Why Do So Many People Hate The Last Jedi?

This post is not a review of the movie, instead it is a commentary on why so many seem to be disappointed with The Last Jedi?

_{(image source: Wikimedia Commons)}

Going over to Rotten Tomatoes we find that although the critics' score was something like 90% the audience score was only 48%. Why such a big discrepancy between the critics and the regular audience?

Archetypal Stories

There is a theory that humans have a set of archetypal stories and that there are only a small set of stories that we tell over and over again. The best movies are those that are able to tap deep into our human psyche and tell us something about ourselves.

One of these stories is the father-mentor or the grandfather-mentor story. Karate Kid was one of these in which Mr. Miyagi taught young Daniel how to fight and ultimately about the power within himself and how to become a good man.

Another of these are Star Wars Episode IV and Episode V. In Episode IV Obiwan Kenobi is the father-mentor teaching young Luke about his power and how to use it. In Episode V Yoda replaces Obiwan as the mentor figure and completes Luke's training in realizing his power and how to become a good man. As an aside, the Force and light sabers are a pretty distraction but are not actually that important, the main story is about a young man realizing his power, overcoming the 'dragon' and emerging victorious (becoming a good man).

_{The Last Jedi. Why, oh why did you have to let us down?
(image source: Wikimedia Commons)}

The Last Jedi

Okay, now on to The Last Jedi (TLJ). It failed to attain to meet the goal of this archetype in a few ways.

1. Luke turned into a whiner. In the Last Jedi, Luke was supposed to take the role of father-mentor but he shirked that duty and even actually whined in a few scenes. Oh well. Too bad, so sad.

2. The father-mentor story is basically a male-oriented story. These days women have entered into traditionally male roles they too also crave the father-mentor story and this is a good thing. Whatever helps people find their way in the world is good. However, Star Wars started as a male coming of age story and Disney has turned it into a female coming of age story so ordinary people have the gut feeling that the story has been hijacked. I think this is why there is a big difference between the critics' score and the audience's score. Critics might see the morphing of the story to now include females but the regular audience does not.

In Closing

Star Wars Episodes IV, V and VI caught lightning in a bottle, it was highly unlikely that the new movies would be able to do that again (I still like to pretend that Episodes I, II and III don't exist).

Episodes VII and VIII have modified the archetype that was started in Episodes IV and V without skillfully explaining to the audience what they were doing so a lot of people are feeling like it was hijacked. Hence the reaction.

Postscript

I am not trying to start a male/female movie flame war with this post. I am only trying to figure out why TLJ seemed to provoke the reaction that it did.

Thank you for reading, Procrastilearner.