gridlore | Both the set and the plot were full of holes. My Star Wars review.

We saw Star Wars: The Last Jedi. In general, I liked it.

OK, you were warned!

I wanted to love this movie. I really, really wanted to love this movie. But Star Wars: The Last Jedi was something of a disappointment. I liked it, but I didn't love it. At no point did I feel like jumping to my feet and cheering, like I've felt at other Star Wars films. There were moments of triumph, sure, but no really amazing crescendo moment.

They could have called this installment Star Wars: People Fall Down Holes. Every single character fell through a hold it seemed. Holes in the floor, holes in spaceship walls, holes holes holes. It got predictable. If there was an open space on the floor, someone was going down it. And that's one of the main problems. Director Rian Johnson has a very limited bag of tricks.

But the plot, such as it is. The Resistance is running away, again. Because somehow the New Republic never got around to forming a competent military. But somehow the Forst Order is tracking them through hyperspace! Oh, noes!

I'd like to point out here that way back in the very first film released, back when Star Wars was just Star Wars, the Death Star tracked the Millenium Falcon through hyperspace just fine and nobody seemed too excited about it.

Anyway, Leia is now using the Force like an old pro, despite zero training, the fleet is running out of fuel . . . and by the way, running out of fuel in space does not mean your ship stops moving. As Issace Newton pointed out, every object will remain at rest or in uniform motion in a straight line unless compelled to change its state by the action of an external force. Those ships would drift along their original course. Argh.

There's a plan that nobody is briefed on, which is stupid, and leads to Finn, BB-8, and new love interest Rose Tico to run off to find the one hacker in the galaxy who can get them through the shields and dear gods above I am so sick of "we need to shut down the shields!" as a plot device in Star Wars. This pointless side quest leads us to the Casino World of Unfunny Visual Jokes and Moralizing Monologues, where Rose reveals with damp eyes that interstellar fascists and war profiteers are *bad.*

Meanwhile, on Survivor: Ach-To, Rey is learning that people who ran halfway across the galaxy to be hermits aren't the best hosts. Luke is having a massive pity party and Rey is not invited. Miffed, Rey starts swiping left on Force Tinder and finds herself chatting with Kylo Ren. This is the best awkward middle school romance ever set to film.

R2-D2 literally shames Luke into training Rey. There's a hole Rey falls into leading to a really pointless scene where we achieve infinite Rey. Luke is freaked because Rey is really powerful.

Two quick divergences: First, one thing I really liked is the subtle increase in the powers of the Force we've seen in the last two films. If the Force ebbs in power, we could explain the uselessness of the Jedi to a low-point in the Force. If that is changing, look out.

Also, this movie drives home the fact that C-3PO is bloody useless. He's supposed to be a translator/protocol droid. Yet in the movies, everyone can understand the beeps and chirps of the droids, everyone speaks Wookie, etc. And other than working for Jabba, we've never seen -3PO do his job.

Back on the Love Boat, Poe is so miffed that nobody is telling him the plan that he starts a mutiny. Long story short, Leia stuns him. Wild applause. The big secret plan is there's an abandoned Rebel base nearby (really? How much real estate did the Rebellion own?) and they are going to sneak over in cloaked transports while the First Order destroys the last Resistance cruisier.

Which would leave the last defenders of the Republic locked in a mine shaft with no transport, but whatever. Also, these ships are in visible range of each other, and Star Wars has ships with engines that give off very bright light.

I can't go on. Seriously, the more I write this, the more plot holes I find. So we'll just cover the highlights and lowlights.

It's fun. It's a Star Wars movie. Things blow up. Yay.

Every single scene with Mark Hamil and Carrie Fisher is magical. Those two were friends for forty years, and it showed in every shot.

There were some actual surprises. Good ones. Ones that kept you guessing. The set up for the last film was good.

Now the bad.

In the first scene, we have the Resistance attacking a First Order dreadnought with "bombers." Yes, these ships had racks of fucking bombs that worked by falling out of the ship and onto the target. In deep space. See Newton's laws of motion again.

Poe should have spent the movie in a cell for leading that doomed bombing run against direct orders.

Captain Phasma is once again horribly underused. She has about five lines before falling into a hole.

Leia is using the Force without any training. This is supposed to be a bad thing!

Way too many forced attempts at humor. The entire Casino scene was nothing but one joke after another. It got old fast. The Porgs, the aliens working as Luke's housekeepers, Half the crap BB-8 did, all lame attempts at humor.

BB-8 can do too much. During the jailbreak scene on casino world, he shoots a stream of gold coins at a guard. This assumes that BB-8 has a large storage area inside him and a mechanism to both accept these coins (a casino patron mistakes him for a gambling machine earlier) and to eject them at high speed and with some accuracy. Rather specific design. BB-8 also pilots a half-destroyed AT-ST, reassembles himself, and has every tool needed in any number required.

Inconsistent technologies. Star Destroyers can hover motionless over cities. Gravitic technology is common. So why did the First Order have to drag that giant cannon over the salt flats to attack the huge doors of the old Rebel base? Have the Star Destroyer carrying it fly down, lower it in place, and shoot the hell out of the rebel trenches.

I repeat my objection, first made in 1980, to large legged combat vehicles.

Finally, and I could go own, but these are the things that bother me the most, really stupid acts that exist only to further the plot. It strains your suspension of disbelief that supposedly smart, experienced fighters would do some of these things.

But it was a Star Wars flick, and it gave me the epic space opera I ask for. I left the theater mostly happy, and eager to see the next one. And, as always, seeing the worlds "Along time ago, in a galaxy far, far away . . . " turns me into an 11-year-old kid again.

So 3.5 penguins out of 5. I took a half penguin off for no Wilhelm Scream and nobody said: "I've got a bad feeling about this."