Goodbye Carrie; Hello Last Junk-i

** warning, here be spoilers **

Interesting to note that Rotten Tomatoes scores for The Last Jedi show an unexpected split; “top critics” give it 93% while the audience score is a paltry 56%. What’s going on? Is this a fake news movie-bot-war? In this case, the critics must be the bots, because the film is awful. I just witnessed it two nights ago, and I’ve had to let it sit so I could respond with a reasonably cool head. Here we go…

Skin-deep symbolism, gratuitous guffaws, simple linear plot mechanics, lousy dialog. Even the saber battles were pretty ordinary, punctuated by clever new ways to use instant-on sabers to “gotcha” kill enemies. Not very honorable.

The reprising characters from the last film are likable enough, but show little development. Rey is the best of the crop, but she can’t carry the cast or the plot; not with this epicly flaccid writing.

What kind of Jedi training was that, with master Luke? Luke trained at Deggobah under Grover’s masterful ambivalence for weeks or months; Rey shows up for a weekend, swings her sword around in the air a few times, then “faces herself” in a dark cave one afternoon — uh…just literally faces herself — infinite reflections of her perfectly lit countenance. Wow, this is so tense. To move the story along, she reaches out and….wait for it….touches her reflection! Pow! Something happens. What happened? Doesn’t matter, we’re all through with this learning-moment, and should be ready to beat the big boss now! Rey’s entire journey to Jedi Knight occurs in literally 8 minutes of relevant footage across two films.

So how does the Star Wars Universe look these days? We’re here to see the dreams and imaginations of ancient alien civilization. How’s the texture? Well, things are really clean and shiny, at least we can say that. Where’s the dirt? Oh, there isn’t any dirt in CG/soundstage universe..

There are only 4 scenery environments in the entire movie, with startling brief glimpses, mixed in with various on-ship sets. We get some nice matte-painting establishing shots, which are almost, but not quite, totally unrelated to what action follows.

All camera moves are smooth and objective, too, like you were never really there. The one trip that could have been fun, to the casino planet, suffers a speedy one scene dolly shot through a meticulously lit hall no more queer than Circus Circus on a Tuesday. I hear English being spoken as the camera smoothly flies by “crazy aliens”.

But that’s because there’s somehow not enough time in this, the longest Star Wars movie yet! No time to develop characters or intrigue, we’ve got to check off the scavenger hunt list and move on as quickly as possible so that we can spend more time in the most boring and meaningless ways possible, namely,

A) Emoting a lot. Yes, there’s lots of feelings in this film. Not any that I could share, because they’re so irrelevant, badly acted, and slathered on by some character that I’ve only just met. I don’t even know his/her name, nor do I care to.

Two new supporting characters perpetrate this crime with the greatest of ease, Rose and the Laura Dern character — like I said, I didn’t get her name. Did you?

Rose is like..I dunno, a guard or something, and she’s excited to meet a real hero in our rebellious Finn. Suddenly she has skillz to offer, and gets in on the quest, even though, let’s face it, she’s really not built for interplanetary adventure at the drop of a pin. I’m sorry, a stocky 5' girl with no apparent training doesn’t match up well with a First Order FN stormtrooper. If there was some quirky twist of faith that got her stuck with him, a’la Merry and Pippen with Frodo, I could let it slide. No, this was a conscious choice; she’s that brave, and Finn is that gullible. If she IS that good, the writing and the acting didn’t make me believe it. Did it you?

I’m suspicious of demographics casting, which don’t matter to me one bit, go ahead, but the character roles are not helping any specific group to get market share based on quality; just placement.

Which brings us to Admiral or Whatever Laura Dern who steps in for Leia while she’s convalescing after her first and last demonstration of the Force — tuckered her out I guess. Admiral Dern looks great in her drapey Vanity Fair dress; very regal. With her coiffed purple hair, and wayyyyyyy too much eye makeup, It looks like she’s headed for a cocktail party, in fact, not scrambling onto the bridge of a rag-tag embattled cruiser that’s just had a hull breach [lots of those in this film, with people running around going cra-zay, gravity and breathing gasses unaffected]

Admiral Dern stands up to the hot-shot flyboy who demands action, by banishing him from the sight of her command — that’ll teach him! I thought feminine leadership was about communication and understanding, but maybe there’s not enough time, or we desperately need some drama, so we’ll go with the bullheaded-leader model, to setup a mutiny scenario. A rebellion-rebellion! The first rebellion wasn’t going well enough, so we had to come up with another one.

Even still, from then on, the Substitute Teacher is tight-lipped and strangely calm, keeping her plans to herself, all the way until the end, not sharing them with the dissenting members of her volunteer rebel force — no, just stalwart authority is what we need — I guess it’s from a woman, so we should just trust her leadership, otherwise, you may be sexist rebels. Ok, they didn’t really quite go there, but in today’s political climate, what do you think you are asking your audience to witness here? Think carefully.

But she’s not just a great boss, she can get into the action when needed. To demonstrate her combat savvy, and prove that even barely-clothed elegant beauty queens can be tough, she seizes an opportunity, and with a well-placed kick, over-throws the over-throwers of the over-throwers ! Bravo!! That’s it! Mutiny thwarted, down to one rebellion again! That was written for the girls, wink wink! Still looking great, babe.

Where was I? Oh yes, dull time-wasters,

B) The pregnant last millisecond could-be-bullet-time, but-actually-isn’t-bullet-time suspense trick! We see this at least twice — you know the gag — where the high-speed spacecraft is closing in on the target. The wide-angle establishing shot shows what any human who has thrown and caught a ball more than 6 times in her life can easily tell is a two-second leeway; but as we tighten in on the heroic trigger-fingerer, Character Whoever, something has gone wrong! Quickly, yell at the droid to fix some circuits, and unbuckle from the harness to climb down an impossible (gravity-rich) ladder tube to get the wire/button/diode, whatever it is. Then….drop the tool (all that damn gravity)! To stretch it out again..for a META-SUSPSENSE!!! Woww, I’m on the edge of my seat, I think my resting pulse might have broken a sweat. How will the hero ever shoot the Big Gun in time?!?

Why? Why is it so hard to do something that has been set up to be so easy. This is the most valuable science fiction franchise in human possession. Where are the artists, the costume designers, the writers, the dreamers? They weren’t involved in the making of this picture. I’m calling in Ang Lee with one quarter of this budget — it would be a masterpiece.

I must pause my fun-making in closing to honor what’s left of the story and the reality. Luke’s final solution is elegant and masterful, and it’s execution requires the last expenditure of his life force. Of the first generation characters (except the ageless Wookie and droids), only Leia remains. A sad irony since the actors who play our dear Solo and Skywalker are still available; it’s Carrie who is gone.

Which is why I’m pissed. The 20th century is dying; the least that can be done is to provide its few remaining encore roles a respectable showing.

Last Jedi, indeed.