Star Wars 8: Everyone’s a Jedi Now - a Review By Gamblor

Note: This review contains complete plot spoilers. Don’t read this until after you see the movie.

Episode 8: Rich People Suck is now playing and “The Internet” is buzzing about either how much it sucks or how much you suck for thinking it sucks.

Some are praising it for going in a new direction. It’s unpredictable, the heroes fail and screw up, and it has deep messages about there being no real heroes and having to drop misguided beliefs in legends and saviors.

But none of that matters. That has nothing to do with why people are ragging on the movie. The basic story is dumb on the surface level and half the movie makes no sense. It’s poorly written and directed and portrays its ideas badly. It suffers from plot inconsistencies that could’ve easily been fixed if a competent writer had read the script. People say you should just shut your brain off to enjoy a popcorn movie, but you shouldn’t have to. It’s perfectly possible for an action movie to be smart and coherent. This movie isn’t.

List of Plot Holes in Episode 8:

-The empire is chasing the main rebel ship over several hours and the rebels can’t escape because they can be tracked through hyperspace now. This threat is quickly trivialized when Fin and Rose easily fly away in hyperspace to go to the casino world and come back later. Why didn’t they simply transport everyone off the rebel ship using the small ships capable of hyperspace? Fin could’ve taken everyone off the ship one at a time in a single X-wing in the time it took the Empire to catch up to them. They could’ve easily been brought to different random locations and spread out across the galaxy.

-Why didn’t Holdo simply explain her plan to Poe right away? If she just told him that the small ships would be ignored because the empire was only tracking the big ship then he would’ve been fine and not led a mutiny. She was silent and tight lipped for no reason other than to cause the next several plot elements involving his mutiny.

-Why did Holdo have to go down with the ship? Why didn’t she just leave a droid running it or leave it on autopilot? Are you telling me the rebel ship is like a NYC subway car and requires a human operator to function?

-If hyperspacing one ship through another is a viable tactic, why didn’t Holdo do this immediately when she was the last one on the ship? Why isn’t this a common practice? Why aren’t there droid ships or remote controlled bomb ships constantly hyperspacing through empire ships, especially when they’re in inescapable situations? Several rebel defense ships behind the main rebel ship were gunned down as the Empire slowly chased them throughout the movie. One of them could’ve just hyperspaced through the big Empire ship right away.

-Leia and Holdo’s reaction towards Poe after his mutiny makes no sense. “Ha ha, he’s hotheaded. I like him.” WTF? He just led a mutiny. Earlier, Leia was furious at his recklessness and properly demoted him. Now she’s suddenly cool with him after he does worse? This is the dumbest line in the movie.

-Fin and Rose are at one point about to be executed by dozens of stormtroopers. Holdo blows up half the ship they’re on and allows them to escape. But the way this is shown is nonsense. Suddenly most of the stormtroopers are gone. Where are their corpses? The ENTIRE warehouse-size room they’re in is engulfed in flames. But Fin and Rose are unscathed, not even dirty. How was literally everything around them destroyed while they’re fine? The explosion was the size of a skyscraper.

Other problems:

The casino scene is just awful. It whizzes by too fast, has too many CGI gags all over the place, and its message is too obvious. Rich people suck. They whip children and torture animals and sell weapons and cackle as they eat bags of money with dollar signs on them. It’s not that I disagree with the message, but it’s like the director was trying to explain why greed is bad to a five year old in the goofiest way possible.

The most interesting and climatic scene happened in the middle of the movie. Kylo kills Snoke, and Rey’s parents are revealed to be nobodies. Kylo still chooses the dark side. Everyone’s bummed. But the movie just keeps on going. Shortly after that, we’re watching more cute animal schtick with porgs bouncing around the Millennium Falcon. Are you kidding me? Snoke is dead and Rey’s sad, we’re done with this cutesy shit. Lots of groans when the porg’s face hit the window.

Snoke’s death is dumb. He’s shown to be immensely powerful, tossing Kylo and Rey around like rag dolls and predicting most of their future behaviors. But he can’t see the deadly weapon slowly rotating right next to him? Imagine a loaded gun on the arm of your chair spinning towards you. Would you notice that? And he’s aware that there are deadly weapons near him while fighting psychics. Come on.

Captain Phasma was thrown in as an afterthought. The camera zooms in on her dramatic entrance like she matters, but she clearly doesn’t. No one even likes Phasma since she did almost nothing in Episode 7 and pathetically dropped the star killer planet’s defenses. This movie does nothing to fix her. There has been no build up to this. There’s been no mention of Fin being a stormtrooper. He has almost no character development in this movie. So there’s no drama when Fin and Phasma are reunited. She just quickly shows up and dies. Yawn.

Rose ends up doing very little and is boring. When we first meet her, it shows that she’s smart and she comes up with a seemingly smart plan, but Fin keeps talking over her and even blocks her out of the camera’s view on purpose. It would’ve been cool if she later stood up for herself or saved the day with her smarts, but she never did. And her saving Fin at the end was stupid. Neither of them knew Luke was coming to distract the Empire, so she was basically sacrificing the remaining rebel army to save Fin. That’s moronic. Maybe she’ll improve in the next movie, but right now she’s super lame.

After making such a big deal that no one in the galaxy can hack the empire’s system except this one mega hacker with a red pin, Fin and Rose just happen to end up in a jail cell with a random bum who can also easily hack through anything? This is a stroke of luck unswallowable even by Star Wars standards. This problem could’ve easily been rewritten and fixed. They could’ve approached the pin guy and he rejects them, but his shiftier assistant overhears them, follows them, and offers his help. But no, they just randomly meet the only other hacker in the universe that can sneak them into the Empire on the same planet in the same casino as the other guy. If you say so. Plus, Benicio Del Toro’s character is cartoony and predictable and full of unfunny zingers.

The movie shows all the heroes constantly making bad choices and screwing things up. Fin, Rose, and Poe’s plan gets a lot of rebels killed in the smaller ships thanks to Benicio’s betrayal. Normally I’d think this is fresh and interesting, like a realistic Daniel Craig Bond movie where he constantly fails. But the tone of the movie doesn’t reflect their failure. The heroes’ bad choices have no negative consequences on them at the end of the movie and they learn nothing. No one’s even mad about the mutiny. The same positive dramatic John Williams score plays continuously. It’s like the movie is unaware of what’s going on and thinks there’s nothing wrong with the actions of the heroes. It ends on an upbeat, positive tone when it shouldn’t based on the plot. There’s nothing wrong with its messages about heroes failing, the movie is just poorly edited and doesn’t convey its messages in an effective manner.

All the main characters from Episode 7 are reduced in importance. Poe is dumb and wreckless and has the decision making prowess of Mr. Bean. There’s no mention of Fin’s past or his internal struggle against his training with the Empire. Rey learns she has no interesting backstory and is a random Jedi spawn. Kylo is still as wishy washy and unsure of his path as he was at the end of Episode 7. He’s all over the place. The only menacing figure in the Empire is now dead leaving a confused 20-something and his comically sniveling roommate as its leaders. I feel unthreatened by this Empire and have little reason to see Episode 9.

Overall, it’s not a complete trainwreck. It’s not unwatchably bad and riffworthy like the three prequel movies. It’s just really lame and leaves a sour taste in my mouth. Episode 7 created a likable and interesting cast of characters and wrote a blank check to fill out regarding their mysterious backstories. Episode 8 ripped up that check and showed us they don’t really matter. Rey isn’t even “The Last Jedi”. The Last Jedi is all of us. It’s implied anyone can be a Jedi as long as they have hope. The little boy at the end is now a Jedi just because the heroes helped him and inspired him. Just like all of us can be heroes if we have faith and stand up and stop rich people by releasing their space horses. Rich people suck. Get it? If that’s unclear I can CGI some more fat piggy aliens stuffing their faces with money as they cackle and whip their servants for you.