So Today, We Saw _The Last Jedi_

So, today we did a thing.

It was Friday; it's still Winter Break; and the babysitter was here for a few hours. So we went to the movies and we saw The Last Jedi.

And I have lots of thoughts.

Now, before I get all spoilery, let me offer this disclaimer: I am an uber-nerd and fangirl about lots of things, but Star Wars is not one of my fandoms. I've see the original trilogy films -- but only once and never back-to-back. I've seen pieces of the prequels -- I think I saw the first one when it was re-released in theaters, but everyone speaks so disparagingly of them that, TBH, they hold little interest for me. I fully admit that I'm a casual consumer of this franchise (unlike my undying devotion to Harry Potter) so I'm coming at this from a storytelling standpoint. The one thing I know about George Lucas' original trilogy is that they are very firmly located in the Hero's Journey-Fantasy genre. Those films may be about spaceships and light sabers and space religions with mystical powers, but they are definitely not sci-fi films. (Science fiction, by nature, is focused on the future; looking forward; moving out; and complicated, but explainable, technology. Fantasy, on the flip side, deals with the past, looking backward, moving in a circle, and, in fantasy, the inexplicable is pretty standard. That's the basis of magic, after all.) But the Hero's Journey? And Fantasy? That I know.

Spoiler thoughts beneath the cut.

1. So...Leia's still alive. That...was unexpected. Given Carrie Fisher's passing, I kinda thought they would wrap up her storyline but...nope. She's very much alive (and not even in an unambiguous way). 
2. Something I suspected back in Force Awakens proved true:
   Brienne of Tarth >>>>> Captain Phasma
   Gwendolyn Christie was wasted in this movie, as was the potential of a badass female Stormtrooper. No, really. I looked at my watch an hour and a half in, wondering when she was going to show up and then she was there, and then she was...well, gone. UGH. When I heard that Christie was cast, I was ecstatic. She is amazing on GoT, and I was excited to see what her addition to this pop culture franchise would bring. At least I'm not alone? Read here and here  and The Mary Sue's take on it here.
3. Speaking of villains...we killed a bunch of them. Actually, we killed a lot of characters. It was like they channeled (or brought on? no, seriously. That guy is doing everything but writing the last A Song of Ice and Fire book) George R. R. Martin and just 86ed everyone they could.
   Now, some of the deaths made sense.
   Luke dying (or becoming a Force Ghost? IDK, I'm not clear on how The Force works, but then, I don't think I'm the only one who was confused about that.) made sense, IMHO. In the Hero's Journey, the mentor always dies -- otherwise, the hero would continually use him (or her, but it's usually a him) as a crutch and would never grow as a character. (Think Gandalf getting "lost" to the Balrog; Dumbledore dying in Half Blood Prince; and even Grandma Tala dies in Moana.) Yes, the Mentor usually comes back in some form (Gandalf is reborn as Gandalf the White; Dumbledore appears to Harry after he sacrifices himself to Voldemort; and Grandma Tala's spirit visits Moana) to offer guidance when the hero needs them most --but still. They have to die.
   Even Snoke dying made sense. Up to that point, Snoke was the Big Baddie -- now Kylo Ren is. (I think he's evil. I know this movie was a lot about how heroes and villains are both made up of good and evil and the line between them is blurrier than we initially think but still.)
   But some other deaths...I don't know. They fell a little flat. Like the death of Laura Dern's character. I get that we were supposed to care, but I just felt a little..."meh." 
4. Which is a nice segue to my next point, and this is a big one for me: there doesn't seem to be coherent storytelling. That is, JJ Abrams took over Episode 7 -- and then left. Rian Johnson came in and requested permission to deviate from the original plans (which were different based on the final cut of The Force Awakens, but still.) And now JJ is back for Episode IX. I get that Kathleen Kennedy is at the helm, and she's fired directors for not fitting the Star Wars aesthetic, but it just seems disconcerting to me. What if JJ had plans for the trilogy and set stuff up in Episode VII that Rian Johnson just...didn't do?
   I get that filming a trilogy -- especially one as blockbuster as Star Wars is a huge creative undertaking, but I would rather have someone with a smaller reputation tell a cohesive, unified story across three films than several bigger names swoop in, do their thing, and then leave.
   I just think that if a storyteller like J K Rowling (an unfair comparison, I know -- my husband keeps telling me whenever I bring this up) had been in charge of the story, Laura Dern's character would have been introduced in Force Awakens -- maybe not extensively -- so that viewers recognized and knew her when she appeared in The Last Jedi and that her death was more poignant than it ended up being. Poe even this one line -- when he realizes that Laura Dern is that Vice Admiral Holdo from some...thing. Some battle? Some epic strategizing? Some political coup? I don't know. Maybe it's explained in some canon story somewhere, but I don't know what it is, why Poe looks at her admiringly, or why that's important. Sloppy storytelling. 
5. I read a lot of reviews (while my husband was at a midnight showing because, casual viewer. Don't care about spoilers.) talking about how the film felt "bloated" -- and I have to agree. One of my major gripes about The Force Awakens was that there were a lot of unnecessary plot holes (that were apparently addressed/fixed/resolved in the novelization of the movie but, again. Casual viewer.) With this film...there weren't a lot of plot holes -- at least to me -- but there was just a lot of...unnecessary stuff, if that made sense. One of the reviews mentioned that it felt like the secondary characters were given "busy work" -- and I have to agree.
   Take Finn for example: they come up with this great plan to given Team Good Guys the opportunity to escape Team Baddies, and...it's basically useless. They have 18 hours to get to The Capitol (sorry, wrong franchise -- that's the Hunger Games) some random planet, find a mysterious hacker/codebreaker, convince him to help them, and then get back to the base, get onto Team Baddies' ship undetected and do all the mumbo-jumbo necessary to save Team Good Guys. In 18 hours. And, to be fair, they get most of it done -- only to have Benecio del Toro turn on them and render the past hour of their adventures utterly useless. 
6. The whole thing with Rey's parents. Some people love that they turn out to be nobodies, but again, it doesn't feel like "tight" storytelling to me. I know that thematically it works because you don't have to be from the exalted Skywalker bloodline to be a Jedi and that heroes can come from anywhere but...I don't know. The potential of having Rey be related to one of our central characters is just...wasted, to me.
   But I'm not sure we have the whole story here. (And I really hope we don't.) Here's why. 
1. Consider the source. Kylo Ren, trying to get Rey to his side? Not really the most reliable or credible of sources. 
2. The Big Reveal came at a moment when other characters proved to be wrong as well. Or, at least, not completely right. I mean, Rey "saw" that Kylo Ren wouldn't bow down to Snoke -- and she thought that meant that he would turn to the Light. Which...nope. He didn't bow to Snoke, but that's because he killed him. And later, Snoke "saw" Kylo Ren drawing his lightsaber and striking down his "true enemy" -- and he thought that meant that Kylo Ren would kill Rey. Which...again, nope. He did strike true, but he killed Snoke, not Rey. With those other two misinterpretations occurring at the same time as Kylo Ren insisting that he knows who Rey's parents are...it just seems a bit manipulative to me. Maybe they are nobodies; maybe they are dead in a ditch; or maybe they're not. Or maybe there's more to the story. (And again, I really hope so--they made such a big deal of Rey's parentage for that to be it.)
7. Again, maybe I'm just clinging to the hope that Rey's parentage is more important than it is, and that she's somehow related to Kylo Ren but...this whole ForceTime thing. You know -- how Luke and Leia can magically communicate with each other by using the Force (I guess)? You see them communicating -- and then you cut to Rey and Kylo Ren communicating in the same way. I know that Snoke says he "bridged their minds" so that he can set them up but again: Evil Villain is not the most reliable source of information. After all -- (1) Luke and Leia communicate that way and Snoke didn't bridge their minds (yes, I know, they're Twins, but still) and (2) even after Snoke dies, that "bridge" between Rey and Ren is still there. I guess it could be a thing that outlasts Snoke -- the idea that once it's there, it's maybe always there? But maybe Snoke was lying and he was just taking advantage of and manipulating something that was already there.
   Aaaaand maybe I'm just clinging to hope.