I finally saw Star Wars: The Last Jedi

Compared to Revenge of the Sith, it's a masterpiece. But that isn't saying much.

Whelp, I finally rented The Last Jedi -- the Star Wars movie that came out last year. And honestly? I think it’s time to put the whole Star Wars franchise to bed.

To tell you the truth, other than the original Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back, I find the rest of them pretty lame.

Well, “lame” is probably an understatement when it comes to the three that came out fifteen/twenty years ago.

Those were horrendous.

I saw Phantom Menace in the theater and vowed to never see it again.

JarJar Binks? Seriously?

Then over Christmas, I finally broke down and watched Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith.

Wow. I could crap a better movie.

And that guy playing Anakin Skywalker?

Good grief. Do you mean to tell me with the budget they had, the Star Wars producers couldn’t find an actor who could, you know, act?! Every single one of his scenes was like watching a high school production of a Star Wars movie.

Needless to say after the fiascos of Episodes One through Three, I waited more than a year to see The Force Awakens.

The best thing about that one is the guy who played Anakin wasn’t in it.

It was as if they took segments of the script from the original film and just repurposed it for a different cast.

I mean, come on. A droid is left on a desert planet with secret plans hidden in it?

So original.

I thought Rey was about as captivating as a rectal abscess.

And the black guy? Fin? Maybe I’m too cynical for my own good, but I felt like the only reason he was there was to make sure there was a black guy in the movie.

So given how little I liked The Force Awakens, I was in no rush to see The Last Jedi. But since most of the reviews indicated it was an improvement over The Force Awakens, I figured, why not? So while I was really sick, I rented it.

And it is better than The Force Awakens. And vastly better than Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, and Revenge of the Sith.

But I just don’t care about any of the central characters.

Rey, Fin – dull and flat, two-dimensional characters more suited to a Saturday morning cartoon than the big screen.

And the Vaderesque villain – what’s his name? Solo’s kid. Whatever his name is. He looks like a fourteen-year-old gamer geek playing dress up at some sci-fi convention. Every word he utters sounds like he's talking with a mouthful of lard.

Plus, after all these years you’d think Mark Hamill would have actually improved as an actor.

But no.

And the bitchy commander with the purple hair? What the hell was that?!

Who does the casting for these movies?!

From what I can glean, the theme of this film was, “The old Star Wars movies are so yesterday. We’re a new generation and we’re better! Huzzah!”

The film is so choppy and herky-jerky that I got the impression that after the screenwriter finished the script, he must have laid it on his patio table only to have half the pages blown away in a heavy wind.

Now, I’ll admit, I’m not a Star Wars junkie. I'm more of a Trekkie.

Although the original film is the first movie I ever saw more than once in the theater. Not sixty-nine times or anything crazy like that. I went to see it three times. But after that, I just wasn’t that charged up over the franchise. Other than Han Solo and Darth Vader, I was largely indifferent to the characters.

So as far as I’m concerned, for this film to stand out, it has to be able to stand on its own and not lean so heavily on the previous films.

And The Last Jedi just doesn’t accomplish that.

The entire movie I felt like I was walking in on the middle of the story and had no idea who anybody was or what the hell was going on. And if I felt that way seeing the other seven movies, imagine being someone who never saw any of the others.

Besides which, when the characters are as compelling and interesting as toe jam, it’s hard to get invested in them.

Movies should draw you in and make you care about the characters. But The Last Jedi seemed less interested in telling a great story and more interested in spoon-feeding rewarmed nuggets lifted from the rest of the franchise for the delight of the diehard fans.

I hear now they’ve come out with a movie about a younger Han Solo.

Whoop-dee-doo.

The odds of me renting that one are about as good as the odds of me sprouting a horn in the middle of my forehead.