[Chefelf]

Hi, Everyone! Anyone?

Many of you have reached out to me about reviewing The Force Awakens. Ultimately I couldn't get excited about reviewing that movie as, overall, I found it to be pretty enjoyable. With the release of The Last Jedi I decided to break a thirteen year silence on the Star Wars franchise and give my impressions. It's not in the "Reasons to Hate" format but it's my chronological take of my experience having seen the movie. After watching it for a second time I will admit I enjoyed it a lot more but on first watch I was left with a lot of concerns. Here's what's posted so far!

*** GET THE COMPLETE REVIEW HERE ***

Star Wars: The Last Jedi (Introduction) - December 31, 2017

Star Wars: The Last Jedi (Part 1) - January 4, 2018

Star Wars: The Last Jedi (Part 2) - January 8, 2018

Star Wars: The Last Jedi (Part 3) - January 10, 2018

Star Wars: The Last Jedi (Part 4) - January 15, 2018

Star Wars: The Last Jedi (Part 5) - January 17, 2018

Star Wars: The Last Jedi (Part 6) - January 19, 2018

Star Wars: The Last Jedi (Part 7) - January 22, 2018

Star Wars: The Last Jedi (Part 8) - January 24, 2018

Star Wars: The Last Jedi (Part 9) - January 29, 2018

Star Wars: The Last Jedi (Part 10) - January 31, 2018

Star Wars: The Last Jedi (Part 11) - February 2, 2018

Star Wars: The Last Jedi (Part 12) - February 5, 2018

Star Wars: The Last Jedi (Part 13) - February 7, 2018

Star Wars: The Last Jedi (Part 14) - February 9, 2018

Star Wars: The Last Jedi (Part 15) - February 28, 2018

Star Wars: The Last Jedi (In Conclusion) - March 7, 2018

Would love to hear some of the old veterans' thoughts!

[The Lord of Dorkness]

Excellent review so far!

I think one of the reasons The Last Jedi gets nitpicked is that a lot of people (me included) found long stretches of the movie to be boring. Nitpicking is what happens when the movie doesn't engage you, so you start thinking about the plot, characters, and events in ways that the movie didn't want you to think about them. I'm sure the original trilogy had holes and problems too, but we're too distracted by the great movies to notice.

When I first watched The Last Jedi, I looked at my watch after only 20 minutes - not a good sign in a movie that's almost 3 hours long.

[Chefelf]

Good point. Yes, I found this movie to be well made and visually stimulating but some of the stuff in it was a little in the boring side. Honestly, with how much action is crammed into movies these days (prequels included) it's nice to see movies that are at least a little boring.

[fatuglynerd69]

The reason you are struggling to understand Luke’s behavior in TLJ (Part 2) is because Luke Skywalker has been turned into an abomination of his former self - an antisocial homeless space drunkard.

Luke was the guy who against all odds managed to bring the galaxy’s incarnation of evil, Darth Vader back to the Light Side. The idea that he would hide on an island and wait for death after his nephew turned to the Dark Side, burned down his temple, and started LARPing as a Sith Lord is utterly absurd. Even more so that he would ever sneak up to anyone during their sleep and tried to kill them. Luke would also never leave his sister to fight the remnants of the Empire on her own.

To put this into images, Luke was turned from this:



into this:



The question, you need to ask, is WHY was this done? And the answer to that is: Rey, the Mary Sue.

She can now succeed in everything he failed in. She can save Leia. She can save the Resistance. She can turn Ren back to the light side – which is what the third movie will end with. That is not Luke Skywalker, that is someone who has been purposefully turned into a complete loser. You see, they have nerfed him at the expense of almighty and invincible Rey and they think their audience is so effing stupid that they won’t notice. Well, most of them are, anyways.

[Chefelf]

I wish I knew what I was missing in that first picture!

I don't have a problem with movies being sad or emotional it's just a real bummer to see our heroes like this. The entire movie is like that scene in Superman III where Superman has stubble and is an alcoholic.

[J m HofMarN]

HOLY SHIT THIS PLACE STILL EXISTS. Thanks for the reviews, Chef, I'll for sure read them and get back to you with my detailed thoughts, I'm so glad to see youre still a fan and still breaking down the good and bad in these movies!

[Chyld]

Holy shit, Chrome still remembers my password for this site. I don't think I was even using Chrome last time I was here...

I do wish the final battle on the salt flats didn't so literally take after the battle of Hoth, I had been enjoying how little the film had taken from its predecessors until then.

[Chefelf]

That is a valid point. It was visually very beautiful but the actual battle set up was quite similar though with souped up AT-ATs.

[Zatoichi]

I was looking at another forum and was suddenly reminded of this one. Not only was there a new review up, but I actually remembered my password ... after a few tries.

Chefelf more or less sums up how I too feel about the recent films. Maybe I'll write more later.