Rojak Daily was invited to an exclusive early screening of the movie and they decided to send their noob-est writer who doesn’t have a clue about the new Star Wars saga as a form of 'torture', so I thought: 'Why not? How bad can it be, right?'
I’ve been tasked to sit down for 152 minutes, which is the longest Star Wars movie to date and I’d like to warn you readers that there might be some major spoilers ahead as well as a some Harry Potter references because I am more of a Potterhead than a Jedihead (is that even a word?).
The movie starts off with a tonne of spaceships everywhere, just shooting at each other. I have no idea who they are. Apparently, these rebels, or whoever they are, are running away from the bad guys.
Sidenote: I’m happy to see that there are more Asian cast members so yeay to more Asian inclusion in Hollywood movies!
Then, Princess Leia comes into the picture, she’s grown old but has a poised and a very classy demeanour - very much different from the Leia I remember back in the 90s. Let’s just say she’s now a bada** princess in command.
Some sort of distraction plan is going on and this ginger lad by the name of General Hux gets mistaken for General Hugs and the audience roars with laughter.
Right off the bat, he sounds like the annoying classmate in school who’s always nice to the discipline teacher and will rat out about you. And he does look a lot like Ron Weasley’s brother.
(Okay, after the screening I Googled the actor and it turns out he plays Bill Weasley, Ron’s older brother in Harry Potter! What are the chances, right?)
Then comes a scene where a guy with a bootleg-looking Darth Vader helmet comes on and his name is Kylo Ren. Dude takes off the helmet and he looks like a younger version of Severus Snape who has a side gig in Star Wars.
Kylo then talks to this weird-looking alien that looks like ET's distant cousin whom I'm guessing is his boss.
Okay I have confession to make. This whole time I thought the baldy alien boss' name was Stoke. It wasn't until my colleague laughed at my face and corrected me that his name was actually Snoke. Guess I had a British football club in mind.
Throughout the movie, Kylo Ren's dealing with so much internal conflict that I’m beginning to feel like it's an episode of Twilight where Kylo is Bella Swan and he's at a crossroad, deciding whether to choose Edward Cullen or Jacob Black.
Oh, the guy who’s famous for the line “It’s a trap!” also makes an appearance. The only reason I recognised Admiral Ackbar is because of all those memes, to be honest.
Admist all the shooting and chaos, a familiar face shows up on screen. Why is Finn waking up in some sort of bed with a backdrop and props that looks like from the 80s? And why is he wearing a spacesuit with water spilling out of it? What happened to him??
And speaking of which, why is Luke Skywalker acting like a hormonal teenager full of teen angst? He's acting like a teenager in the emo phase who wants his parents to leave him alone, or in this case, Rey and Chewbacca, who have been assigned to bring him back.
Back where? I don’t know. I don’t see any planet or anything.
The famous Jedi lives on an unknown island cared by a bunch of dwarf-fish hybrid creatures and is sulking away in his hut.
There are lots of weird-looking beings on the island, including the cute-looking overweight guinea pigs/hamsters that were overly promoted in the trailers and in my opinion, serves no purpose at all throughout the movie. But yes, they were indeed adorable.
Rey then hears voices that kind of sounds like parseltongue, or when Harry Potter hears ‘voices’ from Voldermort in his head, asking her to check out a tree. Are there Jedi trees in the Star Wars franchise? I really don't know!
I don't know what happened next - or what relationship Rey has with grumpy ol' Luke - but Rey decided to leave the island, because she’s probably tired and upset of dealing with Luke’s hormonal teenage attitude.
As you can expect, Rey and Kylo met up and it's not what you think. I can't say anything much, but OMG PLOT TWIST AND EVERYONE IN THE CINEMA IS CLAPPING IN EXCITEMENT AND I WAS LOST FOR WORDS!
Oh and this Kylo Ren fella, he has some tricks up his sleeve! He had a proposal for Rey. I don't know, are they related or something? 'Cos they look kinda close to me.
I am secretly rooting that Kylo and Rey form a new team because they actually make a good couple! I mean, team. They make a good team.
A bunch of other things happened and I wasn't really paying attention. What I, a non-Star Wars fan, really like about these Star Wars films are the lightsaber fights, and the ones in this movie is. TOTALLY. AWESOME!
Where can I buy one of those ah?
After one of those sword fights, something pretty awesome happened and the audience clapped and cheered in excitement again. That's probably like the fifth or sixth time that's happened in the film.
After the whole thing, General Hux looks pretty much annoyed. Honestly, I was annoyed at Kylo Ren at this point too. It's highly visible that he needs to consult a psyciathrist to talk about his daddy issues. Poor child.
Overall, the movie wasn’t disappointing. In fact, it was action-packed and was very, very entertaining. The only disappointment would probably come from you, knowing that I, a non-Star Wars fan, had the privilege to watch an early Star Wars screening before it officially hits the theaters.
And I'm not sorry about that!
After all that, the Star Wars movie taught me that in life, we must balance the darkness and light in us, which ironically is a description of the cinema I was in.
There was a balance of eager Star Wars fans clapping and cheering at the sight of the Lucasfilm and Star Wars logo, while the stranger seated next to me was annoyingly yawning every 10 minutes throughout the movie.
So, if you’re a non-Star Wars fan and contemplating whether you should watch the latest episode of the saga, my advise is to just go ahead. You might not understand what’s really happening half the time, or who these people on screen are, but the mind-blowing plot twists and lightsaber action will keep you on the edge of your seat.
And if you're wondering, no, Darth Vader doesn't appear in this movie. I kinda half-expected him to, because I have no idea what happened to him previously.
Star Wars: The Last Jedi premieres 14 December 2017 in Malaysian cinemas.