STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI--First Impressions (No Spoilers)

I'm going to have to limit myself on what I can say about THE LAST JEDI in this post, because I don't want to reveal anything.

First off, I think it was better than THE FORCE AWAKENS, a film that I thought was basically a semi-remake of the original STAR WARS. THE LAST JEDI does have some THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK elements to it, and it also recalls RETURN OF THE JEDI.

But I wouldn't call THE LAST JEDI a great movie. It's overlong, and there's a few subplots that drag the story down instead of advancing it. THE LAST JEDI actually kind of reminds me of the several overstuffed, two hours-plus superhero epics we've been inundated with the past few years. There's multiple big-time action set pieces, and there's multiple "We have to perform a certain task in a certain time or we're all doomed" sequences, and there's multiple climaxes.

As for all the major revelations...Writer-Director Rian Johnson leads the audience down a particular path a number of times, only to pull the rug out from under everybody. The question is...is this clever writing or is it just a cheap way to manipulate the viewer?? This film has so many detoured scenarios that I couldn't help but think that a bunch of Disney executives spent a weekend in a boardroom trying to figure out ways to set up the fans. Much of the humor in the movie comes off as ill-timed. (Did George Lucas have some input on the script after all?).

I've heard some on the internet call THE LAST JEDI the most polarizing Star Wars film, and I guess I would agree with that assessment. There's plenty of things here that I enjoyed, and plenty of things that made me go "Huh??". I intend on seeing the movie again soon, and in a week or so I will write a more extensive blog post covering the film.