It has been more than six month now, but The Last Jedi (TLJ) is still stuck in my head. I have tried to digest that movie, but I still have not been able to. Therefore, I thought writing about it may have an effect, but where to start? Maybe, best would be at the start, so let’s dig into it from the beginning!
Actually, I have never been that much of a Star Wars Fanboy… until The Force Awakens (TFA) was announced. Maybe it was because something from my childhood returned into my life – I don’t know! However, it seems to have struck a nerve and I boarded the hype train before I knew what was happening. After TFA was released, that hype did not calm down, quite the contrary was the case as I really liked it and so many questions were unanswered: Who is Rey? Who is Snoke? Where did he came from? What will Luke do? Did Kylo Ren really kill Han Solo and, if so, is he maybe a double agent? Questions upon questions and nothing seemed to be impossible! Then, Rogue One was released and I found it to be a really good movie. So, still no less hyped.
Then, the first trailers for TLJ were released and I loved them! In my eyes, they promised a movie that could possibly be the best of all of the Star Wars movies. I watched every single one of the trailers literally dozens of times. In parallel I read every bit of fan theory regarding Rey, Snoke and everything else that I could find. With so much to think about, December 18th came closer and closer. Our local cinema offered a double feature with TFA and TLJ and, despite we had to work the next day, a friend of mine (not Matthias ) and I bought tickets – excited like little boys.
Finally, we went to the cinema. Actually, I was not sure whether I wanted to see TFA again, because I had seen it quite a couple of times before, but when we were in the cinema and I saw it, it was still a lot of fun to watch it. Long story short: We could not possibly been have more hyped for TLJ.
3, 2, 1, … The familiar lucasfilm logo, the opening crawl, John William’s incredibly good music – at first glance, everything was as it should be. And then… THIS INCREDIBLY BAD MOVIE!
Honestly, I still don’t get how the people at Disney – with Kathleen Kennedy leading the way – could approve this movie. Personally, I think the whole story of TLJ is bullshit, but even if I accept that certain story points had to be reached for some reasons (Luke does not really train Rey, Snoke gets killed, Luke dies, …) there would have been far better ways to reach those. Actually, the only good thing about TLJ in general is that it rehabilitated the prequels for me.
But, mocking something is easy, doing it better is another thing. And, actually, even if I’m no writer/director, I think I could have done the story line better, by listening to the will of the Force (and by applying some common sense)… Therefore, the follow-ups of this post will cover two main topics:
- How I would have done EP8 under the condition that its outcome has to be the same than in TLJ
- How I would I have done EP8 if TLJ would not exist (Oh, what a lovely world this would be!)
So, stay tuned!