Counter-Currents
2,188 words
The Last Jedi isn’t an awful film. Not Force Awakens awful. But it is pretty bad. Down there at the bottom of the scrap heap, with The Force Awakens and The Phantom Menace. The question on my mind was whether The Force Awakens was just a Phantom Menace moment, a rocky start to a trilogy that redeemed itself with two pretty good films. (Yes, I like Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith. Fight me.) But no, it was not to be. It was not hard, of course, for The Last Jedi to improve upon The Force Awakens. But it still isn’t a very good film, and no amount of directorial and technological wizardry can redeem this wretched trilogy now.
So is it time for the Star Wars franchise to die?
No. Last year’s Rogue One proved that Disney can turn out a good Star Wars film. Rogue One took elements from the established mythos and populated it with new characters and an original story. There is literally no end to the possibilities of such films, especially if they have good scripts and good directors. I am actually looking forward to next year’s Han Solo film, directed by Ron Howard. That, Disney, is the way to go forward. But the scripts have to be original and good, and why not get the best possible directorial talent? Why not get Christopher Nolan to direct a Star Wars film? Why not David Lynch, who was actually discussed as director for Return of the Jedi? (Imagine what he would have done with Jabba and the Ewoks.)
The problem with the new trilogy is that it is a calculated remake (a “soft reboot”) of the original one. Given that there is a whole universe of fan fiction as well as countless authorized Star Wars novels to steal from, the cynicism and complete poverty of imagination revealed by the decision to do an ill-concealed, sometimes shot-by-shot, remake is truly breath-taking. I have already detailed how The Force Awakens is a shameless remake of A New Hope and elements of The Empire Strikes Back. Let’s look at how The Last Jedi rips off The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi.
At the end of Awakens, the Death Star Star Killer Base has been destroyed. But the Rebellion Resistance is put to flight, and the Imperial First Order fleet commanded by Dark Side adept Darth Vader Kylo Ren is hunting them down.
The pursuit of the Rebels Resistance is intercut with the story of aspiring Jedi Luke Skywalker Rey going to a remote sanctuary to learn the ways of the Force from cantankerous old Jedi Master Yoda Luke Skywalker.
Midway through the film, we are diverted to the cloud city of Bespin casino planet of Canto Bight (an upscale Mos Eisley cantina scene) where the fleeing Rebels Resistance seek the aid of an off-white rogue named Lando Calrissian DJ, who later betrays them to the Empire First Order.
The third act takes place on Emperor Palpatine’s Supreme Leader Snoke’s Death Star command ship, where the Emperor Supreme Leader tortures Jedi adept Luke Skywalker Rey, who watches the destruction of the Rebel Resistance fleet, until Darth Vader Kylo Ren has a change of heart and kills his master. Then Vader Ren reaches out to Skywalker Rey with the offer of a lifetime: to join him and help rule the galaxy. Vader Ren even offers Skywalker Rey information about her parents. No, Ren is not Rey’s father, because that would be derivative, and Rian Johnson is a director with artistic integrity.
The fourth act of the movie, which feels tacked on, is on an ice planet called Hoth Crait, where the Rebellion Resistance has taken refuge in an underground base protected from space bombardment by a shield, so that it must be taken by ground assault by Imperial First Order Walkers.
Yes, it really is that derivative.
Of course, even with a derivative plot, The Last Jedi might still have been redeemed with interesting characters and good dialogue, especially if well-performed and directed. There are some witty exchanges (“Can you put on a cowl, or something?”), some cute details (Luke Skywalker’s island is swarming with Pokémons), some neat product tie ins (all I want for Christmas is a crystal fox), etc. Supreme Leader Snoke was astonishingly well realized. Some of the scenes between Kylo and Rey worked quite well, even though they were a pale imitation of the Vader-Skywalker relationship. Kylo and Rey’s battle with Snoke’s guards was highly entertaining, although why they just didn’t shoot them down with blasters is beyond me. Mark Hamill was surprisingly good throughout and, along with Adam Driver (Kylo Ren), really carried the movie, but Yoda’s scene stole the show. The music by John Williams is truly magnificent. His score for The Force Awakens, although the best part of the movie, had a phoned-in feel. The score for The Last Jedi is truly riveting.
But there’s just not enough that’s good here.
I hated Carrie Fisher’s Princess Leia from the first trilogy, where she was a rude, abrasive bitch. Here, she is practically a corpse, with the croaking voice and decrepit movements of a woman of 90. (Fisher died this year at the age of 60, worn out from a lifetime of mental illness and drug abuse.) It is just as well that she spent most of the movie in a drug induced coma. That, at least, was convincing. I love how she flew through space like a witch, but that was mostly CGI. If they bring her back for the third movie in CGI form, it might actually breathe some life into the role. Obviously, given that Carrie Fisher is dead, the best thing they could have done is killed her off when she was sucked into the void, and then reshot her subsequent scenes without her. Or dropped them altogether. Instead, they weighted the movie down with a ridiculous resurrection scene and passed the buck on explaining her demise to the next director, who has a lot bigger problems to worry about.
Aside from Admiral Akbar, who dies, practically the whole leadership of the Resistance is a collection of cat ladies, including Laura Dern’s Admiral Holdo, whose locks are Tumblrite purple and whose idea of communicating authority and inspiring confidence is to wear an evening dress and tiara into battle. It is perhaps unsurprising that Oscar Isaac’s Poe Dameron mutinies twice, but the cat ladies think he’s just too adorable to dump out an airlock.
The First Order’s officers include Domhnall Gleeson’s General Hux, who is ludicrous, and Gwendolyn Christie’s Captain Phasma, who is useless. Their posh British accents are supposed to symbolize the acme of aristocratic European civilization, which is to be brought low by the Resistance, which consists of a rabble of Americans and non-whites.
The ugly and charmless John Boyega returns as Findu, joined by an ugly and charmless Vietnamese girl named Rose, to appeal to the vast Asian market. Although he is a sanitation worker and she a humble technician, both of them turn out to be competent speeder pilots in the final battle, because diversity is magic. Just when we think that Findu might sacrifice his life for the common good of the Resistance and the Franchise, Rose deflects him — out of love. We don’t win, she says, by killing the people we hate but by saving the people we love. Then she plants a kiss on Findu’s huge lips, causing the stomachs of all Asia to flip. Is this an argument against love? Because the other interpretation — that it is okay to endanger everything and everyone one is fighting for on a romantic whim — is surely too disgusting a meme even for Leftists. Finn was just about to save all the people he loves by killing some of the people he hates. But apparently that is too nuanced for Tumblristas. Really, it is just the sort of morally confused rubbish one would expect from an army led by cat ladies.
The whole Canto Bight sequence seemed to have been invented just to give Findu and Rose something to do, but it was ridiculously arbitrary. First, we have to accept that the First Order fleet cannot catch up with the Resistance in conventional space, and the Resistance cannot jump into hyperspace, so the only thing the First Order can do is pursue the Resistance ships until they run out of fuel. This premise gives us enough time for Findu and Rose to race across the galaxy to Canto Bight to find the one guy who can solve their problem, a code breaker named DJ (Benicio del Toro, for added diversity), who can get them on the First Order flagship and enable the Resistance to escape. Basically, another thermal exhaust port.
Beyond that, there is a massive incoherence in the timelines, for Rey’s period of training with Luke seems to last much longer than the events taking place with the two fleets in space. But that is a problem with The Empire Strikes Back as well, for Luke’s time with Yoda seems to have been much longer than the timeline connected with the Millennium Falcon.
Yes, they spent 200 million dollars on a movie, and this plot was deemed good enough for the goyim.
The opening battle features space bombers which open their bomb-bay doors and drop bombs into space. Apparently, the designers of these ships never heard of cabin depressurization or gravity. And when the witch Leia opened the door to re-enter the ship, why didn’t everyone else get sucked out into space?
Given all the genuinely terrible things in this movie, it strikes me as odd that many viewers had especially negative reactions to Luke Skywalker’s dismissive and brusque attitude toward Rey. For instance, quite a few fans were upset that Luke tossed away his lightsaber as soon as Rey presented it to him. But the Jedi are in part modeled after Zen monks, and it is standard Zen practice to test seekers by discouraging them as much as possible. The same can be said of Luke’s claim that he simply came to his planet to die. Obviously, that was a lie, since the last movie was all about getting ahold of the map he left so people could find him in case of emergency. The complainers are just snowflakes who would wash out the first day.
Still, there seems to be something more than just a test to Luke’s insistence that the Jedi order needs to die — namely, guilt and bitterness over his failure with Kylo Ren. Yes, it seems a little implausible that Luke would wish the destruction of an ancient initiatic order that has upheld goodness across the galaxy for millennia simply because he can’t forgive himself for his greatest failure — but then one remembers that millions of whites actively support policies that are leading to the destruction of our race to expiate spurious and unearned guilt for racism, colonialism, and slavery.
Whether Luke was sincere or not about claiming that the Jedi order should end, he ultimately passes his teachings and torch on to Rey, who remains the same absurd “Mary Sue” character from the first film, a girrrl who can effortlessly do anything a man can do only through arduous training and hard work. Luke Skywalker may not be the last Jedi, but if Disney has its way, he will be the last white male one.
Others were outraged at Luke’s death. But of course he will just reappear in the next film more powerful than ever, with a ghostly glow.
Why is Disney hell-bent on making such a botched and derivative reboot of Star Wars?
One possible explanation is a complete lack of any understanding of the essence of what made the original films so appealing, which would necessitate the imitation of all sorts of inessential details, hoping that they might luck out and find the formula.
This would make sense if Disney were run by 70-IQ cargo cultists. But Disney is run by cynical, predatory, but intelligent Jews and their ilk.
Were they just motivated by greed? No, that is not enough. Making new Star Wars movies with original plots is not exactly a financially risky proposition.
Which forces us to consider another possibility: Disney chose the “soft reboot” route because they want to make as much money as possible from Star Wars nostalgia while simultaneously degrading the originals and packing them full of Left-wing rubbish. This interpretation is supported by two plot details that strike me as calculated swipes at hard-core fans: killing off Snoke without telling us anything about his back story, and revealing that Rey’s parents were nobodies. There are countless fan articles and videos spinning out theories about Snoke and Rey. But the truth is that these characters were not to be taken seriously. They are just one-dimensional, disposable ciphers in a giant cash grab based on the calculated exploitation of nostalgia for Lucas’s genuinely heroic and inspiring films.
Disney is spitting on the Star Wars mythos and its fans. It is time for the fans to strike back.
22 comments
I have been listening to the drones say how good this movie was, and I knew it was crap. It will end up being a bomb, with a black male protagonist lead, and a white female protagonist lead how can it be anything else. More jewish antifa garbage; the jews can’t make art.
“Let the past die. Kill it, if you have to. That’s the only way to become what you are meant to be.“
May be a clue as to the intention in among the cloned & warred hand rubbing.
Nice review. Perhaps I am odd, but I notice sometimes how enriched and refreshed I can feel for not seeing a movie. As if not seeing it was a superior and more satisfying experience than seeing it.
This is one of those times. Every time I read another review of this, I feel great for not seeing it. I pity everyone struggling to digest this latest poz-fest with the Star Wars brand attached to it and frame it terms that makes sense to them politically (I’m also thinking of Molyneux’s review here).
And every time they release a new Star Wars movie, I get to feel great all over again for free, reading about others grapple with whatever deeply unsatisfactory experience they have exposed themselves to .
Yes I admit, I have long ago given up on Star Wars. I loved it all as a kid, but hate it now.
In retrospect I give the first one credit for its innovation and freshness and wonder, the next two a pass (although I appreciate many people prefer the 2nd one), but those three original movies really were Star Wars. After that it became something else, just part of a wider cultural and social slide downwards.
But thinking about it more, I consider all of Star Wars a really bad deal for our people. Sure, maybe it’s fun, there’s special effects and stuff, there’s escapism and there’s nothing wrong with sheer entertainment.
But it’s not a good model of popular fiction for us. It’s not a good fit, even before it was totally pozed, it’s not taking us anywhere useful. Star Wars is like this slushy candy that’s easy to eat, and easy to overeat, but there’s no nutrition there, just addictive anti-nutrients, it fills our brains with junk, and we consume it simply for no other reason than it’s easy to consume, and many of us are just too damn lazy to consume something better.
Generally I think you’re dead on, with one minor nitpick: “The score for The Last Jedi is truly riveting.” I would challenge anybody walking out of this movie (or Force Awakens) to hum a single bar of music from it that wasn’t derivative of previous installments. Even the prequels had some good, original music, but Disney has produced none.
Regarding fans spitting back, this movie infamously has a user rating of 4.8/10 on Metacritic and 55/100 on Rotten Tomatoes (with many thousands of votes cast), so it looks like people are finally waking up to the mangling Disney is doing. Hopefully that translates into steep drops at the box office as fanboys turn away in disgust instead of re-watching every weekend for a month.
Just saw it yesterday, and all it was about, was Nostalgia. The ageing fans want to see their beloved figures again, and so Luke, Lea, R2D2, etc pop up no matter if it makes sense. Of cause they have enough budget to bring us some great iconografic pictures, but there was no invention, nothing new. Its the same story over and over again. You can see this titanic go down.
Hahaha! Your comment about CGI Carrie Fischer made me literally laugh out loud on a bus full of quiet, polite people.
Your reviews are always great- thank you!
Never been a fan of Star Wars. I always saw it as mindless pop culture escapism. Not just the newer films, the entire thing. Never in any of the films did it ever create anything profound or truly touching. It’s not a franchise worthy of any deep evaluation in my opinion. It’s the basic “good guy” versus “bad guy” shtick with really cool special effects. If I want to be entertained by science fiction I’ll read something by Vonnegut, Bradbury or Asimov. Star Wars films just bore me.
I object to the vile depiction of an Asian mixing with a Negroid. This must be the Jews’ middle-finger reaction to the Chinese public’s dissatisfaction with the Negroid character in the previous Star Wars film. They know this shocks the Chinese public even more. The Jewish message here is obvious: “All you Chinese goyim should just mix with Africans.”
Maybe in the third one, the black guy will have both da womyn da hwyte womyn and da asyn one. I am honestly expecting something like that in the following movie.
It is clear the Jews wish to push race-mixing on the White market and Chinese market alike.
All 3 of the new series of full of pushed diversity and playing on the past accomplishments and positive sentiment of fans.
At times the last 2 movies were truly boring, sometimes laughable cringe worthy in their diversity cult. I skipped ahead certain scenes, as I knew the whole dialogue and emotional message without watching– and I did not want the force feeding. Some of the roundtable ‘meetings’ are so fully of trite sayings and forced platitudes I just could not stomach it.
These people are most shallow at exactly the points they think they are the most profound.
IT just doesnt work for me. I could not watch to the end. At least I will never pay to see this garbage. Somehow, millions swallow it without noticing anything.
Like here:
https://i.imgur.com/vgPGNl1.jpg
“Which forces us to consider another possibility: Disney chose the ‘soft reboot’ route because they want to make as much money as possible from Star Wars while simultaneously degrading the originals and packing them full of Left-wing rubbish, in short: spitting on the mythos and its fans.”
That’s probably the best explanation. To paraphrase Lenin, spite generally plays the basest of roles in metapolitics, and the Jews of Hollywood are inordinately spiteful. They also feel confident that they can get away with their mischief. Their films, especially the sequels, prequels, reboots, and spin-offs of successful franchises, still manage to bring in the shekels of suckers like tractor beams.
It’s time to put these Jews and their waste products into a trash compactor.
Way back when, George Lucas allegedly had plans for making three Star Wars trilogies. The first would show how the Empire overthrew the Republic. The second would show the Rebellion overthrowing the Empire. And the third was to show the challenges the New Republic would face, post-victory.
Needless to say, SW Episodes VII and VIII betray this premise. As noted, these movies are basically rehashes of the original trilogy (Episodes IV, V, VI or whatever numbering scheme is to be used). Some years ago, Lucas created new editions of his original trilogy, which he claims to be definitive in all their CGI fingerpainting glory. Perhaps Disney is planning to have the new sequels become the definitive versions of the original trilogy. The fascist sensibilities of A New Hope, with its genetically predestined (White) warrior caste and Riefenstahlesque finale, are to be re-imagined per MiniDiverse directive for galactic goodthinkers.
Given that there is a whole universe of fan fiction as well as countless authorized Star Wars novels to steal from…
One fascinating theme is that Emperor Palpatine had a meta plan. The reason for his galactic military buildup and construction of wunderwaffe like the Death Star was that the Emperor was aware of a Greater Threat approaching the Galaxy, like the bio-tech berserkers of the Yuuzhan Vong, a theme which played out in various Expanded Universe novels, now relegated to Star Wars Legend status and rendered unto space dust ala Alderaan. Still, it’s not for nothing that the Emperor and his technocratic military-industrial complex remain favorites among a large sector of fandom. Perhaps there is an inkling that today’s neo-liberal-con universal Republic can not stop the rising tide of alien invasion.
Consider how Frank Herbert’s Dune sequels address the issue of what happens after the Rebels win. No, things do not go back to the good old days, nor do the Rebels establish a universe in which one can Buy-the-Galaxy-a-Coke(tm). Instead, the Rebels, once in power, can be just as tyrannical as the old Empire, or even worse (a nice Orwellian point, by the way). This was rather well shown in the Science Fiction Channel mini-series, Children of Dune. While Paul Atreides may be a sympathetic character, he will not allow even the facade of a Constitution to limit his power.
But that’s because he and his son Leto are looking very long term, and seeing the Greater Threats to humanity. And thus there is the need for his Golden Path. Alas for Star Wars fandom, the only Golden Path is that of Disney to its bank accounts.
A sorry ending for a saga which began a long time ago in an ethno-Republic far, far away…
I love these reviews! Um, is there any chance Trevor Lynch or Buttercup Dew would do a review of A Christmas Prince?
Their posh British accents are supposed to symbolize the acme of aristocratic European civilization…
This encapsulates the whole of the oft-used ‘villains with British accents’ trope used by Hollywood for the past 25 years.
“Last year’s Rogue One proved that Disney can turn out a good Star Wars film.” I stopped reading there. Rogue One was completely terrible.
Grow up
Greg, you do A LOT of good work, but the producers of “Rogue One” openly said that it’s a narrative of “brave white women leading people of color against an evil empire.” It’s totally an anti-white film, just like the other two. Basically, anything made by Disney will be terrible because they’re openly antiwhite. Hell, the Resistance admiral was literally a blue-haired cat lady!
I don’t care what those fools said, it was a good movie.
Greg, everyone loved the three originals because they came about their motivations and emotions so honestly it was a wonder of film making craft. These newer ones are made by lizard people faking human emotions and motivations. They suck. You should let them go. They can always be remade with more competent craftsmen at the helm.
“It is perhaps unsurprising that Oscar Isaac’s Poe Dameron mutinies twice, but the cat ladies think he’s just too adorable to dump out an airlock.” The catlady-run work environments I’ve seen have been not so coincidentally filled with hunks. The Star Wars universe is unfortunately true to life in this regard.
“The ugly and charmless John Boyega returns as Findu, joined by an ugly and charmless Vietnamese girl named Rose, to appeal to the vast Asian market.” I swear they had a blind Asian in Rogue One to knock out two birds with one stone.
“Yes, they spent 200 million dollars on a movie, and this plot was deemed good enough for the goyim.” Most goyim have low standards and salivate at anything which reminds them of what they already like.
Want to know how SJW-converged abortions like The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi are created? Read this story: https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/12/22/movies/star-wars-last-jedi-women-run-universe.html?referer=
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