star Wars Episode 8, I stated that I liked The Last Jedi and I still do, but I did admit that there were parts of the film that I didn’t like, these parts I looked mostly from a writer’s perspective and in the terms of story structure.
For this week’s post I will be looking at parts of The Last Jedi that I didn’t like and how they could have been made better, SPOILERS ahead for anyone who hasn’t seen The Last Jedi, also this is based only on my personal opinion and if you liked these parts of The last Jedi than that’s good.
1: Rose:
One of the things I liked most about The Last Jedi is that the new actors were able to emote and act better in their roles than in the previous film, which is one of the reasons why I feared for The Last Jedi when Rian Johnson said he was adding a new main character to the already large cast. A big part of the story focuses on establishing Rose as a character, her skills and her motives, but this is the second film of the trilogy and there are more important things to focus in terms of the story, such as the continuation of the previously established character’s arcs, such as Rey, Finn and Poe.
Most of Rose’s lines are basically exposition on who she is and any scenes that work to give her character development are made longer at the cost of some scenes that are developing the already established characters which is why many of the scenes with Rey and Luke on Ahk-to feel like they’ve gone by too fast, why Finn doesn’t have that much character development and why the Poe/Holdo plot feels confusing as there isn't that much time spent on them, which is strange considering this is the longest star wars film to date.
How to fix it:
Plot wise Rose’s backstory could just be given to Finn (as it is similar, in some ways) and the scenes at Canto Bite could be just between Finn and Poe, with the two and BB-8 seeking out the code breaker and learning more about each other as the two were just instantly friends in The Force Awakens. Basically you can still have Finn on Canto Bite enjoying himself at first, but when he looks out on the balcony and sees the children and the space horses living in such a harsh world, he starts to think about his time in the first order, how he was taken from a family he never knew and was forced to become a storm trooper, Poe then tells him more about the resistance and why they do what they, by the end they free the space horses and get off the planet, thus Finn is more a part of the resistance and has more to fight for than just protecting Ray.
2: Holdo’s plot point:
In the film Poe’s reckless actions get many of the resistance forces killed after which he is demoted and while Leia is recovering a new Vice Admiral takes command, Vice Admiral Holdo, she has a plan to save the resistance from the first order, but does not really tell anyone her plan which causes unease with Poe and a few other of the resistance fighters and then later causes a mutiny from Poe and a few others, by the end it is revealed that her plan is to get to an old rebel base on the planet Crait and use the main ship as a diversion while everyone except herself escapes undetected.
How to fix it:
Now the biggest problem with her plan is simply the fact that she doesn’t tell anyone about it, it would make sense if there was the threat of a spy, but something like that is never brought up, so she’s just not telling anyone for no reason, this reminds me of what a clone trooper said to Yoda in a Robot Chicken Sketch, “This is a battle situation were clear and precise communication can mean life or death”, that’s right, the situation at this point is dire because it is Snoke’s ship that is chasing them, so she has no reason not to tell them, especially the resistance pilots like Poe who will be flying their ships to safety, so the only way to fix this scenario would be to just have her say they have to keep it secret and invent the plot point that the first order may have a spy other than that’s there is not much more.
3: Finn and Phasma:
When Captain Phasma first appeared, I thought she was going to be very prominent in the story as she was Finn’s former superior officer and was one of heads of the first order, next to Kylo Ren and Hux, but she only appears a few times in the first film (which was understandable as there are so many characters) and I thought the ending would at least lay the ground work for a future story preferably with her and Finn facing off and with the official trailer for The Last Jedi it looked like it was heading in that direction, but unfortunately Phasma gets a few minutes of screen time and is killed off.
How to fix it:
I’m alright with Phasma being killed off by the end, but to alter things it would be good if we had some build up to the confrontation between her and Finn, as I said earlier in the story Finn could talk about his past as a storm trooper and how Phasma ties into it, but on Phasma’s side of the build you could have her put a bounty on Finn so that he gets turned over to the first order so she can execute him herself and a bounty on Finn would allow the story to make more sense as why he gets arrested at Canto Bite then because the ship was parked somewhere it wasn’t supposed to be. By the end when Finn defeats Phasma and she calls him Rebel scum it will feel more earned as this would be what Finn’s arc was building towards.
Other than those parts I have to say I still like the film despite them, as Rian Johnson brought a unique story to the Star Wars Universe, it did have its problems, but I’m able to look past them and enjoy the film. Thank You for Reading.
