One type of plot hole that is often the easiest to dispel is a “plot hole” based on a character’s decisions. People in real life often make decisions that seem out of character, so trying to prove that a character in a movie is making a decision that doesn’t make any sense for them is a near impossible task. So this installment of my series of articles focused on explaining away some of the supposed plot holes in Avengers: Endgame is going to be easy. That’s because this whole article is devoted to the idea that the Avengers’ Infinity Stone time heist makes no sense because the times they chose to go to were unreasonably difficult.
If you haven’t read my previous article on Endgame, check it out (The Stretched (yet stable) Reality of Avengers: Endgame). I explain exactly where I’m getting my list of plot holes to discuss. In short, these ideas are coming from one specific article (10 Things That Made Absolutely No Sense in Avengers: Endgame), but I’ve seen people across social media make similar statements. There are ten main points in the article I’m reacting to, and I am now on point two. So here we go.
Six stones and a rock solid plan. Almost.
The second main point in the article asks why the Avengers chose the specific points in time they did for the time heist. The argument made is that the times they chose were more difficult than they needed to be. However, they explicitly explain in Endgame why they chose those points in time.
The Avengers only had enough Pym particles for one round trip each through time. Convenient, sure, but not unreasonable. With the exception of the Soul Stone, at least one person present in the room when they were discussing their plan had come in contact with each of the other five stones. With no do-overs, they wanted to go to places (and times) where they knew for absolute fact where the stones were. They also wanted to go in as few groups as possible so they would have as much backup as possible for each heist.
Nebula and War Machine go for the Power Stone. The article states that 2014 was a terrible time to go to because, as Nebula tells Rhodey, lots of people were after the Power Stone then. That’s true enough. Peter Quill, Thanos, Ronan, Gamora, and The Collector were all after the stone as the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie began, and even more were after it as the movie went along. But Nebula knew for a fact that Quill found it first, and she knew he found it on Morag. That’s why they went there at that time. The stone would have still been there if they had gone to a time slightly before Peter Quill arrived, but surprising Quill and using his own tools to steal the stone was the most efficient and simple way to accomplish their goal. Nebula knew they had the element of surprise on their side, and she knew Quill wouldn’t be difficult to deal with at that time.
The writer of the article suggests that going to Xandar after the Guardians left it there would have been easier, but I really don’t think that’s true. Trying to take an Infinity Stone from someone with an army who knows what the Power Stone is and what it can do would be vastly more difficult than taking if from a single person who has no clue. Quill had no clue.
Next up, Black Widow and Hawkeye went after the Soul Stone on Vormir. Nebula knew that the stone was on Vormir and had been there for a very long time. The Avengers could have gone to Vormir at any time, so it made sense for Natasha and Clint to go with Nebula and Rhodey since they were already using the Benatar to get to Morag.
The Collector’s grip is tight.
Thor and Rocket went to Asgard in 2013 to pull the Reality Stone (in the form of the Aether) from Jane Foster’s body. This is pretty obviously the most opportune time since the only other real opportunity would have been to steal it from The Collector. Surely Thor and Rocket could have done that, but tricking Jane with Thor himself (albeit a Thor with a beer belly) would be way easier than dealing with someone who knew what he had and would do anything to keep it. Of course, Rocket’s plan didn’t go smoothly, but he still managed to get the job done on his own while Thor spent some much-needed quality time with his mother.
The plan to go to New York in 2012 to pick up the Time, Space, and Mind Stones is where it starts to get tricky. Black Widow pointed out that there would be three stones in New York at one time (though that was an assumption that wasn’t guaranteed to be accurate), so sending a larger group of Avengers to that time made the most sense.
There were very few good times to try to get the Mind Stone. The Avengers knew for certain that it was in Loki’s scepter and would be changing hands after the battle of New York, so that was their best chance to get it with as little resistance as possible. And that’s exactly what they did. Knowing that the scepter would be much more difficult to obtain once it was in Hydra’s hands (because they took it away from Hydra at the beginning of Age of Ultron), Steve Rogers used his knowledge of Hydra’s infiltration of S.H.I.E.L.D. to cause enough confusion to easily slip away with the Mind Stone.
The Space Stone is probably the stone that the Avengers have had the most contact with, and therefore they had the most options as far as times to try to grab it. The Space Stone first appeared on-screen housed in the Tesseract in Captain America: The First Avenger. However, the first mention of the Tesseract was in Howard Stark’s journals all the way back in Iron Man 2. Since the start of the MCU, the Soul Stone has appeared in one form or another in nine movies. That’s a lot of times to pick from.
Like the Mind Stone though, the handoff after the Battle of New York seems like the safest and most logical time to try to take it for the Avengers. For one thing, all of the original six Avengers knew exactly where the Tesseract would be after taking it from Loki and before it was taken to Asgard. Tony and Thor also knew firsthand about the struggle with Alexander Pierce in the lobby of Stark Tower. This was as perfect a time as any to steal the Tesseract with minimal interference. Unfortunately Tony and Scott failed, so they had to come up with something else.
They could have tried to find Loki in 2012 after he stole the thing Tony and Scott were trying to steal, but that search could have taken years. They might have never found him. But why didn’t they just go to another time in the first place? The writer of the article suggests that going to Asgard in 2013 with Thor and Rocket would have been easier and should have been their plan from the start. The Tesseract was in Odin’s Vault at the time, but there’s a big problem with this plan. Odin’s Vault was heavily guarded.
Loki was only able to steal the Tesseract because the guards were dead or otherwise occupied.
The Einherjar warriors protected Odin’s Vault. Anyone trying to take anything from the vault would have to get past them. Even if they had Thor go try to take the Tesseract from the vault, the guards and Odin himself would likely have many questions. Since Thor wasn’t exactly acting like his past self in Endgame, it’s doubtful that he would have succeeded in convincing his father to let him take the Tesseract. Beyond the fact that Thor already had a job to do which he failed to even attempt (distracting Jane Foster), the rest of the Avengers clearly didn’t trust Thor in his current state in Endgame. They said as much when he offered to use the Infinity Stones to snap everyone back. Also, it’s unlikely that Odin would trust that the out-of-shape version of Thor was his real son. So no, going to Asgard for the Tesseract wasn’t a good idea.
No other time besides New York in 2012 was a solid enough plan for the Avengers. Steve and Tony went back to a S.H.I.E.L.D. facility in 1970 to eventually obtain the Space Stone, but even that was somewhat of a gamble. Tony only knew the stone was ever there because of his father’s journals, but he obviously could not have been absolutely sure it was there at that precise time. Plus, we know from Captain Marvel that the Tesseract wasn’t always held at a S.H.I.E.L.D. facility even when it was in their possession, so that’s why Steve was reluctant to go. Any time besides the Battle of New York was a bigger gamble than they were willing to take. At least initially.
And finally, there’s the Time Stone. With all of the Avengers’ planning they actually got this one wrong, at least partially. Tony, Bruce, and Thor had all visited Dr. Strange in the New York Sanctum, and they all knew he was in possession of the Time Stone when they met him. They all met Strange well after the Battle of New York though. It can be assumed that they all thought Stephen Strange had been at his sanctum for years, but as Bruce found out when he traveled back to 2012, that was not the case.
The retrieval of the Time Stone could have gone very wrong very easily. As the Sorcerer Supreme in 2012, the Ancient One guarded the Eye of Agamotto within which the Time Stone was contained. The Ancient One didn’t live in New York though, she lived in Kamar-Taj. She was only in New York at that specific time in 2012 because of the Chitauri invasion led by Loki. Knowing that the New York Sanctum was in danger, the Ancient One was there to protect it. Her presence was hardly a guarantee, and without a little luck, the Avengers would likely have never found the Time Stone in 2012. Of course, the Avengers couldn’t have known any of this, but it’s interesting that they made such a big assumption about the whereabouts of the Time Stone when they played it safe with most of their other plans.
I think that about covers it. I’m sure people can come up with other times they think might have been better for the time heist, but the point stands that for the Avengers, the times they chose made the most sense to them with the knowledge they had. So no, there is no plot hole here. Join me in my next article as I take a look at some suggestions that the rules of the quantum realm and the stones themselves have changed from movie to movie!
Avengers: Endgame has happened, and it has certainly been a monumental happening. The culmination of eleven years of storytelling and the 22nd film in a string of crowd-pleasing blockbusters, Endgame is snapping box office records at a pace that is leaving most other films in the dust.
The journey to Endgame hasn’t always been perfect though. The quality of the many entries in the Marvel Cinematic Universe has varied somewhat over the years. There have also been a few instances of questionable continuity and plot threads that went nowhere, but even so, it’s hard to argue against the fact that the MCU is a staggeringly impressive feat of long-term story development at the highest level. Individual tastes will vary, but even if you’re not a fan of what the MCU has to offer, how can you not be impressed by the amount of work, planning, and oversight it took to create so many stories with so many people and still make it feel like one cohesive universe?
Well, it seems that some people aren’t impressed. As with any creative or commercial endeavor that is massively popular, there will always be those who are eager to try to poke holes in the successes of others. Now that the spoiler ban has officially been lifted by the directors of Endgame, more people are openly talking about the film’s plot. And with talk about plot comes the deluge of people talking about plot holes.
Plot holes bug me. Or rather, talking about plot holes bugs me. Or to be even more precise, people talking about plot holes online generally bugs me because, for the most part, I think most of the plot holes people try to point out aren’t plot holes at all. I’ve discussed this idea before (go read my reaction to The Last Jedi for more insight on how I see plot holes), and now I’d like to take a look at some of the supposed plot holes I’ve seen people bring up so far for Avengers: Endgame.
To simplify things a bit, I will be looking at the ten points raised in one specific article. My ruminations tend to get lengthy, so I’ll be looking at the article’s ten main points in a series of posts. I stumbled upon this click-baity article while browsing other things about the MCU, and I couldn’t help but take a look. Here’s the link, but feel free not to click on this ad-laden page since I’ll be explaining all the points in my reactions below: 10 Things That Made Absolutely No Sense in Avengers: Endgame
One final note before I dive in. There are spoilers below for Endgame, obviously. Also, while the title of the article I’m looking at doesn’t specify that these are plot holes, the URL for the article clearly does. Alright, let’s get to it.
Three Points, No Holes
So, the first point raised in the article is actually three points. Let’s look at each one in turn.
First, the writer wonders how Captain Marvel located Tony Stark and Nebula in the Benatar (Quill’s/Rocket’s ship). While it’s never explicitly stated how Carol knew where to go, I think there are a few simple explanations. The post-credits scene in the Captain Marvel movie shows us how Carol met the surviving Avengers on Earth. We also know that Pepper Potts survived Thanos’s snap and at some point arrived at the Avengers facility. So at least two things could have happened.
Could Pepper be getting his messages?
One option is that the messages that Tony is shown recording near the beginning of Endgame were actually being received on Earth. Tony doesn’t know if they are getting there because he has no way of receiving a response, but the possibility is there. Whether Pepper received the messages (possibly in the suit that Tony created for her or in any of the tech she had lying around the house), or the Avengers received them at the base, it’s not a stretch to think that the Avengers knew at least the direction the messages were being sent from.
Another option is that Rocket simply knows how to find his own ship. It is shown in Endgame that the Avengers have the ability to scan for emissions and transmissions in deep space when Rocket explains how they know where to find Thanos. It’s entirely possible that Rocket scanned for the Benatar and knew at least approximately where it was. Even though the ship lost the power to jump through space, it still had enough power to support life for a few weeks. Surely Nebula would have initiated a distress beacon (kind of like how the Guardians were answering a distress beacon in Infinity War), and surely Rocket would have known how to locate it.
Now, I know the realities of sending and receiving messages that far across space is unrealistic, but clearly the laws of physics don’t work the same way in the MCU as they do in our reality. That has been established. So no, Captain Marvel finding Tony and Nebula is not a plot hole.
The second opening point in the article questions how all the Avengers survived the destruction of the Avengers facility towards the end of Endgame. After Hulk snaps and brings back everyone Thanos dusted in Infinity War, the Thanos from 2014 obliterates Avengers headquarters. Everything is reduced to rubble, but all of the people inside the building survive. How?
Avengers facility, pre-Thanos.
Well, most of the people inside the building were protected in some way. Everyone had suited up or otherwise took precautions prior to Hulk snapping because they weren’t sure how much damage the power released by the Infinity Gauntlet would make. So, Iron Man and War Machine were protected by their suits. Thor has god-like powers. Captain America has his shield and has an almost inhuman resistance to injury. Hulk is the strongest there is, and Ant-Man got real small. Nebula helped initiate the attack, so she took precautions. So that really just leaves Hawkeye and Rocket.
Rocket nearly did die. If not for Rhodey’s quick actions, Rocket would have drowned if he didn’t suffocate first. And Clint must’ve just gotten lucky. So really, that’s one lucky break. I don’t think that’s too far outside the realm of believability. Also, it’s not a plot hole.
And the third opening point is about the rat that brings Scott Lang out of the quantum realm. This isn’t even posited as a plot hole in the article, it’s just made to seem like a silly way to initiate the whole time heist scenario. It is silly? Sure, but it’s not so unbelievable. Think about it. In the post-credits scene from Ant-Man and the Wasp, the device in the van was already set to bring Scott back. Hope, Janet, and Hank were dusted just moments before they would have thrown the switch (so to speak). The rat in Endgame just threw the switch for them. Any number of coincidences could have made this happen. It didn’t even need to be the rat, and it didn’t need to be at that precise time. Really, Scott coming back almost seems like an inevitability given how easy it was to do it. What’s surprising is that it took five years.
That’s the end of the article’s first main point, and it’s about all the explanation necessary for this entry in my look at some of the supposed “plot holes” in Avengers: Endgame. Join me next time as I attempt to refute the assertion that the times the Avengers chose to go to during their time heist were terrible, plot-hole-filled decisions!
In what’s becoming a winter holiday tradition, a new Star Wars movie is currently dominating the box office as one year ends and the next year begins. The eighth episode of the main series and the ninth live-action theatrical release for the franchise so far, The Last Jedi has a lot of people talking. Some people love it, some people hate it, and a lot of people fall somewhere in the middle. Talking with friends about the movie will probably lead to some fun debates about what you liked, what you didn’t, and what you wish had happened, but if you delve in to the wretched hives of scum and villainy of the internet (i.e. most comment sections) you’re likely to find an abundance of polarized arguments.
Did The Last Jedi ruin Star Wars and forever taint the legacy of beloved characters which will lead to the downfall of a sci-fi empire? Is it the best entry since The Empire Strikes Back? Is it just another movie about space magic and we shouldn’t think about it so hard? Is there any way to sort through the mire and come to a conclusion about The Last Jedi that isn’t emotionally charged or overly critical? To answer the last question, yes, I think there is a way. But how? In an online culture where film analyses and opinions are often conflated to the point of confusion, how do we judge a movie?
Caution: There are plenty of spoilers for The Last Jedi written below. Proceed with care.
What do the numbers say?
Star Wars: The Last Jedi has been out for a couple of weeks now, and if you look at the numbers, the movie seems to already be a great success. Rian Johnson’s much-debated midway point of the new trilogy is closing in on $900 million globally[1] heading into its third weekend, and its domestic haul has it closing in on the fifth or sixth best domestic box office take of all time. Looking at it from a different perspective though, The Last Jedi‘s 67% box office drop-off[2] in its second week has some “experts” and online commentators calling it the beginning of the end for the Star Wars franchise. While the doomsayers might or might not be overreacting, it can’t be denied that The Last Jedi is making a lot of money no matter how you choose to frame and interpret its financial situation. But maybe dollars aren’t the numbers that matter.
I’m one of the first people to support the idea that the amount of money a movie makes is not necessarily indicative of the quality of that movie. Many movies of questionable quality make millions while excellent films struggle to make their budget back. So maybe it’s the review numbers that matter. Rotten Tomatoes currently has it at 91%[3] and Metacritic has it at 86[4]. That’s very good, but those are the critic’s scores.
Stacking the ratings on IMDB.
There seems to be a growing resentment of professional critics within certain online communities, and the audience scores for The Last Jedi appear to point to a widening gap between the two groups. Audiences on Rotten Tomatoes have given The Last Jedi a dismal 51%[3], and Metacritic is even worse with 4.7 out of 10[4]. Those numbers appear to indicate that regular moviegoers aren’t in love with the movie, but again, it depends on how you look at it and where you get your information from. The movie scores on IMDB are also open to the public, and the public has given The Last Jedi a 7.6 as of December 28[5]. And CinemaScore, a reputable polling service that collects information directly from people who have attended a screening, has determined that general audiences give The Last Jedi an A[6].
So what do the numbers tell us? All they really say is that people are divided about The Last Jedi. Critics, however various sites choose to define what a “critic” is, seem to approve of the movie on average. Audiences generally seem to approve of the movie as well, but a very vocal minority might be pulling down the numbers on certain sites. Looking at the IMDB breakdown of scores, it shows an anomaly at the bottom of the scale with an unusually large amount of people rating The Last Jedi as one star. There’s a smaller anomaly at the top with more people giving it a ten than expected given the trend shown on the chart, but it would appear, proportionally, that the extreme naysayers are more likely to leave their mark than anyone else. How much the binary, 1-or-10-and-nothing-else raters influence the numbers across different sites is entirely up to debate though.
What are people saying?
So if the numbers are inconclusive, then maybe we can look at what people are actually saying about The Last Jedi. Diving into the comment sections on most videos, articles, and social media posts relating to the movie will almost surely expose you to a plethora of salty commentary. Movie review sites are also being loaded with negative reviews from users who range from being disappointed to being out of their minds with anger. A quick perusal of the first twenty or so user reviews on IMDB reveals no rating above four stars and review titles such as: “The Last Jedi is a Disgrace to Every Star Wars Film That Came Before It,” “Total Disaster: Not worth the paper the ticket was printed on,” and “NEVER, in ALL MY LIFE, have I been more GENUINELY ANGRY at a movie.”
Of course, not every written user review is so dramatically negative, but after scrolling through the top 100 or so most “helpful” reviews (since that’s how IMDB sorted them), I only found two or three that were positive. Being generous with the margin of error since I didn’t scroll through the thousands of reviews, a 5-10% positive review average doesn’t come close to even Metacritic’s abysmal user rating average. What that tells me is that the people who really don’t like The Last Jedi are extremely eager to let everyone know how they feel about it. More so than people who love it or just think it’s alright.
Since complaining and tearing things down is a popular pastime on the internet (and for humans in general), it’s not much of a surprise that there is so much negative feedback visible online for the new Star Wars movie. Ask anyone who has ever worked in the service industry, and they’ll say that people are more likely to say something if they had a bad experience than if they had a good one. This leads to a sampling bias for review sites that skews towards the negative, and it leads to comment sections feeling more like a place to air grievances than a place to have a reasonable discussion.
It’s just an opinion, until it isn’t.
The perception of negativity directed towards The Last Jedi might be overblown, it can’t be denied that there is a sizable portion of the film’s audience who had a bad time in the theater. Those feelings can’t and shouldn’t be dismissed, but they aren’t unassailable either. One of the major defensive postures people take when challenged on their view of The Last Jedi or any movie is to say, “it’s just my opinion.” That’s fair enough in many cases. Opinions related to personal tastes can’t be faulted. Someone simply saying that they didn’t like or even hated The Last Jedi is fine, but I’m the type of person who will want to dig a little deeper. Why didn’t they like it? Specifically.
I do think that some opinions are better than others, and asking for reasons why someone feels the way they do helps to separate the emotional responses from the responses based on reasoning. As someone starts to list the reasons why they didn’t like a movie, they’re also likely to start listing things that can be discussed and debated.
Luke’s character makes sense to me.
Using an example from The Last Jedi, maybe someone didn’t like it because they disapproved of the direction taken with Luke Skywalker’s character. Okay, that’s fair, but why? They didn’t like his jokes? Alright, Yoda was pretty jokey in Empire, but comedy is subjective so that’s understandable. But perhaps they don’t think Luke’s character in The Last Jedi matches what was established for Luke in the original trilogy. Or maybe they don’t think Luke has a decent character arc in The Last Jedi, or that his usage in the movie was completely pointless. Those are complaints that begin to creep into the area of film analysis. Film analysis isn’t entirely objective all the time, but good analysis relies on looking at what is in the film to support a position. If you can point to specific scenes to bolster your opinion, then your opinion becomes stronger. Luke’s characterization and story arc can certainly be supported in this way, though saying what a character should or would do is a tricky subject with few real answers.
An area of complaint which many people cite as a reason to hate The Last Jedi and which can most definitely be refuted has to do with the structure of the film itself. From my experience, the majority of the negative reviews and comments claim that The Last Jedi made no sense, was terribly written, and was riddled with unforgivable plot holes. While complaints about creative choices related to characters and their actions often ultimately come down to taste and preference, complaints about the movie making sense can most often be explained more objectively. There actually can be right and wrong answers when it concerns a film’s plot, and those answers don’t necessarily involve opinions.
That’s no plot hole.
People online apparently love to point out plot holes in movies. The Last Jedi is no exception. Unfortunately, there seems to be a widespread misunderstanding of what a plot hole is. Marie-Laure Ryan provides a good definition of what a plot hole is in her essay titled “Cheap Plot Tricks, Plot Holes, and Narrative Design” by writing that a plot hole is something which “ignores or fails to notice logical inconsistencies that should normally prevent the progression of the plot toward its outcome.”[7] To expand on her definition, a plot hole is not something that is simply left unexplained, it is something in the plot that illogically contradicts something already established within the logic of the universe created for the film.
Something related to a plot hole but different in significant ways is what Marie-Laure Ryan calls a “cheap plot trick.” I call it a contrivance, and it’s something in the plot that makes sense, but it feels like a stretch of logic and reason to varying degrees. It’s the hero who always arrives at the exact right moment, or the unlikely yet fortuitous meeting of two essential characters. Something that technically could happen, but probably wouldn’t. Plot contrivances are certainly more forgivable than actual plot holes, but a reliance on them to move the plot forward can be irksome for many viewers. The Last Jedi, just like countless others films, has some plot contrivances which people may or may not forgive depending on their contrivance threshold. But I have yet to see any of the negative reviewers and commenters provide an actual plot hole that stands up to scrutiny.
To use an example from the movie, one of the main “plot holes” that people try to point to has to do with Vice-Admiral Holdo’s actions. Specifically, if she had just told Poe Dameron of her plan to use the escape ships to sneak away from the First Order’s sensors and secretly make their way to the abandoned Rebel base on Crait, then many problems could have been avoided and much of the middle part of the movie wouldn’t have been necessary. Without thinking very hard about it, some people might agree that realistically, Holdo should have told Poe her plan. It might seem illogical to some people for her not to tell him. But if you watch the movie and pay attention to the details, there are clear and valid reasons for Holdo to act the way she did.
Poe had just been demoted from Commander to Captain by Leia for his actions at the beginning of the movie. Poe disobeyed a direct order and led an attack which, even though it destroyed the intended target, had gotten many Resistance fighters killed. Even though Leia had a good relationship with Poe, she could not ignore his insubordination, nor could she endorse his method of shooting first and thinking about the consequences later. After Leia was rendered unconscious by the First Order’s continued attack, Holdo was put in charge of the Resistance fleet’s escape.
Was she wrong?
Holdo did not have a close relationship with Poe. To her, he was a hotshot pilot who made rash decisions and was a danger to the people he led. She even said at one point in the film that she’d dealt with arrogant pilots like him before. Her line of dialogue gives insight to her character and shows that she already doesn’t think much of Poe. When you add to that the fact that Poe was very confrontational with Holdo in nearly every conversation they had, it is completely understandable that she would want him to just shut up and follow orders.
Poe was not part of her command crew, so she had no reason to tell him anything. In fact, it is entirely likely that she didn’t want to reveal her secret plan since the existence of the Rebel base on Crait was a secret to almost everyone. The more people she tells, the more likely that information is going to leak to the First Order. In Holdo’s eyes, Poe had a recent history of getting people killed, so why should she trust him with information that could wipe out the rest of the Resistance? It’s hard to argue against that logic since Poe DID leak part of her plan when he told Finn about it and DJ overheard.
Was Holdo wrong to withhold her risky plan from nearly all of the crew, including a recently demoted Captain? No, I don’t think so. The movie gives clear reasons to support the idea that her character would make that choice, even if it’s not a choice that the audience agrees with. That’s one of the major flaws in trying to point out plot holes with choices made by characters. A lot of times it might seem illogical only because the viewer is reacting to it from their own personal perspective or from the omniscient perspective that the movie gives us. Characters don’t see everything, and they’re not perfect. That’s what makes their character arcs fulfilling. By the end of the The Last Jedi, Poe understood that he had been acting rashly (he admired Holdo’s courage, and he made the choice not to make a suicide run on the ramming beam on Crait), and Holdo eventually saw what Leia knew about Poe, that he cares deeply for the Resistance and its people.
In general, plot holes based on character choices are more likely going to be plot contrivances if anything. It takes a bit of film analysis to follow the logic that supports the idea that a character would make a particular choice, but I feel that The Last Jedi isn’t very subtle about its characterizations. I’m not saying characters aren’t nuanced, some of them certainly are, but the reasons they do what they do are fairly clear if you pay attention to the details. These types of issues can be debated and have well-supported answers. Some opinions are definitely better than others. If someone says The Last Jedi doesn’t make sense because the characters act out of character, that can absolutely be refuted to a reasonable degree.
Another type of “plot hole” that can be refuted has less to do with potentially unpredictable characters and more to do with the physical universe created by the filmmakers. Some of the complaints have to with movement, such as the idea that Rey couldn’t logically have gotten from Snoke’s throne room to Crait in the Millennium Falcon. That’s an easy plot hole to dispel. We hear Rey tell Chewie to wait for her signal before she ejected from the Falcon to head to the First Order’s ship. After her big fight in Snoke’s room, Kylo Ren told Hux that Rey took Snoke’s escape ship. So she did. Then she signaled Chewie who picked her up. Easy. We don’t have to see it to know and accept that it happened. Events that aren’t shown are not automatically plot holes.
“But why didn’t the First Order immediately shoot her down,” you might ask? Well, that was also explained in the film. Holdo explains that the First Order isn’t scanning for small ships, they’re only focused on the Raddus, the main Resistance ship. So the First Order wasn’t scanning for anything the size of the Millennium Falcon, and even if they did see it, their starfighters would’ve had to have been deployed to take it down. In the time it took for that to happen, the Falcon could have easily flown down to Crait. There would have been no reason for the First Order to engage the Falcon.
Is there a right or wrong answer?
Those were just a few examples of the many, many supposed plot holes that people are pointing out in The Last Jedi. I could go on (and I will in a separate article which I’ll be writing soon), but the point I’m trying to make is that many of the technical problems with the film’s script and plotting that people point to when reacting negatively to the movie are not actually problems at all. Some of it has to do with people not paying close enough attention to the movie and how the filmmakers establish the logic of the universe and characters being created. Some of it has to do with people wanting something different than what they were given, so they view their dissatisfaction as an objective flaw in the script. Some of it has to do with an emotional response to a universe that means a lot to a lot of different people.
Like so many others, I’m one of those people who has always had Star Wars in their life. My earliest memories of watching a movie are of the trash compactor scene in A New Hope. Whether or not the original Star Wars was the first movie I ever saw, it definitely made the biggest impact on my young mind. I owned the Star Wars storybooks and toys as a kid, I read the comics and novels growing up, and I’ve played the video games on every console generation. The Star Wars universe means a lot to me, so I completely understand the emotional reactions that people are having to The Last Jedi.
Anger is a step on the path to the dark side.
I also understand that different people look for different things from a movie. Those differences partially explain the gap between critic and audience reactions on some review sites. To vastly overgeneralize, critics look for cohesive story elements, effective direction, overarching themes, etc. Audiences, on the other hand, vary greatly in what they want from a movie. Some want escapism. Some want a message. Some prefer happy endings. Some like dark endings. When it comes to a franchise like Star Wars, many people have been invested in the universe for years, and with those years come expectations. Some people can’t let go of what they wanted to see in this new trilogy, and that’s fair enough. But attempting to judge a movie like that is almost always going to be a disappointing endeavor.
So are there right and wrong answers when it comes to judging The Last Jedi? It depends on how you choose to judge it. Everyone has different tastes and expectations, so there’s no chance a movie seen by so many people will be universally loved. If you judge The Last Jedi only on your tastes, then no, there is no correct answer. I loved the movie, but you might hate it. There’s nothing wrong with that. It is what it is. But saying “I hated it” and “it was terribly written” are two very different things.
If you attempt to judge The Last Jedi by pointing out film-breaking flaws in the plot, then yes, there are definitely correct answers. If Rey’s appearance on Crait in the Millennium Falcon ruined the movie for you and you refuse to accept the very clear elements in the film that made her journey work in context, then you are wrong. You might not like it, but that has to do with preference. Other people do like it, and you can’t fault them for that.
Ultimately, movies are art. They are meant to be discussed and analyzed. Sure, the film industry is a business and Star Wars is a juggernaut of merchandising and money, but it still takes creative people to bring the characters and stories to life. These films touch us so deeply because of the artistry involved in making them. Art inspires us, and it brings up our emotions. Too often online, people feel that they are being attacked if someone disagrees with them or questions their opinions. While there are plenty of people that do attack, if you enter into a discussion with the knowledge that your feelings can’t be invalidated, then there’s not much reason to get angry. The seething reviews and comments we see directed at The Last Jedi are a product of at least some of the films in the Star Wars franchise having made an emotional impact. That, at least, is a wonderful thing, and something I would remind people to hold on to if they feel angry or upset about a movie not living up to their hopes or expectations.
