Film Review; Star Wars – The Last Jedi

The phrases ‘cinematic masterpiece’ and ‘definitive sci-fi classic’ always come to mind when I think of the massively influential 1977 Star Wars film which broke barriers in the box office at that time. However, in recent years, George Lucas’ 6 film saga has seen a fresh faced renewal in the form of Star Wars; The Force Awakens, the prequel to the Last Jedi.  Quoting veteran Jedi Luke Skywalker in the film ‘It’s not going to go the way you think’ ironically describes the sub-par narrative of both recent films.

The Last Jedi starts right where we left off from The Force Awakens, a simple rehash of Star Wars; A New Hope, with Rey (Daisy Ridley) finding the now Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) on a remote island where Luke has hidden from the evil First Order. Meanwhile, the Resistance leader, Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher) is in a major intergalactic grapple with Kylo Ren’s (Adam Driver) First Order battalion, desperate to escape to safety.

The film’s opening sequence successfully fulfils the audiences need for nostalgia, with the iconic floating text gliding through space accompanied by the emphatic sound of the London symphony orchestra, following suit to all Star Wars films before it.

The Last Jedi is superbly awe-inspiring in terms of videography and cinematography. Lucasfilm and their talented creative team have created a perfectly harmonious balance between life-like immersive CGI and real life practical landscapes to capture a perfect blend of scenery and technology. In particular, the colours used in battle in The Last Jedi cleverly resemble the war between good and evil, with red portrayed as the First Order’s lust for blood and destruction versus the Rebellions’ ongoing plight for peace and democracy.

The battle between good and evil is the major plot in the Star Wars saga, and the Last Jedi does not disappoint n bringing you an immersive experience watching the film.

One major pit-fall of the Last Jedi however, is the films tendency to treat death as something which is not ultimate, which leaves the audience feeling confused. As in the Empire Strikes back, Jedi master Yoda appears to pass on into the ‘force’ physically, but his spirit lives elsewhere. In The Last jedi, Skywalker uses the ‘force’ to appear in battle against Kylo Ren to help the remaining rebels escape, after which he also disappears into thin air or the ‘force’ much like Yoda, but as we have seen in other Star Wars films, they still appear as spirits or ghosts to Jedi. The film creates forces and enemies which do indeed threaten the lives of main characters but seemingly refuse to let them actually die, which in turn can have serious repercussions of the whole narrative of a film and receive backlash from audiences for refusing to let go of old characters, especially as Luke Skywalkers presence throughout the film bears great weight in the stories narrative, with the best scenes falling onto his narrative shoulders.

As Kylo Ren says to Skywalker ‘It’s time to let old things die’ which could sum up the need to build on, rather than re-create a sci-fi sage which should really have been left alone, and left its uniqueness left intact. Nevertheless, The Last Jedi is a perfect escapism film in today’s definition of a well presented, technological sci-fi movie.