Quote Originally Posted by Perseus View Post
That's interesting because I had a very different experience. While I can overlook things like bad humor, ignoring Snoke's past and Rey's parents there was way too much tomfoolery for me to call the movie logical.
Alright, let's do this.

SPOILERS BELOW

- Finn and Rose have to find the code breaker, the one man who can disable the tracking device. Surprise! Some random guy just shows up who can do the same thing.
Not "the one man"--the one man Maz trusts to do the job. That doesn't mean that his skills are unique, just that one person finds him trustworthy. The Star Wars universe is full of criminals, I'm not surprised that they ran into someone else who was capable of doing the job.

- Holdo fills in for Leia and she has this super duper secret plan. The plan is so secret she refuses to tell anyone, even her senior members, to the point they're ready to commit mutiny.
At first, Holdo's actions were frustrating--until you look at them from her perspective. Our main characters didn't know her and she didn't know them. All she knew about our heroes was that Poe was a loose cannon who disobeys orders at the cost of lives and was just demoted because of it. Like any management system, there's an inner circle and there are people who aren't in it. And at this time, Poe wasn't in it. She didn't have reason to trust him with her plan--and not only that, it's the military. I've never been in the military, but from the people I know who were, I gather that the higher ranks aren't too keen on explaining themselves to the downhill officers. They give orders, they're not accustomed to convincing the people lower in the chain of command. We're mad at Holdo as viewers because Poe is one of our protagonists, so we're trained to see it from his side. Of course he's trustworthy, of course he should be in the inner circle, of course he should be involved in the plan. But that's our perspective.

- Near the end of the movie hope is nearly lost but wait Finn is going to sacrifice himself and save everyone. Surprise! Rose smashes her vehicle into Finn's (nearly killing them both) because fighting for love is more important that saving all the rebels. Sure her sister gave her life fighting the First Order, but whatever.
This is actually one of the most important parts of the movie and the message of the movie--and is one of the things most consistent with Jedi teachings throughout the lore. Rose makes the point that fighting to save what you love is more important than simply fighting because you hate. That's pure light side versus dark side. Through history, Jedi have wielded insane power and killed thousands upon thousands of people and sent even thousands more to their deaths (albeit mostly clones). But violence is never seen as evil; the reason behind the violence is important. Finn may not be a Jedi, but the light side/dark side battle is an important one in all of us. So here, Rose makes the point that surviving today to retreat and fight for the right reasons is better than going on a suicide run because you hate the First Order and want them dead. This echoes Holdo's sacrifice--she wasn't trying to take as many of the First Order out as possible because she wanted them dead, she did what she did to protect her people. Her cause was a positive one--protection, life, goodness. It wasn't about killing, it was about preserving life. Finn's sacrifice would have been about killing, not about preserving life. Rose reminded him that preserving life is what they're supposed to be about--that the good in life is what's worth fighting for, not revenge or hate. Whether you agree with that is up to you, but this is absolutely in line with Jedi teachings and in line with the message of the overall Star Wars story. Redemption was available even for Darth Vader--one of the men behind the murder of presumably billions of people. Reason is huge in Star Wars.

- Oh my goodness Luke and Kylo Ren are going to fight. Oh no! Luke died. Oh wait no he didn't. Oh...he actually did.
A stroke of genius on Luke's part. Another sacrifice play by Luke out of love for his sister and the rebels. Force projection (which was written in the lore, which Rian Johnson pointed out to haters) took the full remainder of his energy. He put himself up as the ultimate low hanging fruit; take advantage of Kylo Ren's hatred to buy time for the rebels to get out safely. This scene is huge and layered and absolutely necessary to the story.

Luke's fight does the following:
(1) From a functional standpoint, it allows the rebels to escape.
(2) For Luke, this was his redemption. He faced a moment of fear and weakness and instead falling to the dark side himself, as his father did, he may have done worse by creating the most powerful Sith of all time. Luke's final acts were those of a savior, protecting the ones he loved by sacrificing himself to get them to safety, and his sacrifice was a big blow to Kylo Ren's dark arc.
(3) For the story, Luke's death has incredible importance. A big part of this new trilogy is the death of the old. If you look at the whole 9 movie arc as one story, you get the whole picture. The prequel trilogy (as bad as they were) showed the Jedi Order in its heyday--the peak of its power, but also the peak of its arrogance and corruption. If the Jedi Order were Odysseus, this is where his hubris gets him in trouble. The original trilogy is the low--it's the all is lost for the whole series, and it moves into hopefulness towards the end. The new trilogy is about transition and rebirth. For the new to come in, the old has to die. Han, Luke, and eventually Leia, all need to go away for the new generation to rebuild the galaxy and likely the Jedi Order in a way that will make it stronger and less susceptible to the corruption that led to its decay from the inside and its eventual destruction. His death, particularly the way he died, sets up a new path forward, one where goodness wins out and has a lasting hold. He died not in battle against a foe, but rather on his own terms. At peace with what he's done, at peace with the next phase of his life, and ready to guide the next generation not as a figurehead, but as a spirit.

The characterization of Luke in this movie was amazing, in my opinion. He showed the "never meet your heroes" gruffness at the beginning, but by the end, he sobered up and saved the kids from burning building. Or whatever analogy you want. Luke is human and has never been portrayed more human than in this movie.

The Last Jedi was expertly crafted and put together in a way that was deep, layered, and made you think about not only the movie and the Star Wars universe, but our own internal struggles with weakness, hate, and anger.

Also, two things you mentioned at the beginning:
Who cares about Snoke? He's a shadowy figure, a red herring, just like Communism. He's not the story. He's just a hurdle for Kylo Ren's rise to power. A vehicle for his hate. Ignoring Snoke's past was not only the right thing to do, it was the result of a very painful lesson learned from the grueling garbage of the prequel trilogy--not every story needs to be told. At the end of the original trilogy, do you recall being upset that you didn't know more about Palpatine? What was his favorite color? Favorite food? How long did it take him to get those robes off to go to the bathroom? I mean, I assume Vader just went right into his costume, no way that thing had a fly. No, of course not. You didn't care--because Palpatine wasn't the story. Vader was even only barely the story. And Lucas decided to tell that story over three very poorly written, poorly acted (by A-list actors, no less), and poorly done movies.

And as for Rey's parents, the fact that they were nobodies buried in an unmarked grave is HUGE for phase of the story we're in. Rey isn't dynastic--she doesn't have these powers as birthright, she doesn't have the weight of expectation, and most importantly, she's not trapped by the failures of the past. And on top of that, it wasn't obvious--everyone who was like "It's so obvious, she's Luke's daughter, that's stupid" are all of a sudden very upset that it wasn't obvious and that she's not Luke's daughter. If she were a Jedi legacy, as it were, her story immediately becomes less impactful. The point is that anyone--any person, regardless of their birth, regardless of their background, regardless of their circumstances--can have a marked impact on the world. They can literally become the most important person in the world. Anyone. And of course, we're not talking, on an allegorical level, about becoming the actual most important person on the world, but rather it gives credence to the idea that everyone has value, no matter their walk of life. If she were Qui Gon Jinn's granddaughter or something, it becomes way less impactful. She got this information from an unreliable source, so I hope they don't walk it back in the next movie, because I will be highly disappointed.