Star Wars: The Last Jedi (Part 9)

Aboard the SS Del Toro Rose is coaxed into giving Benicio her necklace as a down payment for getting them to the First Order ship.  Rose reluctantly does this and we know how important this is as this was part of a set she shared with her sister who was murdered by Poe in the first scene in the movie.

They find out that Benicio del Toro has stolen this ship and that its owners were supplying weapons to the First Order.  We know this because there are some holograms of TIE fighters on the ship’s computer.  Then we see pictures of X-wings as well and Benicio del Toro says he was supplying weapons to the “good guys” too.  He says, “It’s all a machine.”

This is potentially the largest problem I have with The Last Jedi.  We learn that  apparently this is all just one big money-making game.  Contractors are selling arms to both sides to profit.

Listen, I get enough of this living on Earth, okay?  Arms companies making profits, countries being overthrown for oil, the list goes on an on.  This is what makes living on Earth a real bummer.  I don’t need this kind of baloney in my Star Wars movie.  This could be a big plot twist in some sort of hard Sci-Fi movie but this is not hard Sci-Fi, it’s Star Wars.  This is why the taxation of trade routes was also not a compelling plot point for the Star Wars universe!

So what does this mean?  After eight movies we see that there is no good and evil?  They’re all just pawns of a secret society of wealthy elites trying to prop up a state of perpetual war so that they can line their own pockets?

Does anything that happens from this point on even matter?

After this revelation we rejoin Poe who storms onto the bridge and engages in his fiftieth act of gross insubordination but insulting Holdo and demanding answers form her.  She has him removed from the bridge but, somehow, still not sent to the brig.  At this point she probably should have just shoved him onto an escape pod and jettisoned him to the nearest (or farthest) planet.

Meanwhile Rey is getting ready to go meet Ren and turn him to the light side.  She says to Chewbacca, “If you see Finn before I do tell him–”  She is then cut off by Chewbacca roaring.  She responds with, “Perfect.  Tell him that.”  Tell him what?  Are they in love?  What is going on?

Rey then boards a tiny coffin which looks like she is preparing more for a trip to the Genesis Planet than to Kylo Ren’s ship.  She arrives very quickly at the ship and Ren is there to meet her, not looking as accommodating as she may have been hoping for.

Back on the Resistance cruiser Poe tells Holdo the secret plan they’ve been working on to deactivate the Hyperspace tracker.  Holdo is mad and Poe stages a mutiny, taking Holdo and some of her subordinates prisoner.

We are then taken to a scene with what looks like a giant ship resembling an iron coming in for a landing.  The camera pans out and it turns out it is actually an iron and they are in a never-before-seen Star Destroyer (or Dreadnought) laundry room.  Their irons look just like normal 1950s style Earth irons just on a robotic arm.  This was one of the most jarring moments of the movie for me.  I was initially tricked (as was the intention of the scene) but immediately was left thinking about Hardware Wars.  This was so blatant that it had to be intentional.  The result of this odd gag was that  I was so taken out of the movie that I didn’t even realize until the second viewing that the whole purpose of being in the laundry room was to show Finn, Rose, and Benicio del Toro stealing First Order uniforms so they could wander the ship.

Their brilliant plan for BB-8 is to put a laundry basket over him, a plan that was executed to much better effect in Paddington 2, not to mention being an overall better tonal fit for that movie.

They are spotted by an evil BB-8 who is not fooled by their terrible plan.

Overall this attempted break in begins on a largely comical note.  For some reason this whole thing plays out like a lighthearted heist.  I’m not saying there’s room for humor in the Star Wars movies.  The Force Awakens did a great job re-introducing humor into Star Wars after the serious prequels that were even less funny when they tried to be.

To me this whole scene seemed like if the prison escape scene in A New Hope had Yakety Sax playing the whole time.

Next time . . . CONFRONTATION!