Star Wars: The Last Jedi

Well, it was good, but probably not essential. Rian Johnson goes in a slightly different direction than Episode VII and so far I like it. It's darker, more personal, and it's not nearly as easy to determine who's good and who's bad. It's a shame though that only a few characters get this interesting treatment, because then it's all the more obvious that there are a lot of other kinda extra characters. Their charisma and even their own little backstories aren't very interesting or important, and even this time around I didn't feel the same way about Star Wars that I did with the original trilogy. On the other hand, the effort to go a different route and the courage to be grittier and meaner towards the heroes pays off, because it shows that Star Wars could offer more than just spectacular and perfectly done blockbuster entertainment in the future. But it's probably still going to be a while. (07/27/2018)

Star Wars: The Last Jedi is good or even excellent in its constituent elements, very progressive in its concepts and ambitions in the context of the saga, but unbalanced, rushed and half-baked as a whole. If episode five illustrated how jumping between plans should look while building a single overarching atmosphere, it is in this respect that episode eight, which vehemently plunders the fifth instalment in terms of style and motifs, fails the most. And that’s a shame, because its storylines demystifying heroism and the canon of the series itself, with Jedi knights at the fore, have tremendous power. But the film never lets them fully develop, as it has to abruptly return to some other storyline or recall that, as Disney’s cash cow, it has to quickly lighten the atmosphere with a wisecrack. Added to that, there are paradoxically a number of needless underdeveloped elements that detract from the viewer’s immersion in the film and encourage doubt and ridicule, so rather than a coherent work, they make a great breeding ground for parodies and fanfiction (though that can be a means of working with the audience and the brand). While the preceding The Force Awakens was a well-oiled rollercoaster, The Last Jedi is a larger colossus, but it wobbles and rattles that much more and the wheels come off. Paradoxically, the new characters had much more space and more effectively got under the viewers’ skin in the preceding episode, whereas the eighth film, though in many ways fleshing out those characters and letting them go in their own, new direction, ends up putting them in an even greater shadow of the iconic characters of the series. Despite all of the positives and new things found in the eighth episode, nothing remains other than to keep an eye out for the ninth one, where, for example, the series could finally go in an utterly new direction, as the eighth film has already cleared out the motifs and iconic sets of the fifth and sixth episodes combined. (12/14/2017)

Johnson delivers on the premise for which he was hired at Disney, bombarding the saga from all sides, letting the rich history and modern hi-tech gadgetry take charge. It establishes its order right from the start in a monstrous action sequence, turning away from Abrams' dissolute geekiness to let the protagonists rather rant for nearly two hours, and tugs the threads of fatality to the edge of tolerability. Then, when the characters are sufficiently in control (Rey is more mysterious and Ben even more emotionally volatile), an action orgy breaks out that still makes it worth going to the movie theater to see big Hollywood blockbusters. This production treatment is far beyond what many other franchises can only dream of. It's no longer the primal feast for the eye that it was last time, but Johnson and Yedlin are more visually modest in order to then plant visual highlights exactly when their story, and especially their characters, demand it. Silent destruction and red salt are the cosmic symphonies of the image last brought to us by Interstellar. The only thing missing to complete perfection is the original 3-hour runtime. I really felt at times that there were a few moments that slipped through my fingers unnecessarily. Regardless, by the time the closing credits rolled I felt real physical exhaustion. An emotional experience like a festival indie soc-drama. PS: In the days ahead, nothing will be more entertaining than reading the words of conservatives over the age of 30 barking about the new generation of heroes and pining for the good old days. (12/15/2017)

Star Wars by Charles Dickens. It is a pity that every breathtaking oil painting scene (and there are quite a few of them) and every sequence aspiring for the very best of the whole universe (emotions, fate, choreography and ideas) has a story line that leads nowhere and just accumulates padding on the pile of other padding. A characters that is completely pointless or moments that serves purely as a merchandising insertion "go and buy". Plus, it doesn't work as part of the saga. It does not answer any (really none) of the questions from the previous part, it even ignores most of them. But purely as alone standing movie, the eight film is more than a solid popcorn blockbuster; but whether that is enough in the case of Star Wars is a completely different question. (12/15/2017)