Snow started to fall as I waved my lightsaber around for the obligatory boomerang before heading to the Manchester Odeon cinema to catch the opening night midnight screening of The Last Jedi, little did I realise that this would be the highlight of my entire night!
Now let's get one thing straight, I love Star Wars, I was born in the seventies and my childhood rotated around collectable figures, chasing dogs with AT-ATs and turning my parent's freezer into Hoth before accidentally defrosting a months supply of frozen food. So being one of the first to watch The Last Jedi is a big deal especially as I loved Rogue One which raised my hopes after the average The Force Awakens.
So I sit there with my 20 McDonalds chicken nuggets (apparently Odeon, unlike other cinema chains have no problem in letting you bring your own food) a handy tip if you resent the astronomical price of concession popcorn and hotdogs and await the movie!!
Who doesn't get goosebumps when the fanfare starts and you see the text of A long time ago in a galaxy far far away... and then follow two and a half hours of what can only be described as a director trying to subvert the format whilst staying as true to the worst parts of the franchise as possible.
Without spoilers (well just ONE) I can summarise the movie as this:
The big opening battle sequence which is visually great and gripping but nothing like the Empire Strikes Back opening scene and it just left me shocked it had finished too soon.
A casino scene straight out of The Fifth Element which was worse than any of the prequels, with terrible CG characters that made Jar Jar Binks performances look like Robert De Niro in comparison.
A whole middle section which felt like an episode of BBC1's The Coast where we got to watch bird colonies or nesting creatures straight using the same 3D vector frames as Shrek's Puss in Boots character, with the most boring interactions between Luke and Rey. Go to the loo in this period you are missing nothing.
The end sequences are very good but on a much smaller scale, It was kind of the Empire strikes back Hoth sequence scaled down to bite size proportions coz they had run out of budget or more to the point, originality.
The whole story plagiarised the original trilogy (which is still far better) from confronting the Emperor in his imperial chamber whilst the fleet is battered in the window, to raiding the death star, to secret plans and droids projecting holographs, I mean come on guys is this a reboot or is this a new story? Yes, stay in the Star Wars universe but come on move it forward with newer ideas than just a bigger death star, ATAT or Stardestroyers!
However, I loved the new first-order weaponry and ships, the postmodern take on good and evil is interesting but that's about it. The performances were all very solid in fairness from both the old and new cast members. And watching in 3D on IMAX was a very immersive and engaging experience with good use of 3D for once.
**SPOILER IN THIS BIT**** Given the sad death of Carrie Fisher, I like my friends were all waiting for the death of Leia and she certainly came close a number of times, but when her entire bridge is blow up and she is flung dead into space, she turns into so sort of jedi supergirl and flys back to safety, like errr, that would have been a good moment guys rather than some ressurrection story guys! They even bring in a new character, Leia2 played by Laura Dern (Jurrasic Park), who takes over, but rather than kill Leia off and replace her, the kill Leia2 and give Leia a recovery, very very bizarre! Leaving the sad demise of Leia for the next instalment one would imagine.
In summary, they made bigger ships, bigger death stars, bigger spaceships, bigger planets but smaller armies, smaller casts and much smaller ideas. The characters were troubled but not as troubled as the director JJ Abrams obviously was in trying to do something new which really was as far far away from new, as you could get.
So I am going back to my parent's house to lock myself in the freezer in the hope that I can be encased in carobonite until the final episode is released in 2019 when hopefully the franchise will move away from the dark side and bring some balance to the franchise again!
P.S. This is my first post on steemit, happy to be part of this new and exciting community, please drop me a comment and say Hi!