The Last Jedi, to put it mildly, is a rather polarizing movie. Half of the people I’ve spoken to seem to love it, half the people seem to hate it, and it’s hard to find anyone who’s really in the middle.

Despite what this review is going to be about (mostly me bitching about the plot and missed character development opportunities) I was generally okay with TLJ. I liked it more than The Force Awakens, which was terrible. It had some good humor and laugh-out-loud moments. There were some good action sequences. There was one moment toward the end which is probably at the top of my Most Badass Moments In Any Star Wars Movie. Overall, I’d give it a solid 4.5/10. Just for fun, here’s how I’d rate the rest of the movies:

• A New Hope 7/10
• The Empire Strikes Back 8/10
• Return of the Jedi 6/10
• The Phantom Menace 2/10
• Attack of the Clones 3/10
• Revenge of the Sith 5/10
• The Force Awakens 2/10
• Rogue One 6/10
• The Last Jedi 4.5/10

But. Despite that, the plot of The Last Jedi is absolutely terrible. It is an Idiot Plot, which is the worst kind of plot, because everything could simply and easily be resolved if the character wasn’t an Idiot. The classic example is the silly rom-com where someone sees someone else in what appears to be a compromising situation, and if one character picked up the phone and said “This is what actually happened” it resolves the rest of the movie. It’s lazy, inept screenwriting, and while it certainly shouldn’t be tolerated in a lazy rom-com, the fact that this is used as the main plot in a billion-dollar franchise like Star Wars staggers belief. So let’s get into it. Spoilers!

Plot A – The Rebel Escape

Our main plot picks up after Poe Dameron

disobeys orders to take out a Dreadnaught ship, but losing a bunch of Rebel ships in the process. Princess Leia slaps him across the face in a show of great leadership and demotes him on the spot. The Rebels flee, but the Empire First Order has developed hyperspace-tracking devices and keep chasing them after they jump to lightspeed, so escape seems unlikely. The main Rebel ship is also dangerously low on fuel and only has enough for one lightspeed jump, so most of this movie is them cruising along slightly ahead of the First Order while their shields deflect fire and the First Order patiently waits for the fuel to run out.

Things are complicated when Kylo Ren pilots his TIE fighter inside the landing hangar of the Rebel ship and blows up all their remaining X-wings, so they have no firepower left. “But wait,” you might be asking, “the TIE fighters can fly inside the Rebel shields and destroy shit? Why don’t they just keep launching TIE fighters to blast the ship to smithereens without giving the Rebels time to figure out a convoluted escape plan? Why keep firing ineffectually from a distance from our giant ships for several days?” Great question; because they’re idiots.

The TIE fighters swing around and blow a hold in the bridge which depressurizes and kills all the Rebel commanders, that’s why they should be in different spots in the ship. Admiral “It’s a trap!” Ackbar dies and will never be mourned or mentioned, fuck him it’s not his movie. Leia floats out in the harsh and unforgiving vacuum of space, but keeps her cool while slowly freezing to death to use the Force to pull herself back into the bridge and collapse against the inner door which they then open despite the fact that the bridge is still in vacuum and would suck them all out, but that’s probably not a plot hole, because *JediMindTrick* technology. Anyway, Leia’s now in a coma and Purple-Haired Holdo

is now the ranking officer, and the TIE fighters go back because once you blow a hole in one section of the ship and take out their offensive weapons, no need to continue destroying the ship…that they want to destroy. And kill everyone on board.

They can destroy it. They don’t.

Because they’re idiots.

Poe is naturally freaking out because they’re all going to die and they don’t have any plan for how to escape and Purple-Haired Holdo doesn’t trust him or something so she’s keeping her cards close to her chest, which brings us to

Plot B – The Tracking Device Nonsense

Finn decides to get the fuck out of dodge before they all die but is tased by spunky Asian named Rose

who has been charged with guarding the escape pods and has been tasing people all day. Keep that in mind. The ship is full of terrified panicked people who know the situation, that they have no escape, and are literally just waiting around to run out of fuel and be obliterated – or worse, captured, and tortured for information before being executed. The morale on this ship is so fucking low they have a FULL TIME GUARD ACTIVELY TASING PEOPLE trying to steal escape pods. Keep this in mind for later.

Anyway, through plot convenience, they realize the tracking technology must be on one of the First Order ships. Just one. Not all of them. Why? Go fuck yourself.

[Side note: Remember A New Hope, where they let the Falcon escape because it had a homing beacon on it which would lead the Death Star to the Rebel base? You’d think the Rebels would suspect something like this existing technology would be used here, but nope, must be impossible new tech]

Thinking that this is their only means of escape, Finn, Poe, and Rose devise a plan where they’ll sneak off to some casino, find a hacker, hack their way into the First Order ship, disable the tracking device, and they can hyperspace jump to safety. They try to bring Purple-Haired Holdo on board but she thinks the idea is dumb and won’t work and would rather gamble on her own stupid plot. Now, every single one of these things will happen, except for the last two. Spoiler alert – the hacker sells them out and hyperspace jump is irrelevant. Meaning that everything that takes place here – about a full third of the movie – is utterly pointless. If Finn and Rose had spent this entire segment darning their socks while sipping space tea and listening to cantina music, the only impact to the plot is their actions wouldn’t have indirectly gotten several thousand Rebels killed, even though most of the fault there goes to Purple-Haired Holdo, which brings us back to

Plot A Again – I’m Not Making Any of This Up

Poe stages a mutiny, it fails, Leia wakes back and stuns him, and finally, Purple-Haired Holdo’s stroke of genius plan is…revealed.

They’re NOT going to escape using their big cruiser making a hyperspace jump. They’re going to use all the escape pods to fly to an old base that doesn’t have any defensive weapons or ships they can use, and they’re going to hope the First Order doesn’t notice this with their elaborate tracking technology that the First Order has, and kills them. Then they’re going to send out a distress call (hoping the First Order doesn’t hear, I guess) and hope that someone comes to their rescue before the First Order kills themselves, since the First Order has repeatedly demonstrated they have no real difficulty tracking the Rebels down.

Does this plan work? You bet your sweet ass it doesn’t work!

The First Order starts firing and destroys about 19/20 of the escape pods, the last one being our named characters who of course survive, and the remaining 25 or so Rebels will eventually make it to the base and send out the distress signal.

Does that signal bring help? Nope!

Meanwhile, Purple-Haired Holdo, in her final act staying behind on the giant Rebel spaceship, turns it around and executes a lightspeed jump through the main First Order ship, pretty much destroying it in one of the two truly excellent moments in this movie. Except it makes you wonder about the other, smaller Rebel ships with hyperspace capacity, that already ran out of fuel and were destroyed with their suicidal captains, and you wonder why they didn’t heroically sacrifice themselves in that way rather than heroically just dying? Because they’re idiots.

Why This Is So Goddamned Infuriating

The worst part of all this – despite the fact that Poe, Finn, and Spunky Asian’s entire plotline is completely pointless and has no impact to the plot whatsoever – is that it is incredibly easy to make every single bit of this convoluted mess make sense, AND still keep basically every single plot point that currently exists, AND improve the character arc and emotional journey of every.single.fucking.character. This is not hard. I saw this fucking movie at 7pm and figured out how to fix the script before I went to sleep at midnight. And it all starts with Purple-Haired Holdo’s inexcusably moronic decision to keep everyone in the dark to her plan for no fucking reason.

So let’s back this up. Holdo is now in command and she knows the First Order is tracking them through hyperspace jumps and maybe she suspects a traitor. She knows Poe is a bit roguish and just got demoted for making hotheaded decisions. And she knows that the entire Rebel ship is filled with terrified people who (remember) are getting tased left and right because they’re trying to sneak into escape pods in fear of their life. What does she do? Hypothetically, let’s say she’s keeping this a secret because she’s afraid there’s a traitor. So pick up a fucking mike and say to the ship “Hey guys. Don’t worry. I have a plan.”

That’s it. She doesn’t have to say what it is. Just be clear: she has a plan to get them out of this. Everyone calms down. Except, of course, Holdo doesn’t keep it a secret, just from Poe, the decorated Rebel war hero and former commander. She lets it slip to Finn and Spunky Asian who lets it slip to the hacker who sells them out to the First Order and 9/10s of the Rebels die. Because she’s an idiot.

So let’s take a walk down Hypothetical Lane and pretend that these characters are actually intelligent, and we wanted to give them actual things to do that will have some impact to this movie’s plot rather than standing around holding the Idiot Ball. What would that movie look like?

• For example, Purple-Haired Holdo tells Poe what her plan is. He doesn’t like it because it has low odds of success (it does) and will probably fail (it does). Conflict there.
• After scanning the ship and finding no homing beacon, Poe realizes that this tech must be on the First Order ship and they should try to disable it. He tells Purple-Haired Holdo.
• Since Purple-Haired Holdo is a reasonable person (remember, we’re in hypothetical land here) she agrees but says that to better the odds of success, they’ll do both plans: dispatch the team to disable the tracker, then have exactly X hours to succeed or she’ll trigger the escape pod plan. What’s this? A real feeling of urgency? Poe realizes that other people are smarter than him?
• They realize, though, that this is essentially a suicide mission; whoever makes it aboard the First Order ship to disable the tracker is unlikely to escape and make it back to the Rebels. Purple-Haired Holdo asks for volunteers.
• Finn now has to make an actual heart-wrenching decision like the Hero he is. Rather than trying to weasel out on an escape pod before getting tased, he realizes the best chance of saving the Rebellion & Rey is to go on this likely suicide mission, as he’s a former stormtrooper and knows his way around First Order ships. Rose tearfully volunteers to honor her dead sister.
• Poe, already distraught at his friend going to his likely death, is going to tell them about the double plan; but Purple-Haired Holdo stops him and says that Finn and Rose can’t know about the escape pod plan in case they’re caught and interrogated. Poe is horrified at having to lie to someone willingly sacrificing themselves, but Purple-Haired Holdo reminds Poe this is what leadership is; it’s about making hard decisions for the greater good and why sometimes the people in charge actually have a plan. Poe realizes she’s right. What’s this? Is this….character development?
• Finn and Rose aren’t able to disable the tracker but on the way they do rig up some explosives to help the Rebels out and we’re generally okay with this because we knew about both plans and that this was a long-shot.
• The escape pod plan is triggered! The First Order starts blowing them up because of course they do! Finn and Rose are captured but then the explosives they rigged go off, critically damaging the weaponry long enough to save half the Rebels AND letting them escape custody. What’s this, actual agency caused by characters being intelligent? This entire trip having a purpose to save lives?
• In her last, heroic act, after saving half the Rebels, Purple-Haired Holdo pilots (because remote piloting isn’t a thing, *JediMindTrick*) her spaceship to hyperspace through the First Order ship, thus permanently cementing her in Star Wars lore as a genius stone-cold officer who kicked ass, took names, and went out like a BAMF
• Finn and Rose share a kiss as they resign themselves to die aboard the First Order ship, and then Rey pokes her head out of a spaceship hatch and is all “Need a ride?”

Seriously. In this hypothetical situation, every single character has heightened personal and emotional stakes, the decisions they make are actually logical and reasonable like real people might make, every single character has to face their fears and make hard decisions that let them grow as a character, every single hero is actually…being a hero? Doing the Right Thing? Saving lives rather than letting others die through their incompetence and stupidity?

Plot C – Luke Skywalker & Rey

I won’t delve too far into this as it’s probably the best subplot of the movie, but…

• Luke: “Get the hell out of here. I won’t train you. I won’t leave. I don’t want be found. I came here to die.”
• Rey: “A major plot point of the last movie was finding the map that you left with directions to your hidden location. Why did you leave the map if you didn’t want to be found?”
• Luke: “…”
• Rey: “…”
• Luke: “Go fuck yourself.”

• Rey: “Can you teach me the ways of the Jedi, the difference between the Dark & Light sides of the Force, how to fight with a lightsaber, and what kind of person I should be and how I can make a difference as a human being?”
• Luke: “I can, but I won’t.”
• Rey: “OK!”

• 25 year old Luke: “Dad, I know you killed Obi-Wan – and my mom, I guess – and your stormtroopers killed my aunt and uncle, and you tortured Leia, and you used the Death Star to obliterate like eight billion people, and you chopped my arm off, and you let a bounty hunter freeze my best friend in carbonite, not to mention you wiped out the entire Jedi order, killed younglings, and helped a murderous dictator take over the Republic, but srsly, I won’t kill you. I know there’s good in you!”
• 65 year old Luke: “I sense great evil in this kid. Imma fucking murder him.”

In all seriousness. There’s a moment at the end where Luke faces off against some baddies, and it’s probably one of the greatest scenes to ever appear in a Star Wars movie. So there’s that, at least.