A while back, I lamented the fact that Rogue One’s critical acclaim meant that Disney would remain mired in Star Wars original trilogy nostalgia going forward with their movies. I was right.

The Last Jedi is about 85% Empire Strikes Back, 5% Return of the Jedi (can’t be too much, though; Kathleen Kennedy and Rian Johnson have a bone to pick with it, and they have to pander to the fanboys who hated it), with 10% original stuff. No, really: the B plot involves our heroes being pursued through space, unable to utilize their hyper-drive, then making a visit to an upscale world to find someone who can help them who ends up betraying them. The A plot involves the hero going to the old Jedi Master in exile for training, who reluctantly agrees after a lot of convincing. The hero is then drawn into a dark place where they see an introspective vision that reveals something vague about themselves. Then, against the instruction of their teacher, they go to face the big bad. Here it diverges into Jedi where the hero surrenders to the big bad, tries to bring them back from the dark side, fails, and then the big bad takes the hero before their master, who tries to convert the hero to the dark side, fails, and then is killed.

I would say “spoilers”, but this was everything you’ve seen in the last two original trilogy movies, so there’s not too much new.

Okay, so here are some details here. The movie opens with the Resistance fleet being pursued by the First Order fleet. There is a dogfight where Poe and Ball-E (i mean BB-8) do some fancy flying stuff and he butts heads with Leia because he’s a cocky flyboi and she’s not having any of that. The fleet is getting decimated, and in an act of desperation, the bombers are called out to destroy one of several discount Executor Star-Destroyers. Now, considering how up the ass of the original trilogy the Disney movies have been, it would be logical to have bombers that are similar to Y-wings. Instead, we get these slow, clunky capital ships that drop bombs that, somehow, fall in micro-gravity, and are cannon fodder. They go down but not without taking out one of the discount Executors, and then the large discount Executor shows up and Smeagol (aka. Snoke) is aboard.

So Snoke chews out Kylo Ren for going out like a bitch in the last movie against someone who had never picked up a lightsaber (way to hammer in her Mary Sue-ness), and mocks him for his stupid Darth Revan helmet. Kylo Ren proceeds to have a little bitch-fit and smash his helmet up, because that’s his defining character trait: being a little bitch. Well, Ben, Garrosh, Illidan, and MCU-Loki welcome you to the club.

But wait, there’s more! There’s this whole message of “letting the past die” (which is kind of mixed throughout the movie, but we’ll get to that later), and Kylo decides that the only way for him to get rid of his past is to kill it. Well, he killed his father in the last movie, so now he’s going to kill his mother. Don’t worry, I’m sure he’s just misunderstood: it’ll end up being Thrall’s fault, or Malfurion’s, or everyone else’s, maybe even Uncle Luke’s (it ends up being just that in the end, as we’ll soon see). The bridge of the discount Home One blows up and everyone dies, including Admiral Ackbar. But Leia gets her one (and now, because of Carrie Fisher’s death, only) moment of showing off her Jedi powers that don’t involve sensing someone’s presence. Honestly, this isn’t that far-fetched, based on what we’ve seen in the Expanded Universe (it’s not Legends!), but I can see why it’s silly to some: I mean, she’s space Mary Poppins, floating through space. But I guess space princesses gonna space princess.

So anyway, she’s out of commission for most of the film for almost dying (no pun intended) and discount Effie Trinket is now in charge. Unfortunately, things aren’t looking good. They go to hyper-space but are tracked by the First Order, so they can’t use hyper-space anymore (“No light-speed?”), and it turns out that they’re running out of regular fuel (“It’s not fair!”), so they’re gonna end up being dead in the water any time soon. No hope of escape. So the First Order moves their ships into position, surrounds the Resistance fleet, and since no quarter is their marching orders, blast the Resistance fleet into oblivion and all our heroes die. No, that’s what someone who wasn’t a complete moron would do. Instead, they just casually follow behind, just at the bare maximum range of their turbo-lasers, keeping them under enough fire to stress them, but not enough to actually destroy them until their fuel runs out and they’re dead in the water.

I’m going to follow along with the B plot, since the A plot is where a good deal of my rage will be dedicated. So in the B plot, Finn wakes up and realizes what’s going on. His first reaction is to jump ship, and there’s even a cringe-worthy scene where Rose…

Not that Rose.

Where Rose meets him and is starstruck by seeing a hero of the Resistance. It is here that Rian Johnson is telling the audience that our heroes will let us down. Because that’s what Finn does to Rose. But afterwards, he reveals what the First Order is doing and, after a holographic scene of Maz’s thankfully brief cameo, we’re on a mission now to find a slicer to deactivate the First Order’s hyper-space tracker.

So Finn, Rose, and Ball-E go to discount Cloud City, which is now a casino planet where all the rich people gamble and live in the lap of luxury. Queue liberal bullshit. They do some stuff and get arrested, then come across discount Lando Calrissian, played by Benicio del Torro, who for some reason stutters: gee, I hope he doesn’t turn out to betray them in anyway. They get him on board with their plan, though not without some convincing and him being a dick to Rose, and then they go back to their fleet and attempt to infiltrate the discount Executor in order to disable the hyper-space tracker. They get found out by evil Ball-E (BB-9E), who I had hoped that there would be some kind of Spy vs. Spy action between the two BBs, but we don’t get that (we do get plenty of discount Mouse droids, even with their iconic sound). But just as victory is within their grasp, they get arrested and, what do you know, discount Lando betrayed them (“This deal is getting worse all the time.”). And who should show up but Captain Phasma, who escaped the discount Death Star before it was destroyed in the last movie and is back to discipline some traitors: how she got back? Who knows! Rian Johnson certainly doesn’t bother with explanations, because, according to him, even 30 seconds of backstory or explaning a character’s motivation would have “dragged the movie out too long.” But Rian Johnson certainly takes a leaf out of the book of Michael Bay because now it’s time for big battle! Explosions! Ball-E is piloting a discount AT-ST (but that’s good, apparently, because he’s not an Ewok), and Finn gets to fight someone much taller than him. And thanks to an explosion taking out a part of the hangar floor, Finn does what the Hound never could: he defeats Brienne of Tarth.

Why was everything exploding, you may ask? Well, while all of the discount Cloud City was going on, discount Effie Trinket was doing, well, nothing. Just lazily flying the fleet straight forward to certain doom. One by one, the fleet was getting picked off until only discount Home One was left. Poe, naturally, sees that this is a ridiculously stupid idea and protests, but Effie Trinket isn’t about to let some hotshot flyboi tell her what to do. And neither is Poe, apparently, because he and the character played by Carrie Fisher’s daughter (whose name I can’t recall) decide to mutiny and do something to save the ship: oh yes, C-3PO is there and even more useless than ever. Poe relieves discount Effie of her command when he sees that she’s going to evacuate the ship and leave them all to die. But then Leia wakes up and says “shame on you Poe” for rebelling against discount Effie. Then, because we need a discount Battle of Hoth, a planet with an abandoned Rebel base on it materializes out of thin air and they send their transports down to the planet. Meanwhile, discount Home One is out of fuel and the First Order fleet is advancing. So discount Effie trinket has all the transports go down to discount Hoth while she puts the discount Home One on auto-pilot and puts it on a ramming course to distract the First Order fleet, then takes the last transport because the Resistance is in tatters and every man and woman counts.

Oh wait, that’s what someone who wasn’t a complete moron would do! She elects to stay behind and personally ram discount Home One into the discount Executor, causing a massive explosion. I don’t mind using the last of the hyper-drive to hit the enemy fleet, because, well, most people wouldn’t do that because it destroys your ship and you can only do it once. So for all those who say that it defeats the point of space battles, it’s not very cost-effective. The problem here is that she needlessly sacrifices herself (maybe she feels bad because of giving up and letting so many others die on her watch?), and that now ships can be piloted by only one person.

Okay, so we’ll talk about the discount Battle of Hoth in a bit, because that’s where the A plot and B plot unite. So now let’s go back to the A plot.

Rey, Chewbacca, and R2-D2 (who is no longer Kenny Baker, RIP) go to the ocean planet with the one island and find Luke Skywalker in exile. Rey offers him Anakin’s lightsaber, which he slowly takes…and then tosses over his shoulder in rejection.

An article I read recently applauded this as one of the many moments where Rian Johnson told the older Star Wars movies to “eat shit.” So Rian Johnson was given control over a saga for which he has absolutely no respect. Everyone hated George Lucas for what he did that was apparently “eat shit, original trilogy” in the eyes of the fans (midichlorians, Jar Jar Binks, Greedo shooting first, etc.), but when Rian Johnson does it, everyone just claps like retarded sea-lions and eats it all up?

So now Rey tries to convince Luke Skywalker to train her in the ways of the Jedi, as well as to come back because the universe needs the Jedi (because, you know, Esbern in The Force Awakens said that the Jedi are needed in order for there to be balance in the Force). For some reason, the Jedi Knight who was willing to throw all caution to the wind to save Princess Leia, save his friends, and save his father from the Dark Side, doesn’t give a shit anymore. This has got to be the lamest possible excuse for “character development” since Blizzard shat on Jaina Proudmoore.

Speaking of shit…

Porgs. Apparently everyone is on board with porgs. This is annoying because they’re like minions from Despicable Me. As someone who grew up with the original trilogy, it is also annoying because I remember everyone hating the Ewoks for the same reason that everyone liked the porgs; because they’re cute. There is a scene where Chewbacca is about to eat a porg but because of cute little eyes, he doesn’t. The Ewoks were about to roast and eat the heroes in Return of the Jedi; they need to declare a crusade against the porgs in the name of Goldenrod and serve them as the main course at a banquet in his honor.

As we’re on the subject of stupid humor, there is a moment where Luke milks a giant alien creature for blue milk. We even get to see its six pig tits. Why? What was the point of that?

Now, before we continue, let me just get something off my chest: I HATE THIS NEW MORAL RELATIVISM TREND!!! I mean, World of Warcraft is making it so that the Light is evil and the Void is good! Shadow of War makes Galadriel evil and Shelob good! Basically everyone and their mother is hopping on the moral relativism bandwagon, but they still think it’s “fresh”, “new”, “unqiue” and “interesting”, even though it’s being done to death! And Star Wars is guilty of this liberal bullshit as well, now that Disney has the Force by its balls! We got this in Rogue One in spades, where the Rebellion are a bunch of cowards who shoot each other in the back, surrender at the first obstacle, and plot to kill Galen “i’m not the bad-guy” Erso. And guess what? We’re getting that in The Last Jedi!

So Rey finally convinces Luke to train her in the ways of the Jedi, and he accepts only on the condition that he tells her also why the Jedi have to die off. So he kind of cynically teaches her the Force while saying that the Jedi became “too big” and “legends”, which is why they need to go. There is a funny moment where Rey fails to follow Luke’s instructions and he whacks her hand with a leaf. But that’s about it. She’s apparently so powerful with the Force that Luke gets scared because it reminds him of Ben Solo. Also, Luke mocks the Force by dismissing it as “lifting rocks” and calling his lightsaber a “laser sword.”

In her studies, Rey is being called to a discount Dagobah cave that is strong with the dark side of the Force (we can say dark side, but we can’t call the light side “good.” Rey doesn’t feel “good” in Kylo Ren, she feels “conflict.” Because, after all, we can’t call the light side “good” anymore because grey shit). While she’s there, she sees something very similar to what happened to Luke in the Dagobah cave; some vague introspective message that tells her something about herself.

Now comes the shit show. Part of Rey’s Force powers is her connection to Kylo Ren. Throughout the A plot, she begins having Force visions where she can see him and he can see her, but they can’t see where the other is. Through this they communicate, as well as have some female fan-service that was probably an “eat shit” moment aimed at Return of the Jedi’s famous golden bikini scene (because objectifying men is good, but objectifying women is bad). Through this we learn why Ben Solo fell to the dark side, and it is the stupidest reason ever. It is shown in three flashbacks, one with the basic reason, one with Kylo’s version, and one where Luke tells the whole story. Basically Luke senses that Ben is so powerful and, before he falls to the dark side, decides to kill him. But at the very last moment, he hesitates; but Ben wakes up at that very moment and misunderstanding happens and he goes to the dark side.

As Kyle Broflovski would say, “This is fucking retarded!”

The Jedi Council of the prequel trilogy feared Anakin’s power, but until he slew Jedi (and their younglings) after falling to the dark side, their fears never manifested in anything greater than distrust. Luke Skywalker fears the power of his nephew…and tries to kill him! He clearly knows about Darth Sidious and the fall of the Old Republic from the Clone War (maybe the Jedi books told him that? Maybe Hayden Christensen came back as a Force spirit and told him about the prequel trilogy?), so he should know better than to make WORSE mistakes than the Jedi Council! His attachment to his friends and family were stronger than anything else, but he chooses to KILL his nephew? Remember when he saw his mechanical hand in Return of the Jedi, realized that he was going down the path of the dark side because his father also had lost his hands (once to Dooku and the other time to Obi-wan), and that was a subtle moment of character development that was lost on all the dumbasses who worshiped Empire Strikes Back and wanted him to be evil? Well, apparently that was meaningless! Fanboys who have defended this movie say that this doesn’t ruin his character because he doesn’t go through with it. But he made the choice to do it in his mind, talked himself into going into Ben’s room in the dead of night, and even had his lightsaber in his hand and activated. This moment is a complete and total shit on everything that Return of the Jedi was!

So, then, because Disney has to copy Empire Strikes Back and because, according to the new conventional wisdom of today, the student knows more than the teacher even when the student is wrong, Rey leaves the planet to go find Kylo Ren. But we get to see a cameo of Yoda, in a VERY crappy imitation of the Return of the Jedi puppet come back as a Force ghost to burn the Jedi books and tell Luke that he failed to “pass on what he has learned.” Because apparently that didn’t mean “teach others the ways of the Force” but “teach others what a failure you are.” I hope the paycheck was big, Frank Oz.

Then, because we’re copying Return of the Jedi, Rey surrenders to Kylo Ren. They meet and he takes her before Smeagol (aka. Snoke), all decked out in gold and surrounded by discount Imperial Red Guards. He takes Anakin’s lightsaber and puts it on the arm of his chair, because we have to copy Return of the Jedi. Rey tries to pull it out of his grasp, but he pulls it back and whacks her in the back of the head with it. Another funny moment, but two funny moments can’t save this train-wreck of a movie. But thankfully we get this moment of the big bad torturing the Mary Sue.

So Smeagol tries to “Force” Rey into telling him where Luke Skywalker is. Why? Does he want to turn him to the dark side? Does he want to kill him? Does he want to absorb his life essence? Does he want to train him? Does he want the Jedi books? We’ll never know, because he fails and then tries to have Kylo Ren, who he’s been treating like shit for being a complete and total bitch and a failure, kill Rey. But instead Kylo Ren kills Snoke in the most unsatisfying and lamest death in the entire Star Wars saga.

Darth Maul actually fought and killed one of the main characters before his ignoble death. Count Dooku had hints of being a noble character, one who believed that he was saving the Republic and showed his regret for the death of Qui-Gon Jinn and the refusal of the Jedi Masters to surrender, before he got unceremoniously offed in Revenge of the Sith (TCW is non-canon in my eyes). But the new big bad, the one who takes the Emperor’s role as the master to Kylo Ren’s apprentice, goes out like a bitch! And you know why? Because Rian Johnson wanted to focus on developing Kylo Ren, and, as he himself said, that 30 seconds of backstory or motivation would have “dragged these scenes out too much.”

Glad to see where your priorities are, Michael Bay!

So after killing Snoke, Kylo Ren and Rey kill off the discount Imperial guards, they try to convince the other to join their respective sides and fail; then they try to claim Anakin’s lightsaber for their own. And then they break it.

Something that was apparently so important in The Force Awakens now gets destroyed. This goes to show just how much Rian Johnson (and apparently Jar Jar Abrams) cares about the Star Wars story, even the one they themselves made!

So after discount Effie Trinket rams the discount Executor at light-speed and rips it apart and there’s a big explosion, Rey escapes and Kylo is apparently dead. Hux appears and is about to save the world and this franchise by putting this bitch out of his misery. But unfortunately Kylo Ren wakes up and assumes the mantle of Supreme Leader of the First Order. Tolkien had the Witch King, Warcraft had the Lich King, and now Star Wars has the Bitch King.

So our heroes go down to the rebel base as the discount Battle of Hoth begins. Kylo Ren sends down the discount AT-AT walkers (the monkey legs look stupid), while Poe and Finn, along with Rose and some other pilots, fly some discount speeders to try and stop the First Order’s battering ram which is, you guessed it, another Death Star. Gee, I hope Kylo Ren doesn’t build yet another Death Star in Episode IX. Finn actually has a moment of character where this usually cowardly character is about to give his life to save the last of the Resistance, but he fails. Everyone fails. The battering ram shatters the shield door and the Resistance is all but dead. There is no way out except by the main door. So Kylo Ren gives the order to lay waste to everything in sight, while the discount AT-ATs bombard the base and kill everyone in it.

Oh wait, that’s what someone who wasn’t a complete moron would do! Because Mary Sue is here to the rescue, and because Kylo Ren’s answer for letting the past die is to kill it (and apparently that justifies patricide. such a dumbass!), he orders all his forces to fire everything at the Millennium Falcon. So Rey and Chewbacca have to lose the TIE Fighters by flying into a red crystal canyon that brings to mind the escape from the Second Death Star from Return of the Jedi (even down to the radar dish getting knocked off as well!).

But wait, it gets better. Luke Skywalker has appeared again! But not really, he’s just a projection of himself through the Force. He appears before the First Order army to face down Kylo Ren. Kylo orders everyone to fire everything at him, leading to the third funny moment of this movie (“Do you think you killed him?”), but it turns out he didn’t. So Kylo Ren comes down to face the projection. But Luke isn’t really here to fight, just to die. Because killing the projection somehow kills Luke and he becomes one with the Force, but not after saying that Rey is now the Last Jedi (“roll credits”, says CinemaSins Jeremy after sucking this movie’s dick for ten minutes). So Luke goes out in a very unsatisfying way. And the Resistance is saved by Mary Sue using the Force with greater ease and control than Luke did in his second movie, they all go aboard the Millennium Falcon and soar off into space as a kid pulls a broom into his hand with the Force on the casino world.

That is long version. The movie was a disappointment. For all of “let the past die, kill it if you have to”, it’s damnably stuck copying the original trilogy, while at the same time shitting on everything that Star Wars was about and all the character development our characters went through. This movie didn’t suck because it was “different”, it sucked because it was too much of the same and was a poor movie. Of course, Disney is doing its best damage control to make everything believe that their movies are good and relevant, sometimes by outright saying that any criticism of this movie is from “online trolls”, or that any unfavorable review is “fake news” and other such bullshit terms.

We learned nothing about our new characters: Snoke had no character, Kylo is still a bitch, Rey is still a Mary Sue, Luke got royally screwed, and the big motivation of Rey’s from the previous movie, the search for her parents, was set up as nothing. Because apparently they were nobodies; it could be an intentional red herring, but considering how much Disney left plotholes and story-arcs they created to dangle unresolved, or to just mock us for our interest in them, we might just get only that.

As you may have guessed, I have been referring to these films as “the Disney Star Wars” and not “Episode VII” or “Episode VIII” because, to me, they are not part of the canon. Star Wars for me ended with Episode VI. The Force was balanced when Anakin killed the Emperor at the end of Return of the Jedi. I won’t intentionally watch the next one (“Episode IX”) when it comes out, unless I am invited to do so. My expectations for it are very low.