I just want to make one thing clear before I begin.
I did not hate Rian Johnson’s Star Wars: The Last Jedi, I even kinda enjoyed it
However, it is far from a great film, with many perplexing creative decisions plaguing it’s storyline.
So without further ado and no restraint on spoilers, here are eight of the most baffling moments from LJ.
Flying Leia
While Return of the Jedi did indeed established Leia to have a connection to the Force due to her family ties to the Skywalker lineage, LJ and especially FA did little to establish the extent of her powers.
Due to this, the sequence where she flies like Mary Poppins through space after the bridge to the Resistance vessel was blown away by a TIE Fighter, comes off as not only out-of-nowhere but it also doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.
If it was established that Leia had some Jedi-level training from Luke when it came to the Force, then okay, but LJ doesn’t put this out there.
There is also the questionable plausibility of Leia being able to even survive her ordeal.
Leia was clearly out in the vacuum of space for more than 15 seconds and looked to be five football fields away from the bridge.
She was even knocked out when she was suddenly sucked out and even if she somehow regained enough consciousness to Force push herself towards the ship, she would not have had enough oxygen to stay alive through the entire journey.
It was also another annoying case of the Force being used as a deus ex machine such as in FA when Rey could all-of-a-sudden mind trick a stormtrooper or in The Phantom Menace where a young Anakin was able to miraculously navigate his way through a chaotic space battle.
I know it’s a space opera and all but moments such as this take away from the sense that our characters are ever in any danger.
Admiral Holdo Keeping Everybody in the Dark
In probably the most forced plot point in the entire movie, purple-haired Holdo for no discernible reason keeps Poe and the other Resistance members completely in the dark in regards to the the plan of escape from the pursuing First Order.
At first I thought Holdo may have been keeping Poe in the dark because there was a suspected First Order spy in the Ressistance, but LJ gives zero indication of this whatsoever. It all comes off as a poorly explained and contrived excuse to prompt Finn and Rose to go to the Casino planet (more on that later).
Holdo’s entire character comes off as superfluous. She is barely in LJ and I’m not entirely sure why she is in it.
Yeah she had one great scene in which she commits light-speed kamikaze on Snoke’s vessel, but that death could have easily been given to Leia, especially considering the character will probably now have limited to no involvement in Episode 9 due to Carrie Fisher’s death.
Heck, why not replace her part with Admiral Ackbar, take time to develop that character outside of the “It’s a trap!” guy. How about that instead of force-feeding the audience a new character that we have zero familiarity or attachment to.
We never really get to know Holdo as a character either. She just appears, is given a half-baked one-line backstory through a forced and lazy expository dialogue bit from Poe, and then dies. We are never even given a chance to see her abilities as an admiral.
Pretty Much The Entire Finn and Rose Storyline
The entire plot line regarding Finn and Rose’s Casino planet detour is frustrating for a multitude of reasons:
1. It completely killed the urgency of the Resistance storyline because the First Order is for some reason taking their sweet time in chasing Leia’s fleet and destroying them.
2. Why did Finn and Rose decide to park their ship on a beach where it can be easily spotted by the planet’s bystanders instead of somewhere further away? Is there a scene missing?
3. Finn and Rose decided that the dodgy CGI horses needed saving but not the children that are enslaved!?! It’s especially jarring considering this took place after Rose showcased clear remorse for the slave children during her rant about how the rich inhabitants of the Casino planet profit off of war and grueling labor.
4. Absolutely nothing was accomplished outside of the First Order catching wind of the Resistance’s plan to escape to the salt planet, causing the loss of many lives.
Good job Finn!!
5. Finn, who really had no role in LJ’s story whatsoever, is given a chance to heroically sacrifice himself on the salt planet. If LJ had gone through with Finn sacrificing himself, then it would have at least giving the Casino planet storyline some character development point to it all. But thus, the ever annoying Rose prevents that from happening and Finn is deprived of a coherent story arc.
6. Rose falls in love with Finn and kisses him, even though she has only known him for one day and first met him when he was trying to desert the Resistance. I don’t think the Star Wars movies have ever had a good history with romances plots, but this one was especially forced and contrived.
Poe Still Has A Job
I personally like the character of Poe Dameron and Oscar Isaac is very charismatic in the role; which makes it all the more annoying that he was not given a better storyline for LJ.
Throughout the film Poe is constantly going against Leia’s orders and even attempts a coup with Holdo; but instead of being jailed or forced to leave the Resistance, Leia and Holdo keep him around because they like “bad boys”.
The stupidity of this plot point is beyond comprehension because not only does it make Poe’s entire subplot seem like complete time-killer, but it made Leia and Holdo look foolish and incompetent as leaders.
Captain Phasma
If you thought Captain Phasma was a pointless Bobba Fett-like character in FA; well LJ does little to change that conception.
Despite having a decent fight scene with Finn, Phasma is given even less screen-time and once again, does nothing of importance. She might as well have not shown up!
Why is this character around?
Lord Snoke Cut Short
While Snoke’s death scene, heck how about the entire throne room sequence, was undeniably awesome due to it’s complete subversion of audience expectations, it’s still frustrating that we may never get to find out his backstory or how he even managed to turn Kylo Ren to the dark side in the first place now that he is dead.
The lack of backstory plagued even FA but LJ expands on this frustration.
Maz Kanata’s Strange Cameo
When Finn and Rose contact Maz Kanata on finding potential codebreakers to disable Snoke’s vessel, she is in the middle of a fire fight stemming from….union disputes?
First of all, how the hell does she still have a business to run?
Wasn’t her bar kinda…well…destroyed by the First Order during the events of the FA?
The Porgs
We get it Disney, you need to sell toys but did you need to gratuitously showcase those Furbies with guppy heads so much?
Natural Born Film Critic 