Star Wars: The Last Jedi (aka Episode VIII)
Director: Rian Johnson
Writer: Rian Johnson
Sequel to: Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace, Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones, Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith, Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope, Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back, Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi, Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens
Cast: Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Harrison Ford, Adam Driver, Carrie Fisher, Mark Hamill, Oscar Isaac, Lupita Nyong’o, Andy Serkis, Domhnall Gleeson, Anthony Daniels, Gwendoline Christie, Kelly Marie Tran, Laura Dern, Benicio Del Toro, Frank Oz, Justin Theroux, Noah Segan, Michaela Coel, Warwick Davis, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Joe Cornish, Edgar Wright
Seen on: 18.12.2017
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Plot:
The Resistance are still doing their best to fight against the First Order, but they are taking serious hits. Poe (Oscar Isaac) is frustrated with the slow progress of the Resistance. Meanwhile Rey (Daisy Ridley) has gone to Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) to get Jedi training. And Finn (John Boyega) wakes from his coma on the Resistance ship and teams up with Rose (Kelly Mary Tran) to make sure the Resistance stays safe.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi was good entertainment but it didn’t capture me emotionally as much as it should have and thus didn’t manage to convert me from being mildly interested in the Star Wars films to want to dig deeper. But then I didn’t expect it to.

This installment of the series continues the trend of the new films to include more women and people of color in the films, which is much appreciated. This time they even found room for a woman of color and didn’t hide her in CGI which is quite amazing and long overdue.

But even apart from her being a woman of color, I really loved Rose as a character and I thought that she added a lot to the film, especially with Tran’s great performance. The cast was generally really strong, but another standout was Dern’s Holdo: great character, great performance and I would like a Holdo-Leia buddy movie slash romance now, please.

Such an epic narrative as Star Wars – spanning decades, different media and a huge cast of characters – will always have difficulties narrowing things down enough for a single film. In this case, they didn’t quite manage, following too many plot threads. It makes the film feel frayed and unfocused.

In any case it is an entertaining addition to the series, at least for somebody who isn’t too deep into the lore or who expects much more than entertainment from a Star Wars film in the first place.

Summarizing: Enjoyable.