On December 15, 2017, Disney released Star Wars: The Last Jedi. This is the eighth film installment (not counting Rogue One, because I pretend it does not exist) in the Star Wars universe, and undoubtedly, one of the worst.
The sequel to J.J. Abrams' The Force Awakens, Rian Johnson's The Last Jedi is a poor attempt at expanding the ever-large Star Wars universe. The biggest problem I have with this film is the amount of unnecessary plots, characters, and dialogue, also known as the Rose and Finn storyline.
The Rose and Finn plot was a nightmare. Played by Kelly Marie Tran and John Boyega respectively, these two characters meet as Finn is planning to leave the Resistance convoy to go find Rey. Rose proceeds to taze him before letting him explain himself. But it is easier to clarify your intentions when you are completely immobile, right? Finn would agree.
After a quick chat, the two confront Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac), the Resistance's best Starfighter, with a plan to save the Resistance. But because there is no way General Leia (Carrie Fisher) would be okay with said plan, Poe makes it a secret mission. That is the rebel thing to do.
Thus, Rose and Finn sneak off to the planet of Cantonica. The mission is to bring back a master hacker, recommended by Maz (Lupita Nyong'o), to disable the tracking device in the First Order's ship. On Cantonica, there is a giant casino city, Canto Bight, full of boujee rich folk. While hunting for the hacker, they run into a lot of problems such as weird-deer horses, greedy aliens, and the snarky guy from the Heineken commercials (Benicio Del Toro) named DJ.
And what do you do when a whole city's security starts chasing you down? You jump on a stolen ship with the Heineken guy, who is conveniently promising that he can hack the First Order's system.
I will not go into detail about what happens once these characters on the First Order's ship, but everyone and their mother knew that DJ was up to no good. The only upside to this venture was that we got to see Captain Phasma (Gwendoline Christie); what a delight.
DJ also reveals the Resistance's plan to use small transports to discreetly escape, which he would never have known if not for Rose and Finn. If they showed a body count between Poe, Rose, and Finn, I bet they would be giving the First Order a run for their money. But we did get to watch Vice Admiral Holdo (Laura Dern) slice through Snoke's ship at lightspeed, which was probably the coolest part of the whole movie.
Cut to everyone facing off on the planet, Crait. The Resistance is holed up in an old Rebel Alliance base. They decide that their first line of defense against huge AT-ATs, TIE fighters, and a siege cannon are retro speeders that can barely stay upright. Poe, Finn, and Rose realize that the siege cannon is about to blow a hole through the fortress.
In a moment of selflessness, Finn attempts to run his speeder into the cannon, which might give the Resistance a fighting chance. But in comes Rose, barreling across the salt field, and plows Finn and his speeder out of the cannon's path.
Now, Rose is basically unconscious at this point. She probably should have died. If she was so keen to die for Finn, why did she not run into the cannon? This is the question that has kept me up at night.
In conclusion, the movie would still be coherent if the Rose and Finn storyline did not exist in the first place. Their plot introduced new places and characters that added nothing to the movie. We did not need their supposed budding relationship or their "adventure."
Romance is about the last thing one needs when they are being hunted by an autocratic military with a short-tempered Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) at the head. But in the long run, this movie just made me appreciate the originals even more.
