Welcome to The Daily Cup a movie blog/writing project by Kyle B. Dekker, presented by Hot Chocolate Media. You can read series concept here. The basic rules, Kyle must watch 365 movies in 2018 and write about all of them. 292 of them have to be movies he's never seen before. Thanks for reading.
Literally every take about this film that can be made has been made. Many think the film is divisive, but more and more that is just a loud segment of the toxic part of fandom unhappy that the film didn’t meet their fan theories on the story. Personally I’m thrilled that no fan theories for The Last Jedi (2017) were verified. Fan theories suck, and they lack creativity, they are nothing more than fans wishing something was true, then they act out when their entitled ideas of the movie don’t come to fruition. Pleae have your fan theories, but please stop using them as a guide to measure how much you like a movie.
I don’t think any viewing of the film will be complete until you listen to the Slashfilm podcast interview with writer/director Rian Johnson. The interview is well done and you get tons of insight into how Johnson made the film. Most importantly is to note he started writing it even before The Force Awakens started filming. Johnson worked off of J.J. Abrams script and check out some dailies during the filming of The Force Awakens. Johnson was able to create the script without fan input of desires, which is the way to go in my opinion. Screen writers should write for themselves not for a fanbase. And by that I mean they should tell a good story, which I think Johnson did.
Another issue the complainers about this film have is the portrayal of Luke. First I want to say Mark Hamill was amazing and provided one of the best performances of his long career. The character had aged and had suffered failure and you could see that in his actions and his eyes. Finally Luke as portrayed in The Last Jedi was true to the character. Luke was whiny and impulsive in the original trilogy, and he was just as childish in The Last Jedi. Yes he was greater in power, but it was the same Luke. I think most people who were disappointed in seeing Luke like this was that they had built up a version of Luke in their heads, an infallible super powerful Jedi Master, that was not represented in the film. Except they forget Luke shows tremendous power in this film, but he is still the same emotional, whiny person. It works.
The visuals of this film are amazing. Most blockbusters focus their action on the center of the screen. The Last Jedi used every part of the frame, and may be the most beautiful Star Wars film ever made in terms of cinematography. The Admiral Holdo suicide attack was a thing of pure beauty and one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen on a movie screen. The Battle of Crait was also mind blowingly stunning. The contrast of the white salt and red sand, and the approach of the rebel skimmers was just gorgeous. This may have supplanted The Battle of Hoth as my favorite Star Wars battle. The duel between Luke and Kylo was also amazing, and it looked great and told such a great story between those two characters. Perhaps my favorite visual spectacle of The Last Jedi is the fight in Snoke’s throne room. The contract of the red backgrounds and the glowing weapons, along with amazing fight choreography and it was a thing of pure beauty.
This is just pure cinema beauty.
I think in 5-10 years we are going to look back on The Last Jedi and realize how awesome it was to have a new Star Wars film where they didn’t have to reboot the franchise, or shoehorn in a bunch of new characters. This is a film that solidified the stories of Rey, Finn, and Poe, ended the chapter of Luke Skywalker and showed us that even our greatest heroes can fail, it’s how they handle failure that makes them a hero. Also sign me up for Johnson's own Star Wars trilogy, I couldn't be more excited for it.
Tally
Movies new to me watched: 26/292
Other movies: 8/73
Total movies watched: 34/365
Have your own thoughts or opinions on this movie? Comment below or contact Kyle at kyle@hotchocolatemedia.net or on Twitter at @kbdekker.