Sunday, December 24, 2017

3 Ways That Could Have Made The Last Jedi Better

The response to Star Wars: The Last Jedi has been to say at the very least, polarizing, with a number of fans declaring one of the best films of the franchise, while many others calling it the worst entry of the entire Skywalker saga.
While the film had some highlights(Poe's call to Hux at the beginning of the film and Rey and Kylo Ren's beatdown of Snoke's guards), I felt the movie was sloppy at times and that Rian Johnson, who also wrote the film, was in way over his head when it came to Episode VIII of the Skywalker saga.
This backlash has lead many Star Wars fans to say that they will never see another Star Wars movie again.
I didn't think the movie was that bad, but they are some things that I think could have been done better.
Here are three possible solutions that I think could have made The Last Jedi a better movie.
Make Finn + Rose Go Straight To The First Order Ship
My biggest problem with The Last Jedi was the storyline involving Finn and new character Rose having to go a Las Vegas style planet to find a codebreaker(Bencio Del Toro) in hopes of disabling the tracking device on the First Order ship the Supremacy.
The storyline culminates with Del Toro's character betraying Finn and Rose, making their mission a failure and this storyline almost feel like a complete waste of time.
What Johnson could have done is have Finn and Rose try to go straight to the source, the Supremacy, rather than going to Casino Bight, which is the name of the planet they went to find Del Toro, who is ultimately killed and becomes a rather pointless character in the story, but gives him a nice paycheck outside of his Heineken commercials.
I think this way could have better provided more action and mischief as the pair, along with BB-8, prowl through the ship looking for the tracking device while also giving Captain Phasma, the stormtrooper that Finn put in the trash compact in The Force Awakens, in knowing that Finn was abroad the ship a bigger role as she attempted to seek her revenge on the former stormtrooper rather than have her role reduced to like a minute in the final cut.
Or they could have kept the storyline in the movie but instead of meeting Bencio Del Toro, find Lando Calrissian and bring him up back into the fold to help the Resistance.
Give Us A Glimpse of What's Inside the Jedi Books
Another thing Johnson did that seem to aggravate fans was give characters new Force powers like Rey and Kylo Ren being able to communicate to each other even though they were on different planets and Luke being to able to project himself onto another planet without leaving Ahch-To, the planet where Luke imposed himself in self-exile.
I believe what could have helped the audience is have a scene where Rey, who is on Ahch-To trying to bring Luke out of exile and back into the real world while also getting lessons from the Jedi, go to the cave where a collection of Jedi books that Luke is protecting, and reading a snippet from one of these books.
That way maybe we could find out that new powers that Force-sensitive people such as Rey can do without having the audience go "Wait a minute, I didn't you could do that".
Killing Off Leia
This one I wrestled with, but hear me out on this one.
Everybody was saddened by Carrie Fisher's untimely death last year which was a huge loss for those who grew up with Star Wars.
We believe that Fisher will not be used in some shape or form(unused footage or CGI)in Episode IX, so it could have made sense for Johnson to go back and have Leia killed when the bridge of her ship explodes early in the film when is hit by Resistance TIE Fighters.
That way it would have tied up the loose end of having to deal with Leia now that Fisher is no longer with us and plus giving the audience a emotional gut in the punch early in the film.
Also, it could have created more tension between Poe, the badass X-wing pilot played by Oscar Isaac, and Vice Admiral Holdo, played by Laura Dean.
And for those who didn't like the way Luke was portrayed in the film, maybe Leia's death would have made Luke feel that he needs to help the Resistance and help train Rey in the ways of the Jedi.
Instead, Johnson decided to keep all of Fisher's scenes in the film which meant we had to see that the ridiculousness of her pulling herself back to the ship using the Force after floating in space for 15 seconds without having her head explode.
But on the other hand, if she had been killed off at that point then we never would have one of the film's best moments, when she and Luke reunited toward the end of the movie.

Anyways, I'm sure many Star Wars fans have other ways they think The Last Jedi could have been better but those are three things that I think the makers could have done to make Episode VIII a better movie.

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