Star Wars; The Last Jedi: Is this better or worse then Ghostbusters 2016?

I mean that in terms of the political discussion around this film. No joke, the talk around this one has been extremely hostile ever since the movie came out. What makes it feel worse is the complete split of opinions. Critics love it, general audience members are overall mixed (unlike some people I see 50% as "meh, middle of the road", so 47% is "more people hated it, but its almost a 50/50 split"). I even know people who hated the movie, and some are calling the entire franchise dead because of this film. I think some people are even blaming these new films for the death of Toys R Us (that last one I completely disagree with for the record). Is it as bad as people say though?

I'll start with the plots, yes, you heard right, plots. There are three major plot threads of the film. The first is Rey and her training with Luke, which then turns into an attempt to turn Kylo Ren to the light side. The second is Finn's story about trying to get a codebreaker to get onto an absolutely gigantic Star Destroyer. And the third is about the Rebel fleet as they try to survive a bombardment from the First Order's fleet. I, like a lot of people, think that Finn and newcomer Rose's story took up too much of the movie. I don't, however, think it has no place in Star Wars, just not in The Last Jedi. The story takes place on a planet called Canto Blight, a casino themed world, with the story focusing on things like the little people that get affected hardest in wars, war profiteering, and other more morally ambiguous parts of wars that don't get addressed often. I'm not opposed to seeing these ideas in Star Wars, as it reminds me of plot threads from The Clone Wars. These are interesting concepts, but they weren't needed for Last Jedi, and probably could have been better in a spin-off movie.

To quickly address the characters, as the other two big problems many people have with the film relates to two particular characters, they're overall fine and would be great except for one major problem. Episode 7. The returning members of the new cast (Finn, Rey, Poe etc) all do a really good job, and, unlike many others, I don't hate the characterizations of Luke and Leia, yes, even her Mary Poppins moment. I do like this version of Luke as there is a nice mix of worn down Luke and Mark Hammil's comedy. Is it what people expected? No, but I think the pay off is really nice. I still find myself laughing at Luke's jokes due to the delivery, and the fact that I like that style of comedy. A lot of the jokes feel natural, some do feel forced I admit that, but things like the brush off the shoulder after "surviving" a bombardment of laser blasts without a scratch, lines like "ok that's pretty much nowhere", even when he's training Rey to feel the force. Is it the same Luke as episodes 4, 5, and 6? No, but I wasn't expecting that Luke, due to how much time has passed since Return of the Jedi.

As for Leia and her Mary Poppins moment (a moment where she's blasted into space, but uses the Force to pull herself back to the ship), I do enjoy it, its a nice reminder to the general audience that Kylo Ren is Force Sensitive because of his mother, but the biggest issue I have with it was that there was no payoff for the general audience, due to the circumstances behind that moment. This movie was Carrie Fisher's last performance, as a result of that, many people thought that this movie was going to kill her off. As a result of this new public mindset, when the movie didn't kill her off, people felt disappointed, myself included because it will probably mean that they write away her death in the title scroll of Episode 9. I appreciate the idea of not killing her off though to preserve this as her final movie, it would have been better from a public standpoint to have a scene near the end of the film where she sacrifices herself for the Resistance. There is a moment where that could have happened, and one that many think is stupid, I personally think is really impressive. I personally think that all the faults of this moment (except for the position they had Leia in, that could have been better) come from this perception going into the film. There was no clean way to do it from the two perspectives of "What would the audience think?" and "should we keep this as is, as a tribute to her final film?"

Vice Admiral Holdo though... In terms of the type of character she is, I can understand the decisions made for her character. That being said though, I'm not a fan of that type of character. The whole "you know if you'd just explain what's going on, none of this would happen" works from the perspective of someone watching the events pan out, who knows the trope when they see it, but in terms of the story, I can understand why she doesn't explain the plan. Again though, I'm not a fan of that type of character whenever they appear, it always feels one note for me. She is the biggest problem of Poe's story. Her plan is to get to a secret planet, use the transport ships because the first order wouldn't be searching for that class ship, use an old rebel base to hide and call for reinforcements. Solid plan, but because she doesn't tell anyone, Poe calls for a mutiny, which fails, and everything falls apart because of a codebreaker that Finn and Rose had with them on the main first-order ship selling them out.

The most interesting part of the movie is Rey's story. With the exception of Luke's fascination with alien breast milk (no I'm not kidding), this side of the story is the most interesting and most developed. There are some great moments between Rey and Luke, along with Rey and Kylo Ren. There isn't much I can really critique about it that doesn't go into my big point about this movie, which is in the next paragraph. Love the mirror visual though.

I don't have much to say about the music and special effects, it's a Star Wars movie, they don't have bad soundtracks and the effects at their worst are still great special effects for their time. But there is one thing that needs to be addressed with this movie. Disappointment. That word alone is the reason why I find this movie to be hard to review, in terms of saying "its good" or "its bad". Don't get me wrong, there are flaws in the film, Holdo is one, Canto Blight's another. The movie is really good overall in terms of sticking to the theme of disappointment, but it doesn't feel good because of the theme. Were you expecting Snoke to play a huge role? You're going to be disappointed. Were you expecting Leia to have a heroic ending? You're going to be disappointed. Were you expecting a heavy on fan service movie like Force Awakens, that answers all the forced cliffhangers in the film? You're going to be disappointed. That being said though, I can't help but feel like this is something the Star Wars films need right now. I like this movie more then I do Force Awakens. Because this feels like a proper continuation, something new, something fresh. Force Awakens needed to happen, a big celebration to hail in new Star Wars films, but I can't help but feel that JJ Abrams coming back for Episode 9 is going to be a bad call. People are going to praise it because it's not Last Jedi, but it's going to be safe, something that he's good at doing. But I don't want Star Wars to just play it safe. I want Star Wars to have people with creative ideas bringing new ideas to the franchise, not just recycling and remixing old ones. I will not fault anyone for thinking this movie is a bad movie, nor will I fault you if you think its a good movie. Both are valid for this movie due to the nature of the theme. For me personally? I don't know, because in terms of structure (overall), it is a really good movie, and definitely not the worst thing in Star Wars, but it doesn't feel like a good movie. I'll see you guys on Sunday for the next Toybox review, and next Wednesday for Doctor Strange.