Star Wars: the Last Jedi

When I saw The Last Jedi, I couldn't help but think that from a writer's perspective there were several pitfalls to the movie. Don't get me wrong, I found the movie thoroughly enjoyable, but there were several things that stuck out to me like a sore thumb being a writer myself.

Reflecting on The Last Jedi, the plot seems to go in circles. There were no real consequences for anyone. One of the first things you learn in a creative writing class (or at least the frequent mantra of my creative writing teacher) is that conflict is everything. Without conflict, there is no story. One of the best ways to create conflict is to raise the stakes. But in The Last Jedi, the stakes weren't raised. The movie's plot had no consequence.

Starting with Rey, the whole sequence with Kylo Ren really brought them together. They'd been building toward it the entire movie. As Rey had visions of Kylo Ren, Kylo's character was humanized from the whiny crybaby that everyone complained about when The Force Awakens was first released. I mean, there are endless memes. But The Last Jedi seemed to address these criticisms. Kylo didn't just blindly follow the Dark Side; he had his doubts, something Rey could understand.

These visions built up to a key moment when it seemed like Kylo would reject the Dark Side and he and Rey could have a moment where they completely understood each other. It was the moment that the movie had been building up to narratively the entire time. But instead, at the climax of the movie, Kylo seems to reject those moments and becomes a complete scum bag hellbent on claiming power for himself. AKA, all the hard work that had been put into him seeming human was useless. He was just the same whiny kid from The Force Awakens who irritated everyone and spawned a series of memes.

That isn't the only problem with The Last Jedi, however. There are several other instances of this pointless plot circle, like the infamous casino sequence with the awful CGI and Po's story. These plot moments had no consequences. In fact, The Last Jedi's plot is useless. You sit around waiting for Rey and Kylo to come together only for him to become a total bastard and kill Snoke. It's implied that Kylo has been manipulating Rey the whole time, which doesn't make sense because Kylo wouldn't be capable of that. He's just a whiny teenage kid who doesn't know what he's doing. He's not some evil mastermind. He's not Darth Vader.

And that, I think, is the pitfall in The Last Jedi. The movie never commits. It tries to please everyone. And for that reason, the movie suffers.

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