The Last Jedi


Tonight we gave the kids to our babysitter and went to the cinema to see The Last Jedi, the sixth-no-seventh-no-eighth episode in the Star Wars series.

I liked it; unlike The Force Awakens it felt like it did something other than just rehash a previous episode but louder and bigger. Ok, there was a battle on what looked suspiciously like the ice planet Hoth from Empire Strikes Back but which turned out to be an enormous salt flat. There was lots of Luke Skywalker, some more ruminations on the Force, and a very silly island in Ireland run by fish-nuns in white smocks. But there were also big space battles (although there is some funny stuff going on with time there: there’s a race-against-time which won’t last more than 6 days, which seems to fit several days of action into some of the cut scenes) and some really good sword fights (light sabre vs laser nunchucks is a total blast).

There are more twists than before. There’s also a lot of people getting killed, which made it even more odd that people would take their small children to see a 2-and-a-half hour long movie that starts at 9pm, but I’m principally offended by that because the little tykes won’t shut up in the quiet parts of the film.

Adam Driver, the big bad guy of the film, still feels a bit unconvincing to me. Maybe he just needs more cool scars. The whole film is slightly too long, but there’s no expository bloat to cut. Maybe Benicio del Toro’s character could have spoken a bit faster. I suppose this means the next film will have to have an even bigger Death Star.

So, anyway, the kids stayed asleep, we got home fine, good night out!

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