The Last Jedi. Please.

 

There are only three Star Wars movies. Just three. They are numbered episodes 4-6, which is stupid because they’re actually episodes 1-3 because there are no other Star Wars movies. None. Any other movies besides 1-3 are not Star Wars movies; they are bad, very bad, amateur fan boy Lucas-needs-more-money homemade attempts (except Rogue One, which was purty good but is not a Star Wars movie, it’s a Star Wars Universe movie). I have repeatedly made these point to my son but he insisted I accompany him to see Star Wars: The Last Jedi, episode…oh I don’t know what effin’ episode it’s supposed to be. I’d rather have red hot needles shoved in my eyes,but it was his birthday so I went. And I was not disappointed, meaning that I was as disappointed as I expected to be because it sucked.

Suckity suckity sucked.

It had a purty good opening battle sequence, the special effects hammering away because great special effects means a great movie because story? What’s that? George Lucas and the rest of the evil spawn know that the longer the laser shoot-em-ups, the later the gigantic gaps in logic and plausibility manifest, so let’s blow some crap up! And, boy, did they, depicting fearless big cojone pilot Poe Dameron disobeying orders to get hisself a dreadnought, getting the entire rebel fleet wiped out in the process, but, hey, it was still fun.

Now, on to the gigantic gaps in logic.

Rey is finally on Luke Skywalker’s island planet beach whatever and is finally ready to undergo Jedi training and Luke, after being a dick for some required period of time, starts training her and, five minutes later, she’s a full fledged Jedi Knight. No, really, five minutes, that’s all it takes. You just concentrate on feeling pretty good about yourself and, next thing you know, you’re juggling boulders. Which means, of course, Yoda was having Luke on during that whole somersaulting-through-the-swamps while riding piggy back in Empire Strikes Back (you know, the second real Star Wars movie?). Turns out Yoda is a dick, which seems to be a Jedi requirement because Yoda shows up in this one all shimmery and ghosty and does some pretty dick things.

Becoming a Jedi doesn’t even require your full attention because Rey and Kylo Whineface go through some baffling mind meld while Rey is undergoing her rigorous five minutes of Jedi training and talk to each other the whole time. Luke sends her off into the same tree cave that Yoda the dick sent him in to face his own fears and who do you think she’s gonna find in there, huh, who? Darth? Whineface?

Nope. Just some books, which Yoda, in a really dick move, ends up burning to ashes. Or did he?

At any rate, the Wonder Twins keep up their Professor X/Jean Grey telepathic link throughout the whole movie and you’d think people in telepathic communication across an entire galaxy would get somewhat of an inkling of each other’s intents but, nope. Because, see, Lucas is hoping you’ll be stupid enough to think this is going to be another “save Darth Vader” moment and you’re just waiting and hoping and, oh, no! Kylo Wineface has tricked everybody, including the Red Skull…er, Snoke. Snoke? What the hell kind of name is that for the leader of the Fourth Reich? Can you see yourself going “Hail Snoke!” without cracking up? Maybe that’s why Whineface wants to take over: “Hail Whineface!” has a better ring to it.

While all that’s going on, the three or four hoopdies that remain of the rebel fleet are being tracked through hyperspace by General Chucky Huxtable and his minions…wait a minute, you can’t track someone through hyperspace, unless someone on the rebel command ship is, oh, I don’t know, broadcasting? Five minutes after everybody figures that out, do they start looking for the obvious traitor on board? No, they decide to send Finn and a Japanese school girl one million light years across the galaxy to find a codebreaker who can breach the Death Star and turn off the tractor beam…wait, sorry, turn off the tracking device on Huxy’s command ships. Because, you know, that’s just sooo much easier than following the signal back to the traitor. I guess there was no other way for Lucas to recreate the Mos Eisley cantina scene and (a) add the required far left talking point about arms dealers profiting off the back of the cute little orphans taking care of the llama horses and (b) introduce Benicio del Toro, who talks with a stutter, either because of a defect or because he’s mocking everybody, and who must be a Jedi because he turns out to be quite a dick. At least we got to see a llama horse race-and-escape because Japanese School Girl used to be one of the cute orphans and knows llama horses. I think.

 

So when all of this predictably gets bollixed up beyond belief, Admiral Purple Hair pulls off one of the best kamikaze moves in history and blows the First Order fleet out of the sky, which makes one ask why in the blue blazing hell didn’t somebody pull the very same maneuver against the Death Star? Could have saved Luke’s hand.

So when all of that gets bollixed up beyond belief, everyone ends up on Hoth for a classic Star Wars Imperial Walker assault, complete with red soil so you can track the five or six rebels left as they launch a direct head-on slow speed counterattack. Sitting ducks, that’s the phrase you’re looking for, and they get systematically blown apart until…Luke shows up! By himself, with a light saber, right out front looking all menacing and Whineface has about the same reaction I do…shoot him. Every gun in the universe lights Luke up in a spectacular blaze of laser cannons, nuclear devices, phasers and photon torpedoes, you name it, red soil flying everywhere but, please. I turned to my son and did the shoulder brush and, three seconds later, Luke is making exactly the same gesture. Turns out Luke is doing the old Loki trick (“Will you never stop falling for that?”) to buy the three or four rebels left enough time to follow a bunch of cute ice foxes (who have suddenly become self-aware) out the back where Rey is juggling boulders.

Oy.

Next time, red hot needles.

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