Film: Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi

Tonight's early evening film on tv was Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi. Perfect! thought I - I hadn't seen it.

Now, I missed the very beginning - and watching could be challenging, mainly because my mother had absolutely no interest, and kept talking over it. She managed to stop eventually. I will say this - it's a long one, nearly three hours - it's just lucky that it was due to finish around newstime. She really wanted to watch the news.

This is the second last film in the nine-part main story. Again, Mark Hamill reprises his role as Luke Skywalker - older now, and living as a recluse (reminiscent of Sir Alec Guinness, the reclusive Jedi Obi-Wan Kenobi in Episode IV) on the Skelligs (very attractively filmed, making for a great travel ad). Carrie Fisher reprises her role as his sister, Leia Organa - her very last, as she died while the film was being made! It seems that she had already filmed all her scenes - but the sound re-recording hadn't been completed, so her dialogue had to be spliced together from other recordings. Anthony Daniels returns as everyone's favourite protocol droid, C3P0. And Frank Oz is, of course, the voice of Jedi master Yoda.

Those are the only remaining cast from the original trilogy - of course, the more recent cast members are also there, such as Adam Driver, who plays her son (now turned to evil, as Kylo Ren), Daisy Ridley as the newest Jedi, Rey, who becomes Luke's protegee, and John Boyega as a rebel pilot. We also run across Oscar Isaac among the rebels. Andy Serkis is Snoke, the supreme leader of the First Order, the replacement for the Galactic Empire of the original films. Lupita Nyong'o is apparently a collector of items related to the Force - I missed seeing her, myself. Domhnall Gleeson does a nice turn as a sinister First Order commander. Laura Dern is a rebel commander, and Benicio del Toro is a thief.

:-) It was worth watching. I loved how the Skelligs come across, and I loved every reference to the original films, of which I'm a massive fan. In fact, in scenes that are reproductions of key scenes in the original films, I even noticed similarities in the scripts! My favourite scenes related to anything to do with the Force, and there's plenty of story there, such as a confrontation between Rey and Snope (Kylo Ren in the background), which is so similar to the confrontation between Luke and Emperor Palpatine in Episode VI (Darth Vader in the background). Or the final confrontation between Kylo Ren and Luke - just like that between Vader and Obi-Wan. And the original theme music is back. Perhaps another part of the reason why this film is often considered better than other recent additions to the series is the lack of dependence on particular characters; frankly, most of the new actors just don't have the charisma to carry the story, as those from the original trilogy did. But here, the story zips along, and we're not too bothered about that. Recommended, for fans of the originals. My only regret was that I couldn't watch the closing credits, featuring the iconic theme music.. I'd promised to turn over to the news as soon as the credits started to roll. Bah humbug..

I have managed to watch about half an hour of the tv documentary made by Robert Fisk, From Beirut to Bosnia, about the relationship between the Middle East and the West. Hard to find, it's available on the Sands Films site - part of an homage to Robert Fisk. It was late at night though, and I fell asleep - not the fault of the film, I was just trying to do too much. And yes, I still have a film backlog of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, Snowden, The Unbelievable Truth, Time (all on Amazon Prime), and Zero de Conduite, on the Internet Archive. Watch this space.. and meantime, have a very Merry Christmas!