By The debate over the merits and quality of The Last Jedi will be a battle that rages on long after we’re all dead. Whether you liked it or not, the general Star Wars fanbase seems to have dismissed the film outright. It didn’t help when actor Mark Hamill was adding gas to the fire, but now co-star John Boyega is dumping on the film, too.
In a recent interview with Hypebeast, Boyega admitted that he felt The Last Jedi was a bit “iffy.” “The Force Awakens I think was the beginning of something quite solid, The Last Jedi if I’m being honest I’d say that was feeling a bit iffy for me,” he said. “I didn’t necessarily agree with a lot of the choices in that and that’s something that I spoke to Mark [Hamill] a lot about and we had conversations about it. And it was hard for all of us, because we were separated.”
For Boyega, the main reason is that the friendship between Finn, Rey, and Poe wasn’t explored as intimately as in the original trilogy. During the events of A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi, the trio of main characters were given ample screen time to play off of each other. While Force Awakens featured a lot of that, The Last Jedi did not. With only one film left, Boyega said, “I don’t know how quickly we’re going to be able to establish that long-term dynamic with [The Rise of Skywalker].”
I think Boyega is having selective memory here (Empire really doesn’t feature the trio together all that often), but at least his complaints are more with character development than plot twists. It’s fair to say that the main characters felt a little off in The Last Jedi, something I even criticized about the film. It’s not that you couldn’t understand their actions, but there wasn’t much in the way of development for anyone other than Rey.
This is mostly because the film was more thematic in nature, but that’s a different debate. For the time being, I guess the haters can feel a little more justified in their disapproval. Even John Boyega kind of agrees with you.
John Boyega is on his own Hero’s Journey [Hypebeast]
