***This review contains some spoilers.***

The newest film in the Star Wars saga was released on December 15, 2017. “The Last Jedi” was directed by Rian Johnson, who is new to the franchise and the film was met with mixed reviews. It strayed from what was expected in the franchise, which made some viewers unhappy and seemed to cancel out some of the positive parts of the film.

Some of the questions viewer were left with after the previous film, “The Force Awakens” were answered in this movie. Star Wars fans have speculated on the identity of Rey’s parents. This was answered in “The Last Jedi” when audiences find out that her parents were simple junk traders and that they don’t matter to anything within the story. It also explained what happened before “The Force Awakens” that caused Kylo Ren to turn to the dark side. Viewers were unsure as to the specifics of his turn until “The Last Jedi,” in which they went into detail and showed what had happened to Kylo Ren to make him hate his family and become the evil and emotionally unstable man that seen the films.

Throughout the film, the relationship between Kylo Ren and Rey brings them closer until they make an alliance in the climactic fight of the movie. While the partnership was short-lived, it was arguably one of the best scenes in all of Star Wars. It brought what seemed to be the two opposites of good and evil together to defeat a common enemy, similar to Darth Vader helping Luke Skywalker to kill the Emperor in episode six. The teamwork in the fight and their disagreement after will make it interesting for future filmgoers to see how their relationship will develop.

While there were some good parts of the film, it was also riddled with problems. From the unnecessarily drawn out scenes, to the lack of explanation for some things, it was by no means a perfect movie.

In one scene, General Leia’s ship was shot by the First Order, sucking her into space. After an emotional scene that seemingly depicted her death, she pulled herself back to safety using the force. This caused confusion both within the story of the movie and with the logic of the filmmaker’s decision to have her save herself with The Force. In the previous five films Leia showed little use of the force, so saving herself from the vacuum of space using the ability was a big step. In the real world, Carrie Fisher, who plays the role of Leia in the film, passed away late December 2016. This means she won’t be able to reprise her role. This may cause difficulties because her character is still alive at the end of “The Last Jedi” and is a main character.

Another issue was within the character Snoke who was introduced in the previous film “The Force Awakens.” Many fans of the franchise were expecting more detail on his origin and who he is and where he came from. This, however, was not the case. Snoke is killed quickly and viewers are left with even more questions than answers. Since he had been referred to as an important figure in the movies, it would encourage a viewer to keep up with the movies in order to gain more information on him as well as the other characters, but the viewers obtained hardly any information other than his death. This left many viewers questioning the purpose and validity of his character. The only way that more information about Snoke would be accessible without diving into the expanded universe would be if some kind of revival or backstory happens in the ninth movie. This seems unlikely since Snoke was literally chopped directly in half and any revival of any kind would be a bit of a stretch.

These are just a couple of the reasons that “The Last Jedi” was not as good as it could have been. The movie was visually stunning and there were interesting parts but they seemed to be overshadowed by the poorly done parts of the story. It was too long of a film to leave the fans with as many questions as it did.