"The Last Jedi": A flawed thrill ride that falls short of greatnesss

Update 03/28: Since this post, I have seen the movie a second time and changed some of my views of the film. This is from a post on my Facebook page:

I finally made it to a second viewing of "The Last Jedi" yesterday. The fact Todd Perlman, Chris Treadway and I were the only three people in the theater for the matinee made for a somewhat surreal experience.
I have to say I enjoyed it much more the second time around, and that I was a little too harsh in my initial critiques (I fell victim to hyper-analyzing the story lines and underlying plot of the movie). Knowing exactly how the story would unfold, I was able to enjoy the movie on its own terms, and appreciate the wonderful cinematography, special effects and even top-notch acting and narrative. It has a beautiful flow and pacing, and I now think it ranks among the greatest in the franchise.

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Channeling all my fellow Star Wars nerds. Here's my review of "The Last Jedi" (trying not provide spoilers, but if you haven't seen it, read at your own risk).
Overall, the movie had its moments and provided some nice twists and turns that kept me guessing and entertained for all of the nearly three hours, but I also thought it had some significant flaws. In my mind, it doesn't come close to measuring up with "A New Hope" or "The Empire Strikes Back," as some critics are suggesting, and is a notch or two below "Force Awakens" and "Rogue One" (the latter of which I think is the best movie since the original trilogy). "Last Jedi" is more on par with "Return of the Jedi," a Star Wars movie that was more entertaining than enriching or thought-provoking.

Here's a rundown of what I thought worked best:

1) Daisy Ridley gave another standout performance as Rey. She brings a depth and complexity of character to the story that was sorely missing from the whiny, brooding Anakin Skywalker of the prequels, and I thought she largely carried the movie.

2) The movie plumbed new spiritual depths in the Star Wars franchise, which for the most part worked well (though The Force is being stretched to dimensions that now truly require a leap of faith). The manner in which the movie explored failure as a pathway to spiritual and personal growth was a nice new element, and the brief return of Yoda was a definite surprise and highlight.

3) I thoroughly enjoyed the last 30 minutes, particularly the nostalgic nod to "Empire Strikes Back." The Rey-Kylo-Snoke confrontation featured some impressive twists and turns, plus a thrilling lightsabre duel, though I felt it mirrored a little too closely the Luke-Vader-Palpatine dynamic from "Return of the Jedi," particularly where it comes to the flawed arrogance of Snoke and Palpatine.

But there was plenty about the movie that I thought fell short of the mark:

1) It fell victim in places to the main problem of the prequels, in that action sequences and special effects got in the way of developing the deeper story. The movie lacked the pacing that marks the best movies in the franchise (particularly "Empire Strikes Back"), in which thrilling action sequences are interspersed with quieter moments that allow the characters to grow, develop and build relationships. In "Last Jedi," it felt like the opening battle never really ended. The sequences between Luke and Rey on the island seemed rushed and clunky at times, and lacked the smooth flow of the dual story lines that worked so well in "Empire Strikes Back," where each scene moved the story and characters forward in significant ways.

2) The dialogue was largely flat (George Lucas could have written some of those lines) and the humor, which always plays an underappreciated but vital role in the best Star Wars films, seemed forced. See-Threepio is being wasted in these movies, and the movie definitely suffered in comparison with "The Force Awakens" by the loss of Harrison Ford's Han Solo, whose sarcastic wit gave that movie the spunk that marked the original trilogy and was painfully absent from the stuffy prequels. Without Solo, this movie drifted back toward a degree of stuffiness. The light-hearted touch that new characters brought to last year's "Rogue One" was missing here.

3) While Rey shined, and Kylo Ren and Leia (in Carrie Fisher's final role) also had some memorable moments, many of the other characters were either annoying, boring or lacked any real development as the story progressed. Po Dameron was the worst, coming across as a shallow, impetuous, hot head whose miscalculations probably kill as many innocent people in this movie as anyone. Finn remains basically in the same mode of "Force Awakens," and his new sidekick brought nothing of interest to the movie for me (I found the whole plot line of their journey to the casino planet to find a master code-breaker a waste of time that in the end had no significance for the arc of the story, other than to introduce a young kid who seems destined to become a hero in future movies). Mark Hamill couldn't bring to his role what Harrison Ford brought to Han Solo last time around, and he really didn't capture the elder statesman-like gravitas of Alec Guinesses' Obi-Wan Kenobi, though he rose to the occasion as well as could be expected at the end. And the overarching First Order vs. Resistance plot left much to be desired (a slow-motion, three-hour siege that really took the story nowhere important).

4) The movie's handling of Grand Leader Snoke was a disappointment, and seems to leave little hope for more insight into his character. If George Lucas' fatal flaw with the prequels was his insistence on explaining everything in minute detail (including interstellar trade policies), one problem with this trilogy is that it's leaving a bit too much to the imagination.

In fairness, this might have been the most challenging movie in the series to execute, given the many unanswered questions and competing character narratives from both "The Force Awakens" and the original trilogy. To produce a sequel that truly matched "The Empire Strikes Back" in scope and grandeur was a monumental task. While this was an infinitely more satisfying second installment than "Attack of the Clones" from the prequels (which I rank as far and away the worst Star Wars movie ever), I wish it would have come closer to reaching the heights of Empire, which remains No. 1 for me (though last year's "Rogue One" is a close second).

My ranking of all nine Star Wars movies:

1. The Empire Strikes Back

2. Rogue One

3. A New Hope

4. The Force Awakens

5. The Last Jedi

6. Return of the Jedi

7. Revenge of the Sith

8. The Phantom Menace

9. Attack of the Clones

What history has to say about tax cuts and trickle down economics

The Republicans' embrace of a mammoth tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy -- and their tired arguments that they will pay for themselves by sparking economic growth -- shows once again how little our elected leaders, and the people who elect them, understand, or care, about history.
We've heard this story many times before, and it rarely seems to end well. You know the line: If only we put more money into the hands of corporations and individuals -- particularly those who are already swimming in it -- and loosen the regulations stifling free enterprise, unfettered capitalism will handle the rest. The wealthy will spend, corporations will invest and hire, and profits generated as a result will trickle down for all to enjoy.
If only it worked out that way in reality. This was the mantra embraced by Republicans as far back as the 1920s -- when they controlled the levers of government as they do today -- and what did Americans get as a result? An unprecedented economic collapse and the Great Depression.

Fifty years later, Ronald Reagan came along and promised much of the same. He got his big tax cuts early in his administration, and sure enough, the long-slumping economy soon enough turned around. Vindication, right? Not quite. For one thing, the economic ills of the 1970s and early 1980s largely boiled down to the unique problem of stagflation -- a stagnant economy and runaway inflation -- rather than tax rates. Most economists credit the Federal Reserve's high interest rate policy -- not Reagan's tax cuts -- that finally snuffed out inflation and lit a fire under the economy. As for the tax cuts, far from trickling down to the masses, they helped lead to the massive income inequality we see today, never came close to paying for themselves, and ultimately blew a hole in the deficit that forced both Reagan and George H.W. Bush to enact tax increases.
Of course, the flip side of the Republican argument that tax cuts for those at the top unleash economic growth is that tax hikes on those at the top stunt growth and deter investment. At least, that's what they promised would happen after Bill Clinton hiked taxes in the early 1990s to address the growing deficit. The result? One of the greatest economic booms of the 20th century. Go figure.
But the clear evidence that the Republican tax mantra was not supported by any real evidence didn't stop George W. Bush from clinging to it yet again when he took office in 2001. With the economy finally slowing after years of stunning growth, Bush and the Republicans turned to -- you guessed it --- tax cuts as the answer. Those cuts were coupled with trillions of dollars spent on wars in Afghanistan and Iraq (after all, it's soldiers, not taxpayers, who should have to sacrifice in time of war), again blowing a hole in the deficit, and a general attitude toward letting Wall Street and the financial industry do whatever they want (because, after all, that thirst for profit will ultimately trickle down to the rest of us; as the 1980s taught us, "Greed is good."). With Republicans again in total control of government for much of the early 2000s (as they were in the 1920s), they stuck to the old playbook of low taxes, loose money and little regulation. We also know how that story ended, much as it did the first time around. We got the Great Recession, which easily could have been another depression if not for Barack Obama's shrewd stewardship of the crisis, for which he got unbelievably little credit as Republicans and voters assailed him for not fixing things quickly enough. For Obama, it was a little like stopping the car from plunging off the cliff, only to be relentlessly criticized for leaving it with some scratches.

And as we saw with their votes on the tax bill in the dark of night Friday (complete with scribbled pages of last-minute changes), Republicans are intent sticking with that dust-covered 1920s playbook that should have been tossed into the ash heap of history long ago. When your favorite plays keep ending in disaster for your team, most coaches know that it's time to change things up. But that's a lesson apparently lost on politicians, who rarely have to pay the price for their misadventures in the name of ideological purity.
Will the Republicans and their backers finally show some accountability if their latest foray into tax cuts once again fails to deliver on their promises? That would be a first. The more likely outcome is that the harmful effects of the policy won't be felt for years, by which time the architects of it will be long gone and already pointing fingers and placing blame on those who have the misfortune of being tasked with cleaning up a mess they didn't create, as happened in the late 2000s. That's the way it usually happens in a world where voters place their trust in the hands of politicians who tell them what they want to hear, rather than taking the time to learn what history has taught us all time and again.