Star Wars: The Last Jedi - SPOILER FREE with a kid review!

Ok guys, I sent the hubs (and the oldest kiddo) to review the movie.  We were invited to preview the movie in exchange for an honest review.  All of these thoughts are his...

I took my Clara to see The Last Jedi yesterday.  I want to say that it was good but not up to the originals.  Or that it followed Empire Strikes Back too much.  Or that Greedo shot first.  I can't.  The Last Jedi is the best movie I have seen in years.  It made me laugh and not just for fan-service shout-outs.  I teared up but not from nostalgia.  I gripped by arm rest and squeezed my daughter.  Not just for light-saber duels and spaceship dogfights.  This movie had everything.  In space.  With the force.  And Chewbacca.  Does it get better?  No.  The answer is no.

I enjoyed this movie so thoroughly that I am suspicious that I missed something. Like finding a twenty dollar bill in your pocket, you feel like this was already spent. But the desperation is more palpable, the enemy more competent, and the stakes are higher and higher. Just a great great movie. 

I want to revisit my first trip to a Star Wars movie. I was six years old when I went to The Return of the Jedi. The entire family had gone school shopping, and I had new shoes - always the most exciting part of the day. I remember swinging my feet in the movie theater chair, looking at my shoes, and enjoying the new feel and the fresh material. The movie started. I was enthralled. When I took a potty-break, I was on my way back in before I remembered the new shoes I had been so excited about just an hour earlier. I marveled that the story was so engrossing that I had forgotten I had new shoes.  The story in Return of the Jedi was bigger than the other movies. Both more terrifying and fun than Empire. Jabba. Ewoks (OK, YMMV, but I was 6!). The EMPEROR. I remember the despair when Luke writhed in pain under the Emperor’s use of force lightning. We did not have any idea that the force could be like this. Despair. 

Which brings us back to The Last Jedi. Despair is the emotional note that makes The Last Jedi different from the movies after the original trilogy. With the themes of light and dark, opposites pulling at each other, the true opposite to the New Hope is the Old Despair. This is the first Star Wars movie make me feel the despair I felt as a six-year old watching the Emperor in the Return of the Jedi.  And that's a good thing.

Perhaps too intense for little children, my 2nd grader was right in the sweet spot. She enjoyed every bit. Some death occurs on screen, but no blood. Light language. The flying scenes make me want to dig out my helmet from my Navy days and shout "Pew Pew" to return to time long ago in a galaxy far, far away.  

In Lucasfilm’s Star Wars: The Last Jedi, the Skywalker saga continues as the heroes of The Force Awakens join the galactic legends in an epic adventure that unlocks age-old mysteries of the Force and shocking revelations of the past. 

The film stars Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, Adam Driver, Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac, Lupita Nyong’o, Andy Serkis, Domhnall Gleeson, Anthony Daniels, Gwendoline Christie, Kelly Marie Tran, Laura Dern and Benicio Del Toro.           

Star Wars: The Last Jedi is written and directed by Rian Johnson and produced by Kathleen Kennedy and Ram Bergman. J.J. Abrams, Tom Karnowski and Jason McGatlin are the executive producers.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi opens in U.S. theaters on December 15, 2017.

In case you are wondering, Clara LOVED it!  She now says it's her new favorite movie.

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