Star Wars: The Last Jedi

Mark Hamill is still awesome.

Continuing on from The Force Awakens, the majority of this film sees the rebels on the run from the Empire First Order while Rey attempts to convince the retired Luke Skywalker to come back into action. Once more, the acting and CGI are good but this time around I do have to question some decisions made about the plot.

New cute critter to market - check.

Rey's arc - I quite liked everything there from the island and almost everything with Kylo. The rebels running is fine and drives most of the movie. Luke is great. There's just one "side quest" which is mainly moving pawns across the board in a very round about way. This is completely useless. COMPLETELY.

Why? (spoilers ahead - highlight to read) I am talking about Finn's role here. Without the thief's info, more rebels would have made it to their destination resulting in a bigger final battle like Hoth, than what seems to be a final "skirmish". Alternatively, they could have played the "not everyone is good/evil card" better by making a rebel traitor (the thief) because his family/friend is held hostage by the enemy, giving him the same motivation as Finn. 

The mechanic girl could have been introduced the same way and had her major role finding and stopping him. Rey might have rescued said people, and the thief could have had a redeeming bit. No Finn required - they could have made a stronger movie by killing him. No odd phone call to the glasses alien who was clearly too busy to take a call either.

On things are more complicated than good and evil note, I wish they ballsed up and actually made Kylo not evil, but nope. After the epic co-op part of the movie someone just put their foot down and said they needed him as a villain. Shame. I'd love it if they can make Kylo the Jedi and Rey the Sith in the next flick but I doubt they will deviate much further from their stock standard formula.

An entertaining action film and one I'd probably watch again eventually. The thing is my wife and I just watched LEGO Batman the day before and guess what? LEGO Batman is better. I give this 2.5 Jedi mind tricks out of 5.

Star Wars: Rogue One

Develop emotional attachments at your peril!

While The Force Awakens is sort of a retelling of A New Hope, Rogue One goes totally off tandem to do it's own thing to tell the story of just how the rebels got their hands on that Death Star schematic.

As expected the visuals and soundtrack are great and the majority of the characters do their parts well too. Big thumbs up to Donnie Yen. It also ticks the box of "action flick" given the number of explosions and my favorite part is that most of the good guys die.

Queue new material for Star Wars Battlefront...

I also like that they show how each of them goes out (though majority is through the same way). None of this Deathly Hallows crap where you just hear about it later or see people possibly dead, possibly sleeping with no explanation. There are equally silly bits though, such as why is there a Prince of Persia trap in the archives? Lol.

Definitely not a movie for everyone, but it turned out to be right up my alley! I give Rogue One 3.5 imperial grenades out of 5.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens some Spoliers!

Four out of five lightsabers.

Since everyone and their dog has already reviewed this, I'm starting off with my final rating for a change (see above). This is a good movie, definitely better than the prequels. CGI is great, locations and sets are great, the acting is great. Lots of strange extra critters that didn't need to be in the movie? Great!

There are also good humor moments and of course an excellent sound track to go with it. I'm sure fans are already learning Rey's piano theme now. It is definitely worth watching for its own merits instead of just "so I know what's going on when Star Wars VIII comes out". I've already seen it twice! :)

Radar Tech "Matt" gives it a thumbs up!

There are however, some things that seemed a little off for me (highlight to read spoilers):

-It's a lot like episode IV. Not necessarily a bad thing, just a little odd.
-Rebel base: Everyone seems to be running for running's sake.
-Rebel base: Clearly ran out of copper paint for C3P0's arm.
-Orphan girl learns to be mechanic. Ok. Learns how to fight. Ok. Learns how to fly (outdated) starships? Uhhh.
-How long has the First Order been around? How long did it take them to build a base, with fully grown trees?
-How do said trees survive as base flies between two suns?
-What the heck were the rebels and the republic doing while the First Order base was being built?
-Lol chasm at the climax of the final fight. Plot device much?
-Speaking of Plot device: R2D2s convenient, unexplained awakening to let the story continue.
-No one would have escaped the formation of a new sun. That was a sudden end to the story huh.