All right. This one's going to be tricky. It was certainly easier defending The Force Awakens.
Not that I didn't enjoy The Last Jedi when I watched it in the cinema. In fact, when it first came out, I saw it mostly as a decent addition to the Star Wars saga that felt a little drawn out in the middle - I even mentioned in my blog that it was hard to find something to discuss about it. Yes, there were some non sequiturs. Yes, some scenes grated on me, but I thought that was mostly my own hang-ups. It came as a surprise to learn that the film was as controversial as it was.
My reaction when I found out, though, was not a burning wish to defend the film and point out what was good about it. In fact, there was something about the fan rage that did not displease me - because as it turns out, the things that had irritated me weren't just my hang-ups after all. So people didn't like to see charming fighter pilot Poe be put in his place by some pink-haired Admiral? Neither did I! So the fans weren't bowled over by Finn's potential love interest Rose and her grudge against the wealthy Casino players? Me neither - I hated her little "eat the rich" speech. And I certainly wasn't the only nerd to have my nose put out of joint by the abrupt resolution to the questions "Who is Snoke?" (doesn't matter - he's dead now) and "Who were Rey's parents?" (nobodies who abandoned her). All that pleasant fan theorising - for nothing!
I still enjoyed the film on rewatch, however, and though I believe it's my least favourite of the sequel films (even if objectively speaking it's probably better than The Rise of Skywalker), I'd argue its good points overcome the bad ones - and the bad ones are, possibly, a bit over-hated.
Rian Johnson was the director and writer of The Last Jedi, whereas JJ Abrams was the man behind The Force Awakens. The transition was by no means seamless. There's really little to be said for the way that Rian Johnson clumsily cut off plot threads from The Force Awakens because, presumably, they didn't appeal to him and he wanted to do his own thing. A trilogy should work as a whole, and it's not ideal if a writer/director goes off on a tangent in film two. However, some of the new ideas Johnson brought to the table weren't half bad. It would have been interesting to see a third instalment which carried through the notion of Kylo Ren as the Big Bad, without any evil mastermind lording it over him. Even though, what with Kylo Ren being "drawn to the light" and all, it seemed a pretty good bet that he'd be redeemed, it wasn't a given - he did kill his dad. It's harder for the Head Villain to turn good than for his second in command, and what with Kylo Ren passing up two chances to be redeemed already, we would have been left in suspense about him in film three. Whereas as soon as Palpatine reappeared in The Rise of Skywalker, you could be fairly certain that Han's and Leia's boy would turn against him before the film was done.
Not being the greatest fan of the Jedi, I was also interested in the hints that Rey would break with the old beliefs and possibly create her own order, which might acknowledge shades of grey and the importance of a balance between light and dark elements of the Force. It was rather encouraging to see even Yoda's Force ghost admitting that the Jedi belonged to the past and it was time for something new. Those plot threads - Kylo Ren as his own boss and the future of Force users - may have been enough to build an intriguing third film on. That didn't happen, as JJ Abrams - back in the saddle for The Rise of Skywalker - disliked Johnson's ideas as much as Johnson disliked his. But that is a subject matter for another time.
As for Admiral Holdo lecturing Poe and Rose and Finn freeing space horses, partly to spite rich Casino players, well... It may be that viewers like me, who are averse to moral lessons, are reading a little too much into these plot developments. I doubt that the message of the Holdo storyline is really "macho man bad, pink-haired woman good". Rather, what you could take away from it is that gung-ho heroics aren't always the best strategy when fighting a war. This would perhaps have been made clearer if Admiral Holdo had been an old man, someone Poe could suspect of being "past his prime". Anyway, Holdo, though somewhat idiotic in keeping her plans a secret, isn't as self-righteous as all that. She later admits in a woman-to-woman chat with Leia that she likes Poe (and that's after he's tried to start a mutiny against her), and Leia agrees, so they understand where he's coming from. (Incidentally, I don't get why Holdo should be regarded as "queer-coded" - for all we know, pink hair may be all the rage in a galaxy far, far away.)
As for Rose, yes, she does seem a bit like the sort of girl who thinks an anti-hunting rally is the ideal setting for a first date. But to be fair to her, she doesn't volunteer the cause of her resentment towards the Casino planet to which she and Finn head in an, as it turns out, pointless side quest. I actually thought it was neat that what she described as "the worst place in the galaxy" or some such turned out to be a super-luxurious planet instead of a crime-infested dump - just as we were expecting another hommage to the cantina scene in A New Hope. It's only when Finn presses her that she spills. At first watch, I thought she was one of the down-trodden masses from the Casino planet - that would have given her a genuine grudge. But no, she grew up on a planet oppressed by the First Order (honestly - how long has the First Order been around for?), and she doesn't like the Casino players because, being so rich, they must be arms dealers, and being arms dealers, they must help the First Order in their war effort. Yeah, follow that logic if you can. Where does Rose think her late sister got those bombs from with which she blew up a whole Star Destroyer, containing many First Order foot soldiers and a snarky Captain I rather warmed to? If you're in a war, you lose the moral high ground pretty fast, and you have no call to slag off your suppliers.
So poor Rose may not be social commentator of the year, but in other respects she's a harmless enough character, and it's not entirely her fault the sparks between her and Finn don't exactly fly. If you can swallow the boo-bad-arms-dealers outburst, there's fun to be had in her and Finn's side quest, even if it does turn out to be a dead end.
But the real highlights of the film are elsewhere, and involve Rey, Kylo Ren, and Luke Skywalker. A criticism I don't understand when it comes to The Last Jedi is that it "ruined Luke". How so? He's amazing. Mark Hamill has never been better in the part. Yes, he's now grouchy and disillusioned instead of the idealistic golden boy of the original trilogy, but that only makes him more interesting - and he's still a decent man at heart who comes through in the end. I loved the scenes between him and Rey, and between Rey and Kylo Ren when they commune via Force power. When Luke bursts in on them in full Prospero mode, you can see why he's worried. Honestly, those who claim that Rey's and Kylo's/Ben's kiss in The Rise of Skywalker "came out of nowhere" - how chemistry-blind can you get? What surprised me even on a first watch was that I found the talky and philosophical bits - when Luke tried to teach Rey what the Force was, and what it wasn't; when Rey discovered how drawn she was to the Dark Side etc. - engrossing, whereas the action bits were more likely to drag. I remember thinking "Are they ever going to reach that planet with the red sand from the trailer"?
The Last Jedi is great pretty much anytime Luke, Rey or Kylo Ren is around, and OK the rest of the time. But no, I did not see the point of the Porgs.
