Half in the Bag: The Last Last Jedi Review

Even if your advertisements are legitimate (and they should not be), you offered an incredible review of the last Jedi (and I hope that patreon offered a lasting opionion) And if they did not, then me me know, because I love RoboCop 2, and I know Mike willl understand

Max Potter

this is on of the best HitBs you’ve ever put out. but that’s not saying much, you fucking hacks.

William Lubelski

I see a lot of hate online from people about the space Leia scene - I'm kind of surprised, I don't really get what people's issue is with that part

Matt P

C3PO was just the worst.

Phill Pratt

As for the humour... I saw this film with my kids. Without the odd interjection of the Porgs e.t.c, they would have found it really hard going. Plus, there's always been an element of comic relief in Star Wars. Be it C3PO or R2D2.

Trefor

This was a Star Wars film that needed to happen. All of your heroes are dead. Now they can do new things.

Trefor

But, I thought it was great. I loved the interplay between Kylo Ren and Rey, I loved Luke's story arc, loved Rose, great 'fuck you' to the prequels in the burning tree scene and it all ties together at the end when the little kid reaches for the broom.

Trefor

Yes, yes. There was 'that scene' - If it were me, I'd have a Tie fighter slice the frozen corpse in half.

Trefor

I.... Loved this film. Really loved it. It slaughtered so many sacred cows.....

Trefor

I think overall I liked the movie more than you guys did, but one thing I found really hard to accept was the slow chase of the empire against the rebels - it seemed really odd to me they were stuck in this dilemma yet Finn and Rose could actually leave the chase, go to another planet and then come back and rejoin the chase - this all apparently happened in 18 hours, yet we saw several days pass for Rey on the island...

Matt P

Astral projection light years away instantly ....breaking the laws of physics, bending space/time , most likely, uses more energy than lifting a star fighter. I can buy that extinguishing any mortal meat puppet being a conduit to impossible levels of energy.

Swamp Music Players

Snoke saw, that kylo was going to use a lightsaber to kill someone.... i liked that idea. „Difficult to see. Always in motion is the future ...“ ;)

joern hoerbe

If Poe isn't a highly respected pilot/commander whatever in the resistance then why was he sent on such a special mission in TFA to get the starmap to skywalker? In TLJ why does leia break into the bridge where Poe is mutinying and shoot him with a stun gun? Couldn't she just have said "Poe wait no we have a plan, sorry I was going to tell you but I was blown up for the last 45 minutes". Why did she need to shoot him in the face?

Joseph Riedel

And don't get me started on all the little details. Why is Rose piloting a salt speeder at the end? Wasn't she a lowly engineer? Did she take piloting lessons? How did Ren trick Snoke when Snoke can read his mind and is-infact talking about it? Why was Snoke wearing a bathrobe and slippers? Why did Ren blindly stop everything and attack Luke like an idiot? Why did Luke die/dissapear? This is the first time anyone has ever "force projected" themselves, how does that work? Is it hard? Why is that harder than lifting an Xwing out of the water? I don't understand any of this.

Joseph Riedel

I don't understand any of the motivations for any of the characters in TLJ, and when I started to anaylze TLJ I start to ask more questions of TFA. Finn was trying to run away in TLJ, why did he decide to stay after Rose found him and then risk his life? Why is rose even in the movie? Why did they turn Poe into a idiot when he was one of the best characters in TFA? Why didn't they have Poe and Finn save the day in some plot in TLJ? Why did Luke disconnect himself from the force but then pick a force centric planet to live on? How did Rey learn the force so well with 3 separate 5 minute lessons? Why does Rey give a shit about any of this at all, even in TFA? I don't understand the motivations of Rey or Finn. I need Plinkett to explain to me in detail what is so fucking wrong with these movies.

Joseph Riedel

I have my little problems with SW8 as well, but over all, i give it a pass. What i like about some of the decisions made is, that they really fuck with all those speculations. I always liked the thought, that everybody can use the force (with the right mindset)...Not just „some special families“ or whatever. And Luke being that grumpy made absolute sense to me. Makes him interesting. And just killing of snoke was really funny to me. But let‘s see, if he stays dead....maybe he is just a clone ;)

joern hoerbe

I absolutely loved the Last Jedi with a caveat- I always wanted an insane, artistic Star Wars film that ripped up the tropes of the mythology. Everything the hardcore fans got mad about, I loved. It reminded me of Grant Morrison's X-Men run.

Primordial Creative

I can't help but compare Last Jedi to Blade Runner 2049. These long sci-fi epics starring characters who turn out to be nothing special coming from franchises that had a profound affect on future generations. Critics praised both, and audiences rejected both; only Last Jedi made bank because of STAR WARS!!!! The best metaphor I can think of is 2049 as an only child from a dysfunctional single-parent family doing their own thing whereas Last Jedi is a middle child of the Duggar clan being emo for the sake of standing out. Cute, but not authentic nor earned.

Kegan

I really enjoyed TLJ, but there was a lot wrong with it. I don't agree with Mike's comments about Johnson's writing credit, though. Disney showed how much control they exert when Lord and Miller were removed from Han Solo. If the disney committee didn't agree with Johnson (the director of Looper and...?), there's no way this film would have been released. Also, picture you're Bob Iger who just spent $4bil on Star Wars. JJ Abrams comes in to pitch it, "We have 2 mysteries in this trilogy, the identity of snoke and who Rey's parents are. I don't know the answers, but I'm sure Rian Johnson will think of something." Seems pretty unlikely. Thanks again for the review!

Jonathan Harvey

I ADORED this film. It reminded me of a rubbish/amazing 80s action adventure film. I think the best comparison is Krull, where the heroes just spend the first two acts doing the most random plot device quests. Best example is when the old boy goes to visit the ex wife, who is now a spider, to retrieve a magical egg timer. Guess what I'm saying is that I loved Last Jedi, warts an' all! I think that may be because nothing goes as expected, everything messes up and pretty much all the main characters fail miserably. I find that very refreshing in context of post matrix films where you usually get a Neo esq protagonist who is superhuman. God bless Rian Johnson, he has been to Star Wars what Winston is to the Ghostbusters; just some random dude who turned up on set one day and got asked to get involved...

Something just occurred to me - if it was Snoke setting up the video chat between Rey & Ken - surely that meant he had a good inkling of where Skywalker was? Should've sent the fleet to blast that wee island to pieces. Ah, well.

Jamie Harrold

Best episode of HitB since Ghostbusters 2016.

"Not a mess, but messy." Yep. Right on the mark, as per usual.

Kathleen

I really liked the idea of balance in the force, and not in the shitty prequel way; more like homeostasis. It's a shame that they didn't explore that more.

Lisa Moore

Appreciate you guys pumping this one out, it looks like the ticket fiasco through you through a loop - no set, Mike looks tired, I'm sure it's not your proudest work but I thank you.

My sinking feeling came with that opening text crawl. "... this is a remake of Empire Strikes Back..." Unnecessary visual flare (what purpose did dragging the red salt do?) Unnecessary cuteness (porgs were pasted in at the last minute) Ponderous editing (the evil hole of mirrors really paid off) Unnaturally crisp choreography (like a Disney dance routine) Way too many pointless McGuffins No twists, nothing shocking. (Rey's parents were drunks that died?) If you want quality Star Wars forget this movie bullshit and read some EU books like the Darth Bane trilogy.

David Anderson

These guys do almost the only reviews worth watching. They regularly point out stuff I didn't notice, & they have the language & perspective necessary to phrase their ideas in a clear & concise way. This was a really good one, y'all!

Jonathan McGaha

Snoke sitting in the chair the whole time reminded me of cameron mitchell

Duncan Tron

That footage from the Star Wars Celebration - what the hell?

Irish Bulletin

This movie took a giant risk. I enjoyed the movie (mostly) and respect Rian Johnson and others trying something different, other than the tired bad vs good routine. It's a flawed movie. The Last Jedi has pacing problems, weird slap stick comedy and questionable character choices....but I can overlook those problems because the characters are interesting and layered, the tag team fight was thrilling and the end was FANTASTIC in visuals and action.

Stephen Bay

Really simple. Imagine that the whole of Star Trek consists of the story of Wesley Crusher, super-genius kid who doesn't know his father. He meets the Traveler who teaches him a way to manipulate time and space. Later, he discover that his father is in reality the head of the Tal Shiar (or a founder, or whatever. He's the boss of the vilains) and then they have fight and his father redeems himself and kills his boss. It would make an interesting story (if Wesley Crusher was a totally different character), but it can be contained in two or three episodes. With Star Trek, you can have a two-parter set on Ferenginar and it can strickly have to deal with financial shenanigans and it would still feel like Star Trek. You can't do the same with Star Wars. Everything has to be related to the original storyline because it is a shallow universe.

Vincent

Why do you find the Star Wars universe limiting but not the Trek universe?

Nathan Carlson

The one thing, above all others, that I wholeheartedly agree with you is that I have no interest in seeing any of the future Star Wars films after The Last Jedi.

IgnoirBurgerman

My expectations have been subverted!

Kenneth A.

I gotta disagree with much of this. I loved the weirdness this movie embraced. I love that Kylo Ren and Luke essentially want the same thing - to tear down the old order, Jedi and Sith. Luke acknowledges that the Jedi failed big time, allowing Sidious to steal the galaxy - he's absolutely right! Ghost Yoda is a goofball because he's essentially a Buddha. He's freed from the bonds of the physical world. Nothing happens, ultimately, because failure is the point. The near-death is the Resistance is there to inspire others to rise up. This isn't about the continuing reliance on one bloodline to control the galaxy. Rey being from nobodies ties in to this. The terms "spark," "hope," and "rebel" are cringey, and there's too many jokes. But at least we didn't get what we expected. As a bonus, we got the greatest, most physical lightsaber fight we've ever seen. 100X better than any CG fest from the prequels. It's messy, imperfect, and feels entirely real.

Bill Collins

Episode 9 will be directed by Adam Sandler.

John Boltons Mustache

is "last" plural or singular?

lztybrn

Awesome review guys, essentially the same thoughts I had. There's enough there that this one would make a fantastic Plinkett review

Michael Middleton

I just noticed that this is the last "Last Jedi" review. Are you saying that because you were late or because you are implying that you won't make any other review of this movie, like, hum, I don't know, a Plinkett review?! It seems that there are more mysteries in your review title that there are to discover in Star Wars.

Vincent

Very cool

Dan Schoening

You guys picked out a few things that stuck in my craw, and couldn't articulate, so thanks. The thing that bugs me most is that nothing changed at the end of the film. It's pretty clear there's no bigger story to tell, like in the Marvel movies (but I'm getting sick of those too). I am this close to deleting every other SW film in my library and just keeping the original trilogy. With the exception of The Dark Empire comics in the 90s, SW has been an investment of diminishing returns.

Sean Wickett

It’s tricky, because having not really liked The Force Awakens and its writing in particular, I put all my eggs into the basket for The Last Jedi because of Rian Johnson. I like that they gave him complete creative control and I liked the main 3 changes he made to those questions brought up in The Force Awakens but I think the main problem is this is probably where they should have started. While it would be tedious to outline the entire trilogy, it’s really felt here that they did not at least have some kind of treatment of plot points they wanted to hit on. That’s why by the end of this movie it really feels like nothing changed. And I feel like they had to do that because they also do not know where to go from here. All this said I did like the movie a lot but I don’t think you guys are wrong and I think going off the reviews and consensus here, a fatigue has definitely set in among general audiences at least.

Lauren R

I got the impression (possibly wrong) that it was an attempt to recreate some of the dynamic between Luke and Vader in Empire Strikes Back: Vader could have taken out Luke anytime he wanted to in that lightsaber fight, but he was too curious and wanted to explore what Luke could do. The difference is that Vader had a better idea of himself and of what HE could do; Kylo Ren, being younger and less experienced and more hotheaded, overestimated himself, and of course he was also badly injured by the crossbow shot.

jaybird3rd

I've decided that I won't see TLJ. I didn't like TFA and Rogue One and I have the weird feeling that if I keep watching the new Star Wars movies I will just become fed up with the original trilogy. At this point, I enjoy so much more listening or reading about Star Wars new movies than actually seeing them. I'm quite confident that watching this episode is a much more satisfying experience. Thank you for your great work!

I've got the feeling that Jay is bein' extremely generous towards The Force Awakens only 'cause he dislikes some of the people criticizing it - call them obnoxious nerds, internet trolls, or whatever. I don't think that's fair. There's lots of perfectly reasonable people who thinks TFA is garbage for lots of perfectly good reasons.

Great episode guys!

NonsenseInABag

Your review was excellent, as always! I did want to say though, regarding Jay's criticism of the fans who criticised Rey being able to go toe to toe with Ren in TFA. The issue isn't just that he's more experienced with the Force or with a lightsaber than her, it's also that earlier in the movie, he rendered her unconscious with a wave of his hand. When the two lock sabers at the end before the ground splits and she's having her "find the Force within me" moment, what stopped him from doing it again, exactly?

Sammy Allouba

Nice! Just going for a second viewing this evening; watching these Hack Frauds review it will make the journey home fly by...

You hack frauds are getting really good about quickly putting out more videos for us to obsess over and nitpick. THANKS

Sex Wee!!!

BallTech

You didn't like the General Hugs bit?

JK

Damn nice

Bry

Finally I will know what my opinion on the movie is