Okay, so. Making an effort to do more, longer-content posts on the Board. Time is limited for me, but I have to try. I feel like my job is pulling me away from my number-one hobby, and I don't like it. From here on out, I intend to try to write something about every piece of fiction I consume, and hopefully inspire a discussion thread as a result.

Anyway. Star Wars. I saw it yesterday with my mom and brother, and the following will essentially be my unfiltered, initial impressions, as I haven't yet watched or read any reviews online. Here is the official SPOILER WARNING for not only The Last Jedi, but probably for at least some aspects of the other seven films, as well. And I'm potentially spoiling everything so please, go no further if you haven't watched yet.

Also, I don't have all the new character and planet names memorized yet, so forgive me for being vague about any of those. And for rambling. It will be mostly rambling.

I think this was the best-written and best-plotted Star Wars to date. It's far more character-motivated than any of the others by far. The inevitable consequence of this is that Last Jedi finally does what I feel Lucas was trying to communicate about the setting all along, particularly in the prequel trilogy, but wasn't quite able to due to his poor writing ability: make Star Wars morality not black-and-white. And to make the message even more powerful, that it's delivered primarily through Luke Skywalker, a character that pop culture has viewed for decades as one of the most generic golden-boy good guys. It was a little shocking to see him criticizing the Jedi order, but also kind of freeing, when it comes down to it. To me, this says (finally) that it's not the side you say you're on, not the face value colors you wear, but the things you do with the abilities you possess. The film plays with this in so many ways, both subtle and obvious. Luke's lack of regard for the past Jedi institutions, while focusing his training of Rey on simply studying and understanding the Force itself, is a big part of it. Rey herself also supports this theme, overtly being called by the natural Dark Side cave on the island, and sometimes having some darkly utilitarian thoughts ("The Force is something the Jedi use to control people and . . . and move things."), while very clearly having "good" goals in defeating Snoke and keeping the Resistance alive.

Kylo Ren has become a much more interesting villain to me this time around. The film makers did an incredible job of setting up his turn to the Light Side, making him interact with Rey throughout the movie, having such heartfelt and honest discussions with her, and . . . man, it was such a stirring scene for me when he offed Snoke and stood back-to-back with Rey to fight off the Knights of Ren! And of course, the ending of Return of the Jedi set us all up to expect Kylo to join the Light . . . so what a depressing let-down right afterwards, when he takes control of the First Order and continues the attack on the Resistance! But it makes Kylo a more believable villain for me. Most of the past Star Wars villains, particularly Palpatine and Maul, were basically motivated by their belief systems, acting in the name of the Sith religion for purely abstract reasons. I like that Kylo rejects all that came before, acting in the name of his own desires. I hope things stay that way in Episode IX, now that he has essentially ended the Sith as we've known it so far. It also makes him an unexpected mirror to Luke, since during this film they both more or less literally burn down the legacies of the established faiths they once represented.

Slight side note from there: I love that after all the fan theories about Snoke's identity and significance to past SW history, he just gets killed off with no real revelations or examination of him here. What a great red herring! Incidentally, now that I've seen him in non-hologram form and heard him speak more, I do think he was Palpatine after all. I can easily see the texture of his skin and the mutilation of the left side of his face being results of the electrocution and fall Palpatine took at the end of RotJ, and his voice frequently takes on the same growling timber of the Emperor's sexy voice. But as I said, it really doesn't matter any more, and I'm okay with that.

One major, ongoing weakness that this film shares with the entire rest of the series is that we still don't have a reasonable explanation behind the politics in the conflict. Like, the prequel trilogy remains the most solid politics explanation so far, and that primarily only worked because Palpatine stood to gain so much in a dictatorship because he got to be the dictator. I suppose Snoke's motivation in starting the First Order was probably similar, but I can't understand why General Hux and the rest of the storm trooper regimens are so dedicated to wiping out the Senate and the Resistance, when they're essentially nothing but grunts. In The Force Awakens, Hux gave that grand speech about wiping out chaos and imposing order, but that's just philosophy. I want to really know why Hux and company think a dictatorship is the best, most efficient, most productive way to run the galaxy. I want to know what problems were either being caused by, or not being addressed by, the Republic Senate that justified obliterating seven planets' worth of sentient people. I think the non-Force using Empire/Order side of the conflict in SW is unavoidably going to feel rather cardboard until we start to understand their viewpoint better. But again, hopefully Kylo's turning away from "identity politics" in this film will allow more room for development of a real purpose to the First Order in future films.

Finally, Yoda. Yo-yo-yo-yo-yoda! His appearance was just such an absolute pleasure. Frank Oz's performance follows along from the ones in Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, complete with the return to the puppet, rather than the CGI used for Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith. Even admitting that the puppet technology really doesn't look that good in the current age of film, it felt good, it felt right, to know that in the final moment of that scene, Mark Hamill and the Yoda puppet were actually leaning against each other, and that it wasn't something just added in post. It also fits that the puppet form of the original trilogy is Yoda's "defining" point in time from which Yoda appears as a ghost, as I feel that even Yoda was being influenced by the decadence of the Jedi order during the events of the prequel trilogy (even he couldn't see beyond the veil of darkness Palpatine was cloaked in), and that his time on Dagobah was truly the time of his greatest enlightenment under the Force. Following from this, and tying into my earlier point about not equating "Light Side" with "Jedi" and "Dark Side" with "Sith," Yoda is even the one who follows up on Luke's desire to wipe out the old Jedi codes and laws by immolating them, even using natural lightning to do so—an excellent Light Side use to parallel the long-established use of lightning as an attack by Dark Side users. For a scene that contains a lightning bolt and small forest fire, it's such a peaceful, comforting scene. Very well done!

Finally, some minor stuff. I like the guinea pig-birds as fine and funny SW-feeling background decoration, but disliked the crystal canines, as they looked a bit too much like a World of Warcraft monster, even though they actually had a storyline purpose. However, I loved the planet the crystal canines lived on, though. I first saw that planet, and I was like, "Oh, an all-ice world, like Hoth." But then, it turns out to be salt! A planet whose geology is primarily salt! That's so original, and made for some great visuals during that battle sequence, especially in the underground caves later on. It might even account for the stupid appearance of the crystal canines, if the crystals in their fur are partly due to salt being incorporated into their biology. I found the hologram cameo from Maz to be pretty unnecessary and tacked-on, especially since Rose came from the planet Maz directed her group to anyway. Seems like she could have just known about the master hacker guy herself, and saved the movie an entire scene. The scene in the casino was great. It had all the creativity of past "cantinas" in both set and character design, but felt noticeably different from any setting we've seen in SW so far. It also put the overly clean and shiny aesthetic of the prequel trilogy to much more appropriate use. I probably don't even have to point out that the heroes rescuing the hippogriff-looking animals that were being abused for sport gave me all kinds of happy feels quite beyond the ones being invoked by watching a new SW movie. I especially love that the animals escape by trashing the casino, where the money raised off betting on them was being spent. And the final sequence involving Luke was perfect in every way.

—doctorlit calls it: Episode IX will have Hayden Christensen appear as Anakin's Force ghost, and it will be amazing

Here are some spoiler lines for use in discussion posts, to keep spoilers out of the automatically generated previews:

"They hate that spoiler." "They hate that spoiler." "They hate that spoiler." "They hate that spoiler." "They hate that spoiler." "They hate that spoiler." "They hate that spoiler." "They hate that spoiler." "They hate that spoiler." "They hate that spoiler." "They hate that spoiler." "They hate that spoiler." "They hate that spoiler." "They hate that spoiler." "They hate that spoiler." "They hate that spoiler." "They hate that spoiler." "They hate that spoiler." "They hate that spoiler." "They hate that spoiler." "They hate that spoiler." "They hate that spoiler." "They hate that spoiler." "They hate that spoiler." "They hate that spoiler." "They hate that spoiler." "They hate that spoiler." "They hate that spoiler." "They hate that spoiler." "They hate that spoiler." "They hate that spoiler." "They hate that spoiler." "They hate that spoiler." "They hate that spoiler." "They hate that spoiler." "They hate that spoiler." "They hate that spoiler." "They hate that spoiler." "They hate that spoiler." "They hate that spoiler." "They hate that spoiler." "They hate that spoiler." "They hate that spoiler." "They hate that spoiler." "They hate that spoiler." "They hate that spoiler." "They hate that spoiler." "They hate that spoiler." "They hate that spoiler." "They hate that spoiler." "They hate that spoiler." "They hate that spoiler." "They hate that spoiler." "They hate that spoiler." "They hate that spoiler." "They hate that spoiler." "They hate that spoiler." "They hate that spoiler." "They hate that spoiler." "They hate that spoiler." "They hate that spoiler." "They hate that spoiler." "They hate that spoiler." "They hate that spoiler." "They hate that spoiler." "They hate that spoiler." "They hate that spoiler."