And so, everyone, we're finally here with the last movie I'm going to be reviewing in 2017 and my most anticipated for a few months, that being Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi. I was so unbelievably excited to see this. Not just because I'm a fan of Star Wars, but also because the marketing was looking fantastic and the reviews I had been hearing were saying this was a super fun movie. So, obviously, I couldn't wait to see what they were going to do here. And how was it for me? I had a lot of fun with it. It's not perfect and the pacing is kinda off, but, a lot of this is just fantastic. And, yes, like a lot of my reviews this year, I'm going to do a non spoiler to start, and then I'll get into all the spoilers later on. What's the story? It opens up with the Resistance being attacked by the First Order and they're trying to get away from them. While that's going on, Rey and Chewie have met back up with Luke on his island. And honestly, I don't ever do this, but I'm going to stop right there just because there are so many surprises in this movie and I don't want to spoil anything until the spoiler part. I know, that might be weird considering I've never done that before, but I think if you go into this movie not knowing anything about the plot like that, you'll enjoy it even more like I did. So, like I mentioned, this is a great movie. I had a really great time with this movie and this is easily the most surprising Star Wars movie so far. There are so many around every corner and every single one of them keeps getting better than the last. So, for starters, I want to talk about the good stuff because there is a lot. The cast is really fantastic here. Daisy Ridley is even better here than in the Force Awakens and the way they show Rey's character more here makes me care a lot more about her. John Boyega is also still a lot of fun as Finn and is still maybe my favourite character in this new trilogy. I'm also still loving Oscar Isaac as Poe. He seems a lot of fun and he's still one of my favourite parts of these new Star Wars movies. But, the ones I want to give a special mention to are, one Carrie Fisher as Leia, given how this is probably her last movie since she died at the beginning of the year, she did a fantastic job with this character and really gave it her all. Two, Adam Driver as Kylo Ren, he's still a super cool villain and I got to understand him a lot more. They made him even more conflicted here and so I cared about him much more and he was also just really cool. And three, Mark Hamill as Luke. Don't worry, I won't spoil anything about him, but, I just want to say, this is the best performance I've ever seen from him as this character. He is absolutely incredible as this character here. This is one of the best performances I've seen in a long time. His performance was so emotional and I really cared about this guy. He was already my favourite character in the original movies, and, while I kinda prefer that version of the character, this is easily the best performance Hamill ever did as him. The visuals, as you'd expect from a Star Wars movie, are also all really cool. And the action is spectacular. Some of the best action in this whole franchise. I thought a lot of these Lightsaber fights were really well made and really well choreographed and shot. Now, the main thing I absolutely loved in this movie was the directing. Rian Johnson did a perfect job directing this movie. Some of the shots here are some of the best I've seen in a long time. Rian was the perfect choice for this movie. I thought he did a phenomenal job. But also, just the way he handled the scenes. The camerawork, the sound design, the music, the pacing of the scenes, the visuals, everything. He did an incredible job and I have to give him a lot of credit for how well made this movie is. His direction here was done beautifully. That isn't something I usually talk about, but here, it's so noticeable and I really wanted to talk about that. But, also, like I said the best part of the movie, besides the directing, is the story and the many twists there are. They're pretty much everywhere and that's something else Rian Johnson did so fantastically. And with that, I also thought the characters were more humanised and the emotions were really well earned. Especially when we got more into these characters and learned about them. I thought it was fantastic and really well handled. Especially one in particular that I'll talk about in the spoilers. I also liked how, even though the characters were humanised, they were still kinda not perfect. And, by that I mean they still make mistakes and they have some stuff to over come and all that. That's how you make compelling characters and make them likeable. And a lot of the characters actions here were actually really beautiful and really well done. The movie's also really funny in a lot of scenes. I also liked how well the marketing for this was really well done. The trailers didn't give anything away. The way these scenes are done in the trailers are different to how they're actually done and this is exactly how to market a movie. Okay, so now that I've talked a lot about how much I love this movie, let's get into the negatives, 'cause, like I said, this was far from perfect. Firstly, probably my biggest issue with this movie was a the pacing. There were some moments here that dragged the film for me. Especially one thing in particular that I'll talk about in the spoilers. There were also some C.G.I here that looked, not bad, but a little unconvincing. And probably the last negative I have is that sometimes there are sequences where the film could of benefited a lot from a scene, but they chose to have something happen to sorta keep those from happening. And that was kind of a let down because a lot of those scenes could have made this movie better. Aside from that though, I love this movie and think it's one you'll absolutely have a blast with. It's another really fantastic Star Wars movie and it definitely lives up to the hype. This was my most anticipated movie of the year after Spider-Man: Homecoming came out and I was not let down at all. And so everyone, that's my non spoiler review of Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi. Thank you all for reading, I had a great time talking about this movie and I hope you will when you see it. Thank you all for reading and please comment down below to tell me what you think. Go see it and then read the rest for my thoughts on the spoilers. Okay, now we're going to get into the spoilers and this is going to be pretty long.
Spoilers:
Okay, first, I want to talk about that part of the movie I thought kinda dragged the movie down a bit and that's the Finn and Rose storyline trying to find the hacker so they can stop the First Order from finding the Resistance. That whole scene wasn't bad and I enjoyed the character of Rose, but, they spent way too much time on it and every time they went back to that part of the story I kept waiting for it to go back to Rey and Luke or the Resistance. And even though I thought Rose was enjoyable, there were some scenes with her where I thought she could have been written better. And, the other problem I had when I said that this movie has scenes that could have been better, but they did something else to avoid it, I'm talking about when Finn was about to sacrifice himself but then Rose saved him. I'm happy he's alive. I really like him, but, if they had him sacrifice himself, I feel it would have made the moment a lot more powerful. I just thought they coulda had more things in this that could have made it better and better put together at parts. There were also some parts where I thought they were just being like other Star Wars movies like when Snoke is showing Rey the Resistance being destroyed like in Return of the Jedi when Darth Sidious was showing Luke the fleet being destroyed. But, moving away from the negatives, let's talk about the spoilers that I did like. I really liked how we finally see Leia using the Force when it looks like she's about to die, but then she uses the Force to bring herself back to the ship. I really liked that, but, this kinda makes me asks what are they going to do with Leia now that Carrie Fisher has passed away and she's alive at the end of this movie. I really want to know what they're going to do there. The Force is also another thing to talk about here. Probably the biggest thing to discuss is when Rey and Kylo Ren are sorta talking and when they're done talking in that one scene, Kylo has rain on his glove from wiping his face and it's like he transported the rain from where Rey was. I'm really curious about that and it sorta makes the actual thought of the Force more interesting because maybe more can be done with it. Speaking of Kylo Ren, the scene where he kills Snoke is interesting because, this is what I meant when saying there's a lot of surprises because, when he does it, you think he's turning good, especially when he and Rey kinda team up for a moment to fight those guards, but then we see he just did it so he could be free from the conflict within himself, but then he asks Rey to join him so they can start an empire together. And it ended with that shot of them both using the Force on the Lightsaber, but then it breaks in half from them using the Force on it too much, and that whole shot with them reaching out to it at the same time was something I meant when I was talking about the great directing by Rian Johnson. Speaking of Rian, I loved the way he had Rey's training being done inside that cave with the many Rey's. That whole scene was cool and really interesting. Now, probably the biggest thing to talk about is Luke at the end. But, at the start, we're shown that he's sorta like Yoda in Empire Strikes Back when he was in exile and he's different to how he was. Speaking of Yoda, it was cool to see him and I loved seeing him, but, at the start when Luke first holds the Lightsaber, it's kind of a funny moment when he sorta throws it behind him because he feels that he doesn't want to have anything to do with this anymore because, as we saw, Kylo Ren, when he was still Ben Solo, had this darkness inside him and that's why he tried to kill him but then Ben betrayed him and destroyed everything, including the other apprentices Luke had. And when R2 showed Luke that video of Leia from a New Hope, it added more to him because that's the main thing, I think, that changes his mind and makes him decide to help the Resistance. And I loved the ending where he was using the Force to make a Force version of himself appear and make him look younger and then he faces Kylo Ren. That whole scene on that planet while it was happening had a lot of thoughts going through my head. And when we saw that it was the Force, it made it more interesting. And the part where we saw Luke using his old Lightsaber instead of his other one was really powerful and the whole conflict with him and Kylo Ren on that planet when the Resistance was trying to get away was fantastic. And I thought that scene with Luke and Leia was really sweet. That was a really nice scene. I loved it. And finally, Luke dying at the end. I didn't expect that at all and I'm really curious about that because that can be a really unique thing. When I say that, I mean, they could have it be it's own thing, but it's also like in a New Hope when Obi Wan "died" but he actually gave himself up to the Force. That was great. Overall, from the different things this film did, I'm very interested to see what Episode IX does with it. And so everyone, that's my entire review of Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi. Thank you all for reading and please comment down below to tell me what you think.
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