Do Star Wars Movies Have to Be SO Dumb?

Most reviews of the The Last Jedi paint it in a positive light. But a few point out how spectacularly stupid much of the movie is. Let me join the brave few.

The conceit of Star Wars is that people with mystical powers can wield swords in an age of blasters, giant walking tanks, and planet-busting Deathstars. Okay, yeah, it's bogus. We'll forgive them for the silliness of people with laser swords deflecting a hail of blaster bursts fired by dozens of droids and storm troopers, because it's an allegory of good vs. evil, a science fictional retelling of WWII.

In the first three movies the Empire was intent on building the ultimate doomsday weapon, which the heroes destroyed . . . twice.

In the lastest film the technology seems to have regressed to World War I levels of efficiency. In the opening scene the rebels drop bombs -- not self-propelled cruise missiles that we have right now, today -- on a spacecraft in orbit, apparently depending on gravity to hit their target. This ridiculously stupid conceit is needed so that a character can valiantly pointlessly sacrifice herself and provide a link to another character later on.

Half the movie is spent with the biggest ships in the evil fleet chasing after a couple of rebel ships which are quickly running out of fuel. It's like the German fleet chasing a British frigate across the North Atlantic.

Doesn't the First Order have missiles or nuclear weapons? Even a tin-pot dictator like Kim Jong Un has missiles and nuclear weapons. The First Order runs an entire galaxy!

The First Order has hundreds of fighters they can send after the rebels, but they recall them for some lame reason, instead of letting them all perish attempting to shoot the rebels out of the sky. Since when do these guys care if their fighters are destroyed? If the writers didn't want the First Order to use their TIE fighters, they could simply have had the rebels destroy them all.

It's not 1977 anymore. The director doesn't need to dumb down the technology for the mass audience. We are all used to cruise missiles launched from a ship at sea flying for hundreds of miles and zeroing in on Saddam Hussein's bunker and blowing it to smithereens. Why doesn't the First Order have this technology?

Then, in a complete rehash of the Battle of Hoth, the First Order corners the last remaining 10 or 20 rebels in a mine behind a big metal door. Instead of nuking the rebels from orbit with nuclear warheads or some other kind of giant bunker-busting bombs, like the Empire did in Rogue One at least twice, they send a bunch of guys down to the planet with a giant drill, walking tanks and TIE fighters.

And this is just the insult added to the injuries of having characters like Finn hare off on a fool's errand that only backfires in the end. Like a commander not telling a senior officer what she's planning, inciting him to mutiny and screw up the whole plan. Like the idiotic McGuffin at the core of their dilemma: the heroes are mystified that the First Order can somehow track the rebel fleet through hyperspace, when Leia is carrying a beacon that tells Rey and everyone else in the galaxy exactly where the fleet is! Duh!

Yeah, I know nuking the rebels from orbit isn't the story that the director wants to tell. But if you don't want that story, then don't have a gigantic fleet of warships corner your heroes in a mine on a planet. If this movie is about the struggle for Kylo Ren's soul, Rey's spiritual growth and Luke's sacrifice, jettison the excess garbage.

I don't know why the Star Wars movies insist on being so braindead. Other science fiction films and shows like The Expanse are just as interesting without having idiot plots. You can still hit all the beats, do character development and have great special effects without the ridiculously lame setups.