Our story opens on Tattooine 2: Electric Boogaloo, as Max von Sydow, having apparently just lost a game of galactic chess, hands Poe Solo something to give to Comrade Princess General Leia. But then, Emo Vader, Brienne of Darth, and Token Black Guy show up. (Also, a stormtrooper with a flamethrower. This will be important later.) How did they know to come here? How did Poe Solo know to come here? Why was Max von Sydow hanging out on this planet?
We eventually learn that Max von Sydow had a fragment of a map that leads to Jake Skywalker, but since that's complete bullshit, it's actually a fragment of a map that leads to the first Jedi temple, where Luke is. The Empire has most of the map, recovered from the Imperial Archives, but they need the last piece. I'm pretty sure that's what Xylo Jen told Rey.
Okay, let's break this down. Max von Sydow is hanging out on Tattoine 2: Electric Boogaloo with a fragment of a map of the universe that has the location of the first Jedi temple on it. Number one: why?
To understand what I mean, consider what A New Hope would have been if it had had Obi-Wan Kenobi hanging on out Tattooine 1 with the Death Star plans. He's not transmitting them to Comrade Princess General Leia, he's not making any arrangements to get off the planet, he's just waiting for someone to come along and take them. That makes zero sense.
Number two: is this the only fragment of a map of the universe that has the location of the first Jedi temple on it? Why was the map in the Imperial Archives incomplete? How did Max von Sydow get the missing piece?
Number two-a: who cares if the map in the Imperial Archives is incomplete? Is this the only map of the galaxy? Look, it would actually make sense that there is only one map to the first Jedi temple, given inferences in the prequels that the Jedi were a secretive bunch and the obvious notion that Palpatine would destroy as many of their records as he could get his hands on. But this is not a map of just one system. You could take the fragment and compare it to known systems - oh, wait, no you can't, 3PO says that none of the systems match anything. So I guess there really is only one map of the galaxy in the universe. (Which I guess is staying true to the prequels, because otherwise Obi-Wan could have checked a non-Jedi-Library copy of the Big Galactic Map for Kamino's location. I understand the Jedi being the guardians of peace and justice, but the custodians of knowledge as well? Palpatine was right to purge that cult.)
Number three: how did Poe Solo know how to come here? I assume that Max von Sydow sent him a transmission, which also attracted the attention of the First Order, but the movie doesn't tell us.
Number four: why will finding Hermit Luke make everything right? If Luke wanted to stay and fight the Empire, again, he would have stayed and fought the Empire, again.
Okay, so the Empire invades and Poe Solo kills Token's comrade (the comrade needed more pauldron). Token is visibly upset by this, which is impressive because we can't see his face. You know what, pause for a second, because I have to give some credit to John Boyega here: when the script stops spoon-feeding us childish and nonsensical dialogue and people are allowed to actually act, Boyega does a fine job. In contrast to basically every other newcomer in this film (not named Oscar Isaac), I see why the casting director thought he would be an acceptable choice for the role he played. In fact, I'm so impressed that I'm going to stop calling him Token because, again, on body language alone, you've convinced me that this guy is indeed the right guy for this job.
This bit where the fallen trooper marks Finn is clever, it's a metaphorical and literal marking - Finn is a changed man, and he is easily identifiable because of the blood on his helmet. But hold on, since when do energy weapons in this setting draw blood? Normally, when characters are hit with energy weapons, whether blasters or lightsabers, the wounds themselves are fatal. If they are not, the wounds are cauterized by the heat of the energy weapons. The only exception to this rule was when Obi-Wan cut off Ponda Baba's arm in the cantina in A New Hope. Ever since then, we've only seen blood when it was drawn by an animal (Luke in Empire, Padme in Clones) or by a crude, non-energy weapon (Anakin's mother in Clones). Suddenly, for the first time since 1977, an energy weapon causes bleeding. I don't recall Leia bleeding when she got shot in the arm near the end of Return of the Jedi.
Meanwhile, Darth Emo's attention is drawn by the shooting of Finn's comrade, and he uses hitherto-unseen Force abilities to freeze Poe Solo's next shot, and also to freeze Poe Solo in place. I will discuss Force Paralyze much later in this commentary, so let's talk about Force Freeze An Energy Beam.
Meanwhile, Darth Emo's attention is drawn by the shooting of Finn's comrade, and he uses hitherto-unseen Force abilities to freeze Poe Solo's next shot, and also to freeze Poe Solo in place. I will discuss Force Paralyze much later in this commentary, so let's talk about Force Freeze An Energy Beam.
A problem Star Wars has always had is that the rules of the Force are necessarily vague. We never get a satisfactory answer for why Vader doesn't simply Force Choke Luke during their Bespin duel in Empire until Luke is unconscious, because there is no satisfactory answer. "Luke's training allows him to cancel out Force Choke" is probably the best excuse and explains why Jedi and Sith go at it with swords instead of their magic powers (see, e.g., the inconclusive Yoda/Dooku wizard duel in Clones), but that excuse doesn't work specifically in Empire because later in that very duel, Vader is able to telekinetically hurl various bits of scenery at Luke. A Jedi can cancel out Force Choke but not Force Push? Well, no, because there's no reason why Vader needed to throw all that stuff at Luke when he could have just used Force Push to shove him out the window. In fact, what's the rule stopping Vader from using Force Pull on Luke's lightsaber the moment Luke's concentration breaks?
So it's not an end-of-the-world problem to introduce new Force powers, provided (Rian) their introduction does not negate prior scenes in the franchise; the Force allows Jedi and Sith to do things normal humans can't. That's fine. And the sudden existence of Force Freeze An Energy Beam does not negate the drama of any prior scene in the franchise the way the sudden existence of Force Mary Poppins raises all manner of hell with the bigger action scenes in the Prequels; with very few exceptions, any time a Jedi wants to nullify an energy beam, he has a lightsaber on hand to do it for him (I could be a dick and say that it probably would have been better to use this hitherto-unknown Force ability during the rescue of Queen Amidala's entourage near the beginning of The Phantom Menace instead of deflecting shots willy-nilly around the square, but let's assume that it takes a fair amount of concentration to freeze one shot, and Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan had to deal with a few dozen droids). And assuming that "size matters not" and a (say) Death Star or (say) Starkiller Base beam could be frozen by a sufficiently powerful Force-user, there's not one on hand to do it; Ben and Yoda are not present for any of the Death Star Superlaser firings, and Luke is not strong enough to stop them in the OT. But let's observe: Force Freeze An Energy Beam appears to be a much more impressive feat than Force Push or Force Pull or Force Choke or Force Block An Energy Beam - the powers that Vader demonstrates in the OT. The objects that Vader uses his powers on do not maintain their own inertia. That is to say, when Vader blocks Han's blaster shot in Empire, the shot doesn't rebound and start traveling in its original direction again when Vader stops exerting the Force on it. Assuming Vader had the power to freeze Han's blaster shot in midair, wouldn't he have done so? Blocking and deflecting the shot raises the risk of accidentally injuring Han or any of the other hostages he intends to take in order to draw Luke out. All of this is a long-winded way of saying that when Rey reaches into Kylo's mind (somehow) and divines that his deepest fear is "never be[ing] as strong as Darth Vader," well, that's horseshit. Kylo's already demonstrated more control over the Force than Vader ever did.
And what happens next completely deflates any threat that Darth Emo could possibly pose. Poe is thrown to the ground in front of him, and Darth Emo needs to be at eye level with Poe because the director can't handle a conversation that might be visually interesting. So instead of having Darth Emo levitate Poe in front of him (too tired from freezing the blaster shot), Darth Emo squats down in front of Poe so they can talk face-to-face. This is stupid. Poe cracks a joke and is not instantly killed. This is stupid. Darth Emo has Poe taken back to his ship for torture instead of torturing him right here on the planet where the map is. This is stupid.
So let's talk about Finn. He used to be a janitor and now he got transferred to Stormtrooper duty, because reasons. This does not make sense. Poe Solo killed his friend, and he decides to help Poe Solo escape. This does not make sense. He does not participate in the massacre of Max von Sydow's village, but he gleefully shoots up a hangar bay full of men he's presumably known all his life. This does not make sense. No, it's not because he's suddenly decided that the Empire is evil, because he spends the next hour or so trying to run away from the fight.
Which, actually, let's talk about that "killing people he's known all his life" thing, because it's so stupid it's offensive. Finn is a conscript. We will later learn that he was taken as a child and made a janitor, and then later made a stormtrooper. It does not stretch the imagination to guess that the stormtroopers shooting at FinnPoe's TIE fighter are also conscripts, like him. He slaughters them wantonly. I'm going to do an entire blog post on this, don't worry, but these are not the actions of a hero. This is amusing to me because this whole "used to be a janitor" thing is plainly so that Finn was never actually a Stormtrooper, he never actually served in the First Order's army, because that would be too morally grey for a series that now has fans tantalized about the possibility of Emperor-damned Reylo.
Moreover, there is another problem here. The First Order grew out of the remnants of the Empire, which was destroyed no more than 32 years ago, going by the ages of the returning actors. This means that the First Order is no more than 32 years old, and probably somewhat younger. Finn is, apparently, in his early twenties because all Star Wars protagonists, including Emo Vader and the Oberweasley, are in their early twenties. (It is a rule.) So if the First Order is, let's say, 27 years old, and Finn is, let's say, 22 years old (which is how old Boyega was in 2014, so it's not actually a bad guess), and the First Order gets its stormtrooper stock from stolen children, then Finn must be, get this, above the median age for its conscripts. And they made him a janitor, and then later made him a Stormtrooper, presumably shortly before this film takes place, when he was, again, above the average age of the First Order's conscripts. Do you understand how stupid this is?
Like, was "the First Order conscripted Finn into slavery" done after they decided to cast a black man in the role? Because the soyness that crashed and doomed The Last Jedi had already infiltrated the production? Talk about foreshadowing. But anyway, Finn, ex-conscript, sounds like an interesting character and a likable protagonist. Let's see what they do with him.
Finn and Poe Solo crash-land on Tattooine 2: Electric Boogaloo, and Poe dies. No actually, he comes back later, on a different planet. Remember, it was Poe Solo who insisted that they come back to Tattooine 2: Electric Boogaloo in the first place, because he was looking for his robot, BBQ. But apparently, while Finn was unconscious, Poe Solo woke up, took off his jacket, left it behind in the wreckage, wandered over to the pub, had a few beers, and then caught the bus back to Yavin Five, without his robot, and withouthis map to Luke Skywalker the missing fragment of the only map of the galaxy in the entire universe. This does not make sense.
It is at this point that Mary Sue joins the plot. After spending a day following her around in her miserable life, we watch as she steals BBQ from a frog while screaming incoherently.Normally, when a character in Star Wars When a character in an actual Star Wars film doesn't speak English, one of two things happens. Either we use subtitles (Watto, Greedo, Jabba), or the other person in the conversation, who does speak English, has his lines written in such a way that makes it incredibly obvious what the non-English-speaker is saying. (For an example of this, in Return of the Jedi: Nien Numb speaks gibberish. Lando says "We've got to be able to get some kind of reading on that shield, up or down," thus cluing us in that Nien Numb was basically saying "We can't get a reading on the shield." Then NN says more gibberish, and Lando replies "Well, how could they be jamming us if they don't even know we're coming?" Again, it's very obvious what NN was saying based on Lando's response line.)
But put aside the incoherent screaming for a moment. Mary Sue, a destitute scavenger, is trying to steal the salvage of another (presumably) destitute scavenger. This is our alleged protagonist, everyone. FUCK. Bring back the improbably-aged ex-stormtrooper-ex-janitor. She fixes BBQ's antenna and then attempts to send him on his way, where he will no doubt be accosted and seized by yet another destitute scavenger. This does not make sense. He beeps at her and she screams back lines that do not tell us anything useful about what BBQ was saying, but suggest that a clone of that staff she carries around is shoved up her butt. He beeps at her some more and she allows him to stay with her. This does not make sense.
All of this happens because the script needs BBQ and Mary Sue to meet each other. In the OT, R2 was captured by Jawas and sold to Luke's uncle. This felt plausible and unforced. It makes sense that the Jawas would want to capture and sell robots, and it makes sense that Luke's uncle, who knows Luke is chafing to get off Tattooine, wants to buy robots to replace Luke. We later learned that Obi-Wan, whom R2 had been looking for, happened to live nearby, but as the story unfolded, that too made sense. Here, BBQ rolls away from one village with no clear indication of where he's going or what he'll do once he gets there. He is captured by a scavenger who then takes him to Mary Sue, who then steals him from the scavenger. There is no reason for the scavenger to take him to Mary Sue. There is no reason for Mary Sue to want to steal BBQ from the other scavenger. This feels implausible and forced. This will not be the only time JJ steals from Lucas and makes it far worse.
Mary Sue takes BBQ to town, where BBQ starts squawking, and this time we can actually tell from the context that he's upset that Finn stole Poe Solo's jacket. So Mary Sue attacks Finn. This does not make sense. Mary Sue is a scavenger who steals things from dead soldiers every single day. She stole BBQ from the frog scavenger. She wanted nothing to do with BBQ last night, but today not only does she refuse to sell him, she also goes around attacking People of Color because he tells her to. #JanitorTurnedStormtrooperLivesMatter.
As soon as this misunderstanding is conveniently cleared up, the Empire attacks. Why does the Empire attack? They're looking for BBQ, because BBQ has the map. Okay, but BBQ has been on this planet for at least one entire day by now. The Empire has had a Star Destroyer in orbit for that entire time, and they're just now getting to this spaceport? Now, let's do some back-of-the-envelope math here. In A New Hope, the droids crash their escape pod on Tattooine. We see R2 get captured in a canyon at dusk. The following day, the droids are sold to Uncle Owen, Luke cleans them up and then watches the sun set. So that's one full day. The next day, Luke goes out to chase down R2, runs into Obi-Wan, finds the butchered Jawas, and returns home to find it burnt to a cinder. The day is not over; there's nothing to suggest that it takes an additional day to get to Mos Eisley. So realistically, it takes the Empire about a day and a half to go from "the droids are somewhere on this planet" to "the droids were at this specific homestead."
Now, the First Order doesn't have to worry about the entire planet. They know Poe Solo left BBQ near Max von Sydow's village. They know what type of droid BBQ is. They can easily extrapolate his top speed, and from that, an ever-expanding radius from the village that represents the zone he must be in. Moreover, they have scanners. In A New Hope, the Star Destroyer left Tatooine immediately after capturing Leia. In this "film," the Incompetence Rex hangs out over Tattooine 2: Electric Boogaloo while they search for the robot. Are you telling me that the Empire took a day and a half to search an entire planet and the First Order couldn't shave any time off that even though they knew where to start looking and had a starship in orbit to help coordinate the search and scan the planet? (Also, note that the Empire doesn't find the escape pod until the day after it crashes, so once they have the staring location, it takes them about a day.) Even though the First Order, and not the Empire, built a Death Star that can shoot all the way to the other side of the galaxy, apparently? Is the First Order meant to be ultra-competent or ultra-stupid? This does not make sense.
And I will also point out that the Empire had the presence of mind to establish a Stormtrooper garrison at Mos Eisley in case the droids tried to get off the planet, something that the First Order does not bother to do, despite the fact that the First Order appears to be the Empire on steroids. I assume this was done because if Mary Sue and Finn got into a firefight on the ground, logic would insist that Finn's Stormtrooper training be more useful than Mary Sue's staff, and it just won't do to have Mary Sue saved by anyone, particularly by a male.
Okay, so the First Order sends two TIE fighters to the spaceport, and Mary Sue and Finn fight them off in the Millennium Falcon. The Millennium Falcon is on Tattooine 2: Electric Boogaloo because reasons. Apparently Tattooine 2: Electric Boogaloo is the center if the galaxy. More specifically, the tiny little village where Mary Sue trades space junk for food (because that's an economy) is the center of the galaxy.
Oh yes, I forgot. Prior to now, Mary Sue has been eking out a living selling space junk for food. This planet is rich in space junk because as previously established, it is the center of the galaxy, fuck you. Apparently this space junk is valuable to the Vogons, for reasons. She is not the only scavenger on this planet; we see other scavengers scrubbing down space junk to sell for food. I'm going to skip over the idiocy of this economy and mention that Mary Sue lives in an Emperor-damned AT-AT walker. She has been living on this planet since she was a small child. Aararhrhghahghaghahaaghghghgahghghagharhrahrhrhhhghrhrharhahraghahhakkaghkgha.
(Deep breath.) Mary Sue could not have been living in an AT-AT walker since she was a small child, because a bigger and stronger scavenger would have come along, killed her, and hauled it back to the Vogon piecemeal. This means that the Battle of Jakku, which out-of-film sources tell us is actually the battle that ended the war between the Rebellion and the Empire (as opposed to the Battle of Endor, because Disney really does not care about what Lucas gave us), took place after Mary Sue was old enough to defend her home. Since the First Order arose from the ashes of the Empire, and Finn was taken by the First Order as a baby, but the First Order evidently did not come into being until after Mary Sue was old enough to defend herself, the timeline is now fucked.
I'm going to skip past Mary Sue knowing how to fly a starship and talk about the First Order, who should still be in their Star Destroyer, in space, above Tattooine 2: Electric Boogaloo. Because again, they are after the missing piece of the only map in the universe. There is nothing more important than this. The Empire put three Star Destroyers around Tattooine 1 back in the day to intercept a ship carrying plans for the Death Star, which, I remind you, half the Empire wasn't even concerned about the Rebels having. Here, they are all about getting the missing piece of the only map in the universe. But they don't have any ships in orbit to intercept the Falcon. This does not make sense.
Mary Sue and Finn spend five minutes fixing a gas leak before they're picked up by Grumpy Han. Grumpy Han is in the area because Tattooine 2: Electric Boogaloo is the center of the galaxy. Mary Sue relates just how many people have stolen the Falcon from other people, and I again repeat that she was beating the snot out of Finn fifteen minutes ago because he "stole" Poe Solo's jacket.
Then two groups of cameos board Han's ship, because they're still near Tattooine 2: Electric Boogallo, which is the center of the galaxy. There is a dumb action sequence, just in case we hadn't been bored to tears by the previous two. Moving on, they finally get a look at their piece of the only map in the universe. Lurking around in the background is Han's pet, Stewie, because apparently Chewbacca died at some point between the films and they thought we wouldn't notice when they replaced him with an animated mop.
Oh, and the newcomers think the returning cast were just a myth. So the galaxy-quaking events that undid the Empire have been forgotten about thirty years on. I suppose this is somewhat accurate because when I did an "America since '45" class in either college or high school, at least half the class couldn't name the decade the Vietnam War started in. But still. You're telling me that Mary Sue, literally Mary Sue, and Finn, who would have been indoctrinated against Han and Luke and the rest, are as dumb as American students?
And look, all this brings up another problem with the movie's timeline. Guys. Space is big. Inertia. It is a miracle that the Empire simply fell apart after the Emperor died, rather than linger on for ten millennia of stagnation and decay. But to pretend that another galaxy-spanning bunch of fascists are going to spring up instantly (remember: Finn was taken as a baby) in its place when it took Palpatine at least thirty years from engineering the blockade of Taboo to dissolving the Senate? That's just insulting.
(It's possible that The Ruse of Soywalker will shed some light on this, but I'm done pretending these films exist in continuity with each other. See, e.g., Finn shrugging off a lightsaber to the spine at the beginning of The Next Cash-In.)
While this is going on, the Empire has decamped to their latest Giant Hurt Ball. Here, the only neo-Nazi more pathetic than Richard Spencer gives a speech to a crowd of brainwashed Stormtroopers about how they're going to destroy the Republic, or the Resistance, or whatever. Let's briefly discuss the Oberweasley and why he is in this film. JJ looked at A New Hope and determined that he had to have a Tarkin character. JJ apparently took Tarkin to be "the guy in charge of the Death Star." As with Darth Emo, though, JJ apparently decided that Nu!Tarkin couldn't have that air of a classic villain, he had to be a pathetic little worm. I am forced to conclude that JJ saw Game of Thrones and thought Joffrey Baratheon was a good way to write a villain, when really Joffrey was just an idiot who happened to have much more powerful and intelligent men in his corner, most specifically, Tywin Lannister, the true villain of the show'sfirst only four seasons. And whereas a misguided person might defend The Actor Adam Driver's performance on the grounds that Darth Emo, a man who kills literally the only character in this dreck that fans truly care about, is meant to be sympathetic (more on this in a mo), there is no defending Domhnall Gleason's performance for any reason. Oberweasley is literally just a Space Nazi, there is no depth to his character, nor is any required, and Gleason is wholly inept for the role. He is far too young and has no composure whatsoever.
Lurking in the background is Darth Smeagol, a mysterious giant of immense power who spends all day sitting on his throne and belittling his underlings. We learn literally nothing about him. Where does he come from? How did he amass this power? What is his vision for the galaxy, aside from having Darth Emo join the Dark Side Club by killing his father? Anyway Darth Smeagol explains to a bewildered Darth Emo that the droid is in the hands of his father, Han Solo, thus telling us that Darth Emo is in fact Jacen Solo, Han and Leia's kid who turned to the Dark Side for stupid reasons. No, wait, Disney axed the EU for something "better," so Darth Emo is now in fact Ben Solo, Han and Leia's kid who turned to the Dark Side for stupid reasons. Oh, that's so much better. By the way, Darth Emo's outfit is the most epic failure of costume design in cinematic history. He looks like a medieval plague doctor who lost his usual mask and fashioned a new one out of a Cylon raider.
So let's talk about Finn. He used to be a janitor and now he got transferred to Stormtrooper duty, because reasons. This does not make sense. Poe Solo killed his friend, and he decides to help Poe Solo escape. This does not make sense. He does not participate in the massacre of Max von Sydow's village, but he gleefully shoots up a hangar bay full of men he's presumably known all his life. This does not make sense. No, it's not because he's suddenly decided that the Empire is evil, because he spends the next hour or so trying to run away from the fight.
Which, actually, let's talk about that "killing people he's known all his life" thing, because it's so stupid it's offensive. Finn is a conscript. We will later learn that he was taken as a child and made a janitor, and then later made a stormtrooper. It does not stretch the imagination to guess that the stormtroopers shooting at FinnPoe's TIE fighter are also conscripts, like him. He slaughters them wantonly. I'm going to do an entire blog post on this, don't worry, but these are not the actions of a hero. This is amusing to me because this whole "used to be a janitor" thing is plainly so that Finn was never actually a Stormtrooper, he never actually served in the First Order's army, because that would be too morally grey for a series that now has fans tantalized about the possibility of Emperor-damned Reylo.
Moreover, there is another problem here. The First Order grew out of the remnants of the Empire, which was destroyed no more than 32 years ago, going by the ages of the returning actors. This means that the First Order is no more than 32 years old, and probably somewhat younger. Finn is, apparently, in his early twenties because all Star Wars protagonists, including Emo Vader and the Oberweasley, are in their early twenties. (It is a rule.) So if the First Order is, let's say, 27 years old, and Finn is, let's say, 22 years old (which is how old Boyega was in 2014, so it's not actually a bad guess), and the First Order gets its stormtrooper stock from stolen children, then Finn must be, get this, above the median age for its conscripts. And they made him a janitor, and then later made him a Stormtrooper, presumably shortly before this film takes place, when he was, again, above the average age of the First Order's conscripts. Do you understand how stupid this is?
Like, was "the First Order conscripted Finn into slavery" done after they decided to cast a black man in the role? Because the soyness that crashed and doomed The Last Jedi had already infiltrated the production? Talk about foreshadowing. But anyway, Finn, ex-conscript, sounds like an interesting character and a likable protagonist. Let's see what they do with him.
Finn and Poe Solo crash-land on Tattooine 2: Electric Boogaloo, and Poe dies. No actually, he comes back later, on a different planet. Remember, it was Poe Solo who insisted that they come back to Tattooine 2: Electric Boogaloo in the first place, because he was looking for his robot, BBQ. But apparently, while Finn was unconscious, Poe Solo woke up, took off his jacket, left it behind in the wreckage, wandered over to the pub, had a few beers, and then caught the bus back to Yavin Five, without his robot, and without
It is at this point that Mary Sue joins the plot. After spending a day following her around in her miserable life, we watch as she steals BBQ from a frog while screaming incoherently.
But put aside the incoherent screaming for a moment. Mary Sue, a destitute scavenger, is trying to steal the salvage of another (presumably) destitute scavenger. This is our alleged protagonist, everyone. FUCK. Bring back the improbably-aged ex-stormtrooper-ex-janitor. She fixes BBQ's antenna and then attempts to send him on his way, where he will no doubt be accosted and seized by yet another destitute scavenger. This does not make sense. He beeps at her and she screams back lines that do not tell us anything useful about what BBQ was saying, but suggest that a clone of that staff she carries around is shoved up her butt. He beeps at her some more and she allows him to stay with her. This does not make sense.
All of this happens because the script needs BBQ and Mary Sue to meet each other. In the OT, R2 was captured by Jawas and sold to Luke's uncle. This felt plausible and unforced. It makes sense that the Jawas would want to capture and sell robots, and it makes sense that Luke's uncle, who knows Luke is chafing to get off Tattooine, wants to buy robots to replace Luke. We later learned that Obi-Wan, whom R2 had been looking for, happened to live nearby, but as the story unfolded, that too made sense. Here, BBQ rolls away from one village with no clear indication of where he's going or what he'll do once he gets there. He is captured by a scavenger who then takes him to Mary Sue, who then steals him from the scavenger. There is no reason for the scavenger to take him to Mary Sue. There is no reason for Mary Sue to want to steal BBQ from the other scavenger. This feels implausible and forced. This will not be the only time JJ steals from Lucas and makes it far worse.
Mary Sue takes BBQ to town, where BBQ starts squawking, and this time we can actually tell from the context that he's upset that Finn stole Poe Solo's jacket. So Mary Sue attacks Finn. This does not make sense. Mary Sue is a scavenger who steals things from dead soldiers every single day. She stole BBQ from the frog scavenger. She wanted nothing to do with BBQ last night, but today not only does she refuse to sell him, she also goes around attacking People of Color because he tells her to. #JanitorTurnedStormtrooperLivesMatter.
As soon as this misunderstanding is conveniently cleared up, the Empire attacks. Why does the Empire attack? They're looking for BBQ, because BBQ has the map. Okay, but BBQ has been on this planet for at least one entire day by now. The Empire has had a Star Destroyer in orbit for that entire time, and they're just now getting to this spaceport? Now, let's do some back-of-the-envelope math here. In A New Hope, the droids crash their escape pod on Tattooine. We see R2 get captured in a canyon at dusk. The following day, the droids are sold to Uncle Owen, Luke cleans them up and then watches the sun set. So that's one full day. The next day, Luke goes out to chase down R2, runs into Obi-Wan, finds the butchered Jawas, and returns home to find it burnt to a cinder. The day is not over; there's nothing to suggest that it takes an additional day to get to Mos Eisley. So realistically, it takes the Empire about a day and a half to go from "the droids are somewhere on this planet" to "the droids were at this specific homestead."
Now, the First Order doesn't have to worry about the entire planet. They know Poe Solo left BBQ near Max von Sydow's village. They know what type of droid BBQ is. They can easily extrapolate his top speed, and from that, an ever-expanding radius from the village that represents the zone he must be in. Moreover, they have scanners. In A New Hope, the Star Destroyer left Tatooine immediately after capturing Leia. In this "film," the Incompetence Rex hangs out over Tattooine 2: Electric Boogaloo while they search for the robot. Are you telling me that the Empire took a day and a half to search an entire planet and the First Order couldn't shave any time off that even though they knew where to start looking and had a starship in orbit to help coordinate the search and scan the planet? (Also, note that the Empire doesn't find the escape pod until the day after it crashes, so once they have the staring location, it takes them about a day.) Even though the First Order, and not the Empire, built a Death Star that can shoot all the way to the other side of the galaxy, apparently? Is the First Order meant to be ultra-competent or ultra-stupid? This does not make sense.
And I will also point out that the Empire had the presence of mind to establish a Stormtrooper garrison at Mos Eisley in case the droids tried to get off the planet, something that the First Order does not bother to do, despite the fact that the First Order appears to be the Empire on steroids. I assume this was done because if Mary Sue and Finn got into a firefight on the ground, logic would insist that Finn's Stormtrooper training be more useful than Mary Sue's staff, and it just won't do to have Mary Sue saved by anyone, particularly by a male.
Okay, so the First Order sends two TIE fighters to the spaceport, and Mary Sue and Finn fight them off in the Millennium Falcon. The Millennium Falcon is on Tattooine 2: Electric Boogaloo because reasons. Apparently Tattooine 2: Electric Boogaloo is the center if the galaxy. More specifically, the tiny little village where Mary Sue trades space junk for food (because that's an economy) is the center of the galaxy.
Oh yes, I forgot. Prior to now, Mary Sue has been eking out a living selling space junk for food. This planet is rich in space junk because as previously established, it is the center of the galaxy, fuck you. Apparently this space junk is valuable to the Vogons, for reasons. She is not the only scavenger on this planet; we see other scavengers scrubbing down space junk to sell for food. I'm going to skip over the idiocy of this economy and mention that Mary Sue lives in an Emperor-damned AT-AT walker. She has been living on this planet since she was a small child. Aararhrhghahghaghahaaghghghgahghghagharhrahrhrhhhghrhrharhahraghahhakkaghkgha.
(Deep breath.) Mary Sue could not have been living in an AT-AT walker since she was a small child, because a bigger and stronger scavenger would have come along, killed her, and hauled it back to the Vogon piecemeal. This means that the Battle of Jakku, which out-of-film sources tell us is actually the battle that ended the war between the Rebellion and the Empire (as opposed to the Battle of Endor, because Disney really does not care about what Lucas gave us), took place after Mary Sue was old enough to defend her home. Since the First Order arose from the ashes of the Empire, and Finn was taken by the First Order as a baby, but the First Order evidently did not come into being until after Mary Sue was old enough to defend herself, the timeline is now fucked.
I'm going to skip past Mary Sue knowing how to fly a starship and talk about the First Order, who should still be in their Star Destroyer, in space, above Tattooine 2: Electric Boogaloo. Because again, they are after the missing piece of the only map in the universe. There is nothing more important than this. The Empire put three Star Destroyers around Tattooine 1 back in the day to intercept a ship carrying plans for the Death Star, which, I remind you, half the Empire wasn't even concerned about the Rebels having. Here, they are all about getting the missing piece of the only map in the universe. But they don't have any ships in orbit to intercept the Falcon. This does not make sense.
Mary Sue and Finn spend five minutes fixing a gas leak before they're picked up by Grumpy Han. Grumpy Han is in the area because Tattooine 2: Electric Boogaloo is the center of the galaxy. Mary Sue relates just how many people have stolen the Falcon from other people, and I again repeat that she was beating the snot out of Finn fifteen minutes ago because he "stole" Poe Solo's jacket.
Then two groups of cameos board Han's ship, because they're still near Tattooine 2: Electric Boogallo, which is the center of the galaxy. There is a dumb action sequence, just in case we hadn't been bored to tears by the previous two. Moving on, they finally get a look at their piece of the only map in the universe. Lurking around in the background is Han's pet, Stewie, because apparently Chewbacca died at some point between the films and they thought we wouldn't notice when they replaced him with an animated mop.
Oh, and the newcomers think the returning cast were just a myth. So the galaxy-quaking events that undid the Empire have been forgotten about thirty years on. I suppose this is somewhat accurate because when I did an "America since '45" class in either college or high school, at least half the class couldn't name the decade the Vietnam War started in. But still. You're telling me that Mary Sue, literally Mary Sue, and Finn, who would have been indoctrinated against Han and Luke and the rest, are as dumb as American students?
And look, all this brings up another problem with the movie's timeline. Guys. Space is big. Inertia. It is a miracle that the Empire simply fell apart after the Emperor died, rather than linger on for ten millennia of stagnation and decay. But to pretend that another galaxy-spanning bunch of fascists are going to spring up instantly (remember: Finn was taken as a baby) in its place when it took Palpatine at least thirty years from engineering the blockade of Taboo to dissolving the Senate? That's just insulting.
(It's possible that The Ruse of Soywalker will shed some light on this, but I'm done pretending these films exist in continuity with each other. See, e.g., Finn shrugging off a lightsaber to the spine at the beginning of The Next Cash-In.)
While this is going on, the Empire has decamped to their latest Giant Hurt Ball. Here, the only neo-Nazi more pathetic than Richard Spencer gives a speech to a crowd of brainwashed Stormtroopers about how they're going to destroy the Republic, or the Resistance, or whatever. Let's briefly discuss the Oberweasley and why he is in this film. JJ looked at A New Hope and determined that he had to have a Tarkin character. JJ apparently took Tarkin to be "the guy in charge of the Death Star." As with Darth Emo, though, JJ apparently decided that Nu!Tarkin couldn't have that air of a classic villain, he had to be a pathetic little worm. I am forced to conclude that JJ saw Game of Thrones and thought Joffrey Baratheon was a good way to write a villain, when really Joffrey was just an idiot who happened to have much more powerful and intelligent men in his corner, most specifically, Tywin Lannister, the true villain of the show's
Lurking in the background is Darth Smeagol, a mysterious giant of immense power who spends all day sitting on his throne and belittling his underlings. We learn literally nothing about him. Where does he come from? How did he amass this power? What is his vision for the galaxy, aside from having Darth Emo join the Dark Side Club by killing his father? Anyway Darth Smeagol explains to a bewildered Darth Emo that the droid is in the hands of his father, Han Solo, thus telling us that Darth Emo is in fact Jacen Solo, Han and Leia's kid who turned to the Dark Side for stupid reasons. No, wait, Disney axed the EU for something "better," so Darth Emo is now in fact Ben Solo, Han and Leia's kid who turned to the Dark Side for stupid reasons. Oh, that's so much better. By the way, Darth Emo's outfit is the most epic failure of costume design in cinematic history. He looks like a medieval plague doctor who lost his usual mask and fashioned a new one out of a Cylon raider.
I suspect, reluctantly, that there was a point to this singular failure of casting and character design, because for all of his inability to play a villain, The Actor Adam Driver does solicit sympathy as he prays to not be dragged back to the Light Side ("that's not how the Force works!"). His motivations for wanting to join the Dark Side Club an eternal confusing mess, The Actor Adam Driver nevertheless does in fact portray his conflicted nature rather well. Which works if you have another villain, the actual villain, who can be properly menacing and drive the story, but neither Darth Smeagol nor the Oberweasley qualify. The problem with Kylo, in a nutshell, is that he is Draco Malfoy required to play the part of Lord Voldemort. This does not a compelling villain make.
Anyway, Oberweasley wants to use the Giant Hurt Ball to destroy New Coruscant. This is technically a problem that dates all the way back to A New Hope, but I'll discuss it here. Using Death Stars to destroy the Rebellion is akin to using nuclear weapons against terrorists. It does not make sense. A terrorist group (which the Rebellion/Resistance) are is small and fractured. It would make sense to build a Death Star if you were fighting a conventional war, where destroying your enemy's capital would severely hurt them politically, militarily, economically, logistically,sexually, and so on. But against a scattered band of terrorists, frankly the smartest move would be to turn those probe droids from Empire into explosive drones. But no, JJ has no faith in his audience to understand anything that isn't stole wholesale from the Original Trilogy, so we have another Death Star. So after the Oberweasley gives his speech, the Death Star destroys New Coruscant. Okay... why?
In order to understand how stupid this is, we need to do some worldbuilding for JJ, because JJ couldn't be bothered to make a sincere effort on his own behalf. We know that there are three powers in the galaxy at this point: the First Order, which is the rebranded Empire. The Republic, which was created some time between Jedi and now and is the official government of the universe. And the Resistance, which is supported by the Republic and led by Comrade General Princess Leia. This distinction between the Resistance and the Republic is ultimately pointless, but since it's been made, we have to live with it. The easiest way to deal with all of this is to assume that the Republic is bumbling, slow, and conservative (in the sense that they're traditional and cautious, and not in the sense that they're on the right side of the left-right American political spectrum). The Resistance is more paranoid and proactive, and righteous in their cause, which is to take out the First Order.
So, this is a film series called Star Wars, right? And war is an act of violence intended to compel one's opponent to fulfill one's will. To accomplish this, one must place one's opponent "in a situation which is more oppressive to him than the sacrifice which we demand." The Empire believed that building a Death Star and threatening to destroy any planet that resisted them would place the nascent Rebellion in such a situation. This is not a great idea, but it is at least justifiably an idea. The First Order wants to use a Death Star to destroy the Republic. Remember, the Republic is not the Resistance. The Resistance is the group that is actively opposing the First Order and preparing for war.
In A New Hope, Tarkin blew up Alderaan, which you can think of as the political capital of the Rebellion if you want. I don't know, it was just there, and he wanted to demonstrate the Death Star's power and be a dick to Leia. He also says Dantooine was too remote to be "an effective target." Understand that a Death Star is pretty much the wrong weapon for galactic fly-swatting; Tarkin was blowing up planets less for their military value and more to say "don't mess with the Empire."
In contrast, in The Farce Awakens, the Republic is the legitimate governing body of the Galaxy. By destroying their political capital, the First Order is inviting a reprisal. Tarkin believe that destroying a planet that peacefully opposed the Empire would cow the rest of the systems into obedience, and again, although history would teach otherwise, that's not an inherently awful idea. Here, the forces opposed to the First Order are both political (the Republic) and military (the Resistance). Why does Darth Smeagol think that destroying the political opponent will not invite a reprisal by the military one? The correct use of a Death Star in this scenario would be against the opponent capable of opposing them militarily: the Resistance. Blowing up New Coruscant is something the First Order only does because the Empire did it, and JJ has no faith in his audience to understand anything that isn't stolen wholesale from the Original Trilogy.
We are also treated to Darth Smeagol holoconferencing with Darth Emo and the Uberweasley. It is not clear from any conversation at any point in the film whether Darth Emo is the Uberweasley's superior, or vice versa. In contrast, it is evident from their behavior in literally every scene that they are in that Tarkin is, if not Vader's direct superior, a guy who has a lot more clout on the Death Star than Vader does.
We also see Darth Emo communing with the spirit of his grandfather, begging him for guidance so as not to fall back to the light. This scene is done to establish that Darth Emo is Darth Vader's grandson, but the way it is done opens up a number of plot holes. First, "that's not how the Force works!" It betrays Yoda's counsel that "once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny." Yes, Vader was turned at the last minute, but that was only because Luke was there. There is nothing helping Darth Emo turn back to the light. Second, Vader turned to the light at the last minute. Did Darth Emo not know this? Why would he, as both Luke's pupil and as Vader's grandson, not know what happened to Vader at the end?
While this is going on, Grumpy Han takes Mary Sue and Finn to Planet Jungle, where they visit a cantina (check that box) and a small creature who offers sage advice (check that box). It is not remotely clear why they do this, except that the film needed to shoehorn inanother Person of Color those boxes to check, as well as give Finn a lightsaber. The lightsaber in question happens to be Anakin Skywalker's, last seen plummeting into the abyss of Bespin (Force Mary Poppins would have come in handy), which is canonically a gas giant. Its presence on Planet Jungle, indeed its very existence at this point, does not make sense. So I just want to reiterate that we are here because we need to introduce a lightsaber that should not be here, and at no point does the script try to justify the continued existence of this lightsaber. In fact, the script actively mocks people who want to know how in the Emperor's golden bikini that lightsaber could possibly be here. Rage.
We are apparently here because the new cast needs to take a different ship to get to the Rebellion because the Empire can track (Rian) the Falcon. As much as JJ copypasted A New Hope into this garbage, he seems to have missed Han specifically saying that the Falcon cannot be tracked. Rage. (Alternate perspective: it's been almost 40 years. Technology has moved on. The Falcon is obsolete as a smuggling ship and Grumpy Han's only keeping it out of nostalgia. Hrm, never heard that one before.)
Because the small creature who offers sage advice had to shout out Grumpy Han's name at the beginning of her scene, both the Empire and the Rebels now know where they are. Mary Sue is required to be captured at this point, so she freaks out and runs away from the others. The small creature who offers sage advice gives Finn the lightsaber and tells this former janitor to use it. Meme appears and challenges Finn to single combat. Meme happens to be armed with a baton that blocks lightsabers. Hey, remember back at the beginning of the film, we saw a stormtrooper with a flamethrower? (I told you it would be important later.) Boy, it's a good thing Meme doesn't have one of those, right? And don't tell me he'd need an oversize fuel tank. Two words: Jango Fett.
While this is going on, Han borrows Stewie's bowcaster, apparently for the first time, and comments that he really likes it. This is done to demonstrate the power of the weapon, because later it will be used to shoot Darth Emo in the hip and desperate fans will latch on to this injury to explain how he can still be a threat after Mary Sue thrashes him in their lightsaber duel. It is awkwardly shoehorned in; there is no reason for Han to borrow it now, especially if he doesn't know how "powerful" it is.
Darth Emo chases Mary Sue into the jungle, uses the Force to paralyze her, and then apparently uses the Force to turn her off. This is a power we have never seen before, but unlike Force Mary Poppins, I don't have that much of a problem with it. Presumably it is a Dark Side power, and thus, for example, Obi-Wan would not use it in his battle against Jango Fett on Kamino, and presumably there is a Light Side guard against it, and thus, for example, Darth Maul doesn't try to use it against Obi-Wan on Naboo. However, I wish to draw your attention to it because Darth Emo does not bother to use this power later in the film. Darth Emo then decides that he does not need BBQ, and that he can instead extract the information he needs from Mary Sue's mind. When the Rebellion arrives, he therefore decides not to stay and fight, in order to conclusively destroy them, which is the Empire's primary military objective at this point. This does not make sense.
At this point, two revelations are made. C-3PO now has a red arm for marketing purposes, and Poe Solo is alive. Both of these are hurriedly brushed over because neither is important to the plot. 3PO's arm is red to distinguish his toy for this movie from his gold toy from the OT and his naked/silver toys from the prequels. Poe Solo is alive because we will need a pilot to destroy the Giant Hurt Ball later, and Obi-Wan's uncle wisely turned down a death by cameo.
Grumpy Han and Comrade Princess General Leia are reunited. They discuss Darth Emo's backstory for the sake of the audience, who had mostly figured this out anyway, although by "this" I mean "he is Han and Leia's son and he turned to the Dark Side." We are not told why. We are told Snoke had some role in it, but we are not told what that role is.
Darth Emo takes Mary Sue to his bedroom aboard the Incompetence Rex and undresses for his new girlfriend. It is at this moment that the destruction of his character is complete. The Actor Adam Driver simply does not look like a Sith Lord, and in marketing for The Last Jedi, he looks more like a confused young Severus Snape than a master of evil. He speaks in a peculiar accent that is not explained, as neither Han, Leia, Luke, nor Snoke have it. He appears to be channeling Javier Bardem, who never played Darth Vader, which is weird because the film has established Darth Emo as a Vader fanboy in a galaxy far, far, away, who presumably has never heard of Javier Bardem. Eventually he leaves, because the script requires that Mary Sue be alone with James Blond so that Mary Sue can mind-control James Blond into letting her go. Mary Sue has never had the slightest hint prior to coming to the jungle planet that she was Force-sensitive, and she is already using the Jedi Mind Trick. It took Luke two films to learn how to do it, and she mastered it in an afternoon. Do you see why I call her Mary Sue?
The Rebels have returned to their planet, where they inform us that the new Giant Hurt Ball is bigger than the previous one. Never mind that there were two previous Giant Hurt Balls. It is now that we learn that Finn used to be a janitor on the Giant Hurt Ball, and again this makes no sense. You are trying to tell me that the First Order has the resources to build a Super Mega Hurt Ball that is the size of Texas to the original Death Star's Rhode Island, but they were so short on manpower that they put a janitor in a Stormtrooper costume and handed him a rifle. I thought Brienne of Darth had a line earlier about Finn not being "noncompliant" before. Yes, well, she forgot to mention that the reason he'd never been "noncompliant" before was because this was his first day as a Stormtrooper, apparently.
Grumpy Han decides that he will spearhead a rescue mission to the Giant Hurt Ball, which he will accomplish by passing through the Giant Hurt Ball's shields at lightspeed and then coming out of lightspeed before he smashes into the Giant Hurt Ball's side. The idea that shields can by bypassed at lightspeed is a new concept, and begs the question of why it was not tried at either Hoth or Endor. (Apparently this is an idea left over from a draft of Episode I, when it was done by a Force-sensitive character. The fact that Jar Jar Abrams is stooping to use ideas even Lucas thought were too nonsensical is telling.) It also begs the question why hyperspace ram-ships don't exist, at least until the very next movie insinuates that they do, and have all along, they just never would have been useful before. Which is nonsense.
Mary Sue hides out in what I assume is a TIE Fighter maintenance hatch. I'm not going to suddenly start calling out the Empire for their blatant disregard for OSHA regulations now. I am beyond caring about such trifling details as a lack of railings over bottomless pits.
Grumpy Han delivers a line that sums up my reaction to this movie, its defenders, its sequel, and its sequel's defenders. That is, indeed, not how the Force works.
Brienne of Darth is ambushed and thrown in the garbage. What a character. I have tried to ignore the movie's (bad) artistic decisions and focus on the failures of logic and storytelling, but I feel the need to explain why Brienne of Darth sums up everything that is wrong with Disney's Weekend at Yoda's. Brienne of Darth is clearly meant to be this film's Boba Fett, a masked space warrior who succeeds at standing around looking badass and who fails pretty miserably at actual fight scenes, sort of an inverse George Lazenby. The difference is that a lot of thought went into Boba Fett's character. Every Star Wars fan can recite Fett's lines by heart because he only has five of them: "As you wish," "He's no good to me dead," "What if he doesn't survive? He's worth a lot to me," "Put Captain Solo in the cargo hold," and "Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!" Fett isn't given any superfluous dialogue about removing helmets or being noncompliant. And he does stuff nonverbally too - he flirts with dancers and nods respectfully at Bounty Hunter Leia. Vader admonishes him: "No disintegrations" and from that alone, we know more about Fett than we ever learn about Brienne of Darth. Brienne of Darth exists to hand us a piece of stunt casting. And sell toys. Those aims accomplished, she is thrown in the trash like the waste of a character she is.
Mary Sue reunites with Grumpy Han, Finn, and Stewie and wait a frakking minute. Didn't Darth Emo take her to his private interrogation room on the Incompetence Rex? Did Jar Jar Abrams forget that he needed some way of getting Mary Sue from the Incompetence Rex to the Giant Hurt Ball? Because it looks like he did; I had assumed many spiteful paragraphs ago that Darth Emo interrogated her on the Incompetence Rex. But now apparently I am supposed to believe that he didn't interrogate her on the Incompetence Rex and instead waited until he was all the way back at the Giant Hurt Ball to interrogate her in an identical room. Yes, identical: when he took his helmet off, stupidly, he slammed it down in that ashtray that he has when he prays to Darth Vader. Does Darth Emo have multiple ashtrays scattered around the Incompetence Rex and the Giant Hurt Ball? He must. The only other possibility is that Jar Jar Abrams made a mistake, and that's just silly.
Anyway, Oberweasley wants to use the Giant Hurt Ball to destroy New Coruscant. This is technically a problem that dates all the way back to A New Hope, but I'll discuss it here. Using Death Stars to destroy the Rebellion is akin to using nuclear weapons against terrorists. It does not make sense. A terrorist group (which the Rebellion/Resistance) are is small and fractured. It would make sense to build a Death Star if you were fighting a conventional war, where destroying your enemy's capital would severely hurt them politically, militarily, economically, logistically,
In order to understand how stupid this is, we need to do some worldbuilding for JJ, because JJ couldn't be bothered to make a sincere effort on his own behalf. We know that there are three powers in the galaxy at this point: the First Order, which is the rebranded Empire. The Republic, which was created some time between Jedi and now and is the official government of the universe. And the Resistance, which is supported by the Republic and led by Comrade General Princess Leia. This distinction between the Resistance and the Republic is ultimately pointless, but since it's been made, we have to live with it. The easiest way to deal with all of this is to assume that the Republic is bumbling, slow, and conservative (in the sense that they're traditional and cautious, and not in the sense that they're on the right side of the left-right American political spectrum). The Resistance is more paranoid and proactive, and righteous in their cause, which is to take out the First Order.
So, this is a film series called Star Wars, right? And war is an act of violence intended to compel one's opponent to fulfill one's will. To accomplish this, one must place one's opponent "in a situation which is more oppressive to him than the sacrifice which we demand." The Empire believed that building a Death Star and threatening to destroy any planet that resisted them would place the nascent Rebellion in such a situation. This is not a great idea, but it is at least justifiably an idea. The First Order wants to use a Death Star to destroy the Republic. Remember, the Republic is not the Resistance. The Resistance is the group that is actively opposing the First Order and preparing for war.
In A New Hope, Tarkin blew up Alderaan, which you can think of as the political capital of the Rebellion if you want. I don't know, it was just there, and he wanted to demonstrate the Death Star's power and be a dick to Leia. He also says Dantooine was too remote to be "an effective target." Understand that a Death Star is pretty much the wrong weapon for galactic fly-swatting; Tarkin was blowing up planets less for their military value and more to say "don't mess with the Empire."
In contrast, in The Farce Awakens, the Republic is the legitimate governing body of the Galaxy. By destroying their political capital, the First Order is inviting a reprisal. Tarkin believe that destroying a planet that peacefully opposed the Empire would cow the rest of the systems into obedience, and again, although history would teach otherwise, that's not an inherently awful idea. Here, the forces opposed to the First Order are both political (the Republic) and military (the Resistance). Why does Darth Smeagol think that destroying the political opponent will not invite a reprisal by the military one? The correct use of a Death Star in this scenario would be against the opponent capable of opposing them militarily: the Resistance. Blowing up New Coruscant is something the First Order only does because the Empire did it, and JJ has no faith in his audience to understand anything that isn't stolen wholesale from the Original Trilogy.
We are also treated to Darth Smeagol holoconferencing with Darth Emo and the Uberweasley. It is not clear from any conversation at any point in the film whether Darth Emo is the Uberweasley's superior, or vice versa. In contrast, it is evident from their behavior in literally every scene that they are in that Tarkin is, if not Vader's direct superior, a guy who has a lot more clout on the Death Star than Vader does.
We also see Darth Emo communing with the spirit of his grandfather, begging him for guidance so as not to fall back to the light. This scene is done to establish that Darth Emo is Darth Vader's grandson, but the way it is done opens up a number of plot holes. First, "that's not how the Force works!" It betrays Yoda's counsel that "once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny." Yes, Vader was turned at the last minute, but that was only because Luke was there. There is nothing helping Darth Emo turn back to the light. Second, Vader turned to the light at the last minute. Did Darth Emo not know this? Why would he, as both Luke's pupil and as Vader's grandson, not know what happened to Vader at the end?
While this is going on, Grumpy Han takes Mary Sue and Finn to Planet Jungle, where they visit a cantina (check that box) and a small creature who offers sage advice (check that box). It is not remotely clear why they do this, except that the film needed to shoehorn in
We are apparently here because the new cast needs to take a different ship to get to the Rebellion because the Empire can track (Rian) the Falcon. As much as JJ copypasted A New Hope into this garbage, he seems to have missed Han specifically saying that the Falcon cannot be tracked. Rage. (Alternate perspective: it's been almost 40 years. Technology has moved on. The Falcon is obsolete as a smuggling ship and Grumpy Han's only keeping it out of nostalgia. Hrm, never heard that one before.)
Because the small creature who offers sage advice had to shout out Grumpy Han's name at the beginning of her scene, both the Empire and the Rebels now know where they are. Mary Sue is required to be captured at this point, so she freaks out and runs away from the others. The small creature who offers sage advice gives Finn the lightsaber and tells this former janitor to use it. Meme appears and challenges Finn to single combat. Meme happens to be armed with a baton that blocks lightsabers. Hey, remember back at the beginning of the film, we saw a stormtrooper with a flamethrower? (I told you it would be important later.) Boy, it's a good thing Meme doesn't have one of those, right? And don't tell me he'd need an oversize fuel tank. Two words: Jango Fett.
While this is going on, Han borrows Stewie's bowcaster, apparently for the first time, and comments that he really likes it. This is done to demonstrate the power of the weapon, because later it will be used to shoot Darth Emo in the hip and desperate fans will latch on to this injury to explain how he can still be a threat after Mary Sue thrashes him in their lightsaber duel. It is awkwardly shoehorned in; there is no reason for Han to borrow it now, especially if he doesn't know how "powerful" it is.
Darth Emo chases Mary Sue into the jungle, uses the Force to paralyze her, and then apparently uses the Force to turn her off. This is a power we have never seen before, but unlike Force Mary Poppins, I don't have that much of a problem with it. Presumably it is a Dark Side power, and thus, for example, Obi-Wan would not use it in his battle against Jango Fett on Kamino, and presumably there is a Light Side guard against it, and thus, for example, Darth Maul doesn't try to use it against Obi-Wan on Naboo. However, I wish to draw your attention to it because Darth Emo does not bother to use this power later in the film. Darth Emo then decides that he does not need BBQ, and that he can instead extract the information he needs from Mary Sue's mind. When the Rebellion arrives, he therefore decides not to stay and fight, in order to conclusively destroy them, which is the Empire's primary military objective at this point. This does not make sense.
At this point, two revelations are made. C-3PO now has a red arm for marketing purposes, and Poe Solo is alive. Both of these are hurriedly brushed over because neither is important to the plot. 3PO's arm is red to distinguish his toy for this movie from his gold toy from the OT and his naked/silver toys from the prequels. Poe Solo is alive because we will need a pilot to destroy the Giant Hurt Ball later, and Obi-Wan's uncle wisely turned down a death by cameo.
Grumpy Han and Comrade Princess General Leia are reunited. They discuss Darth Emo's backstory for the sake of the audience, who had mostly figured this out anyway, although by "this" I mean "he is Han and Leia's son and he turned to the Dark Side." We are not told why. We are told Snoke had some role in it, but we are not told what that role is.
Darth Emo takes Mary Sue to his bedroom aboard the Incompetence Rex and undresses for his new girlfriend. It is at this moment that the destruction of his character is complete. The Actor Adam Driver simply does not look like a Sith Lord, and in marketing for The Last Jedi, he looks more like a confused young Severus Snape than a master of evil. He speaks in a peculiar accent that is not explained, as neither Han, Leia, Luke, nor Snoke have it. He appears to be channeling Javier Bardem, who never played Darth Vader, which is weird because the film has established Darth Emo as a Vader fanboy in a galaxy far, far, away, who presumably has never heard of Javier Bardem. Eventually he leaves, because the script requires that Mary Sue be alone with James Blond so that Mary Sue can mind-control James Blond into letting her go. Mary Sue has never had the slightest hint prior to coming to the jungle planet that she was Force-sensitive, and she is already using the Jedi Mind Trick. It took Luke two films to learn how to do it, and she mastered it in an afternoon. Do you see why I call her Mary Sue?
The Rebels have returned to their planet, where they inform us that the new Giant Hurt Ball is bigger than the previous one. Never mind that there were two previous Giant Hurt Balls. It is now that we learn that Finn used to be a janitor on the Giant Hurt Ball, and again this makes no sense. You are trying to tell me that the First Order has the resources to build a Super Mega Hurt Ball that is the size of Texas to the original Death Star's Rhode Island, but they were so short on manpower that they put a janitor in a Stormtrooper costume and handed him a rifle. I thought Brienne of Darth had a line earlier about Finn not being "noncompliant" before. Yes, well, she forgot to mention that the reason he'd never been "noncompliant" before was because this was his first day as a Stormtrooper, apparently.
Grumpy Han decides that he will spearhead a rescue mission to the Giant Hurt Ball, which he will accomplish by passing through the Giant Hurt Ball's shields at lightspeed and then coming out of lightspeed before he smashes into the Giant Hurt Ball's side. The idea that shields can by bypassed at lightspeed is a new concept, and begs the question of why it was not tried at either Hoth or Endor. (Apparently this is an idea left over from a draft of Episode I, when it was done by a Force-sensitive character. The fact that Jar Jar Abrams is stooping to use ideas even Lucas thought were too nonsensical is telling.) It also begs the question why hyperspace ram-ships don't exist, at least until the very next movie insinuates that they do, and have all along, they just never would have been useful before. Which is nonsense.
Mary Sue hides out in what I assume is a TIE Fighter maintenance hatch. I'm not going to suddenly start calling out the Empire for their blatant disregard for OSHA regulations now. I am beyond caring about such trifling details as a lack of railings over bottomless pits.
Grumpy Han delivers a line that sums up my reaction to this movie, its defenders, its sequel, and its sequel's defenders. That is, indeed, not how the Force works.
Brienne of Darth is ambushed and thrown in the garbage. What a character. I have tried to ignore the movie's (bad) artistic decisions and focus on the failures of logic and storytelling, but I feel the need to explain why Brienne of Darth sums up everything that is wrong with Disney's Weekend at Yoda's. Brienne of Darth is clearly meant to be this film's Boba Fett, a masked space warrior who succeeds at standing around looking badass and who fails pretty miserably at actual fight scenes, sort of an inverse George Lazenby. The difference is that a lot of thought went into Boba Fett's character. Every Star Wars fan can recite Fett's lines by heart because he only has five of them: "As you wish," "He's no good to me dead," "What if he doesn't survive? He's worth a lot to me," "Put Captain Solo in the cargo hold," and "Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!" Fett isn't given any superfluous dialogue about removing helmets or being noncompliant. And he does stuff nonverbally too - he flirts with dancers and nods respectfully at Bounty Hunter Leia. Vader admonishes him: "No disintegrations" and from that alone, we know more about Fett than we ever learn about Brienne of Darth. Brienne of Darth exists to hand us a piece of stunt casting. And sell toys. Those aims accomplished, she is thrown in the trash like the waste of a character she is.
Mary Sue reunites with Grumpy Han, Finn, and Stewie and wait a frakking minute. Didn't Darth Emo take her to his private interrogation room on the Incompetence Rex? Did Jar Jar Abrams forget that he needed some way of getting Mary Sue from the Incompetence Rex to the Giant Hurt Ball? Because it looks like he did; I had assumed many spiteful paragraphs ago that Darth Emo interrogated her on the Incompetence Rex. But now apparently I am supposed to believe that he didn't interrogate her on the Incompetence Rex and instead waited until he was all the way back at the Giant Hurt Ball to interrogate her in an identical room. Yes, identical: when he took his helmet off, stupidly, he slammed it down in that ashtray that he has when he prays to Darth Vader. Does Darth Emo have multiple ashtrays scattered around the Incompetence Rex and the Giant Hurt Ball? He must. The only other possibility is that Jar Jar Abrams made a mistake, and that's just silly.
Also, the Giant Hurt Ball is the size of a planet. We are now required to believe that Grumpy Han crashed the Falcon within walking distance of both the shield generator (where Brienne of Darth was, for some reason) and wherever Rey was being held, and that the bunker leading to this critically important area had no security aside from a single stormtrooper.
The Giant Hurt Ball begins charging up to destroy the Rebel base, which they now know the location of, because the script requires tension at this point. It charges up by eating the nearby sun. Grumpy Han confronts Darth Emo and we learn that the reason why the Giant Hurt Ball needs to eat suns is so the light can literally go out when Darth Emo cements his fall to the Dark Side. It is as though JJ decided that he wanted to have a symbolic lighting change to signal Darth Emo's turn. Not only does this show contempt for the audience, it also does not make any sense. Darth Emo has already fallen to the Dark Side. He kills Grumpy Han not because he is overcome with rage, a la Anakin Skywalker killing Padme, but because Darth Smeagol told him to. This could have been a very powerful moment, but thanks to hackneyed direction and The Actor Adam Driver, it comes across looking like exactly what it is: the pointless assassination of a beloved character for a cheap thrill.
Stewie shoots Darth Emo in the hip with his powerful gun. Darth Emo begins banging his hip with his fist. This looks stupid. Also, Darth Emo is bleeding from this wound. Because that's just how energy weapons work now, they no longer insta-cauterize the wounds, not even Stewie's very powerful gun.
Darth Emo decides not to use Force Paralyze on Finn. This actually makes sense. Darth Emo is exactly the sort of man who would play with his food before he ate it, and that's basically what he does to Finn. Then Mary Sue starts dueling him. And she starts beating him. And he does not use the techniques that worked on her earlier in this very film, when she had received the exact same level of training as she has now, to prevent her from utterly thrashing him.
Now, let me explain what is actually happening here, because unfortunately, as we all know, Disney suffered a total existence failure after this film and The Last Jedi was never made. So let me explain what was going to be revealed in future installments of the Disney Trilogy. Rey is Palpatine's granddaughter. She was a student at Luke's Jedi Academy and an associate of Ben Solo's. When Ben turned evil, he knew that the only thing Snoke would find more attractive in an apprentice than Darth Vader's grandson would be Palpatine's granddaughter, so he wiped her memory and stuck her on Jakku. This explains why Rey has abilities beyond what a destitute scavenger should have, why Kylo wants to train her rather than kill her, why Snoke wants her brought to him, and how Rey's timeline can possibly mesh with Finn's. You're welcome, Disney, I just wrote your next film for you.
Darth Smeagol tells the Oberweasley to collect Darth Emo and get off the Giant Hurt Ball before Poe Solo blows it up. It is astonishing that the Oberweasley has enough time to do this before the Giant Hurt Ball is destroyed. Apparently JJ was not allowed to kill off any of the villains. Just Grumpy Han.
I will not touch on the survival of Brienne of Darth here because frankly she died. Even the Master would have had trouble coming back after that. That is a problem for the next film.
After the Giant Hurt Ball is destroyed, the rebels return to their base, where Comrade Princess General Leia grieves for Grumpy Han by hugging Mary Sue and not Stewie, because obviously Stewie is an animated mop and not Han's best friend for the last 30-plus years.
Then R2 wakes up. It turns out that R2 had the rest of the only map in the universe the entire time. This not only does not make sense, it is so infuriatingly stupid that I actually threw things at the screen. R2's presence and role raise so many issues that it could be its own post, but here we go.
One: how did Luke get to Skellig Michael if he didn't take R2 with him? We presume he flew his X-wing, unless Force Mary Poppins can actually get you across the vast empty reaches of space like a Green Lantern Ring. Isn't R2 necessary to fly the X-Wing? I guess technically not because it doesn't crash the moment R2 gets shot in A New Hope, but still, Luke takes him to Dagobah in Return of the Jedi. R2 is, according to Revenge of the Sith, an "astro droid." I kind of assumed that in addition to being the ship's mechanic, he was also the ship's navigator.
Two: why, if Luke went into hiding, did he leave R2 behind with the missing half of the map? He plainly did not want to be found. Because he wanted them to have some way of contacting him if they really, really needed him? Leia has the Force, remember?
Three: why, if Luke went into hiding, did he leave R2 behind at all? Leaving aside the fact that R2 is probably the navigator, wouldn't Luke get lonely on Skellig Michael?
Anyway, Mary Sue, Stewie, and R2 pack up and head off to Skellig Michael. Apparently Rian had to ask JJ to have Mary Sue bring R2 instead of BBQ. Apparently JJ forgot that BBQ does not belong to Mary Sue.
The end.
Stewie shoots Darth Emo in the hip with his powerful gun. Darth Emo begins banging his hip with his fist. This looks stupid. Also, Darth Emo is bleeding from this wound. Because that's just how energy weapons work now, they no longer insta-cauterize the wounds, not even Stewie's very powerful gun.
Darth Emo decides not to use Force Paralyze on Finn. This actually makes sense. Darth Emo is exactly the sort of man who would play with his food before he ate it, and that's basically what he does to Finn. Then Mary Sue starts dueling him. And she starts beating him. And he does not use the techniques that worked on her earlier in this very film, when she had received the exact same level of training as she has now, to prevent her from utterly thrashing him.
Now, let me explain what is actually happening here, because unfortunately, as we all know, Disney suffered a total existence failure after this film and The Last Jedi was never made. So let me explain what was going to be revealed in future installments of the Disney Trilogy. Rey is Palpatine's granddaughter. She was a student at Luke's Jedi Academy and an associate of Ben Solo's. When Ben turned evil, he knew that the only thing Snoke would find more attractive in an apprentice than Darth Vader's grandson would be Palpatine's granddaughter, so he wiped her memory and stuck her on Jakku. This explains why Rey has abilities beyond what a destitute scavenger should have, why Kylo wants to train her rather than kill her, why Snoke wants her brought to him, and how Rey's timeline can possibly mesh with Finn's. You're welcome, Disney, I just wrote your next film for you.
Darth Smeagol tells the Oberweasley to collect Darth Emo and get off the Giant Hurt Ball before Poe Solo blows it up. It is astonishing that the Oberweasley has enough time to do this before the Giant Hurt Ball is destroyed. Apparently JJ was not allowed to kill off any of the villains. Just Grumpy Han.
I will not touch on the survival of Brienne of Darth here because frankly she died. Even the Master would have had trouble coming back after that. That is a problem for the next film.
After the Giant Hurt Ball is destroyed, the rebels return to their base, where Comrade Princess General Leia grieves for Grumpy Han by hugging Mary Sue and not Stewie, because obviously Stewie is an animated mop and not Han's best friend for the last 30-plus years.
Then R2 wakes up. It turns out that R2 had the rest of the only map in the universe the entire time. This not only does not make sense, it is so infuriatingly stupid that I actually threw things at the screen. R2's presence and role raise so many issues that it could be its own post, but here we go.
One: how did Luke get to Skellig Michael if he didn't take R2 with him? We presume he flew his X-wing, unless Force Mary Poppins can actually get you across the vast empty reaches of space like a Green Lantern Ring. Isn't R2 necessary to fly the X-Wing? I guess technically not because it doesn't crash the moment R2 gets shot in A New Hope, but still, Luke takes him to Dagobah in Return of the Jedi. R2 is, according to Revenge of the Sith, an "astro droid." I kind of assumed that in addition to being the ship's mechanic, he was also the ship's navigator.
Two: why, if Luke went into hiding, did he leave R2 behind with the missing half of the map? He plainly did not want to be found. Because he wanted them to have some way of contacting him if they really, really needed him? Leia has the Force, remember?
Three: why, if Luke went into hiding, did he leave R2 behind at all? Leaving aside the fact that R2 is probably the navigator, wouldn't Luke get lonely on Skellig Michael?
Anyway, Mary Sue, Stewie, and R2 pack up and head off to Skellig Michael. Apparently Rian had to ask JJ to have Mary Sue bring R2 instead of BBQ. Apparently JJ forgot that BBQ does not belong to Mary Sue.
The end.
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