Star Wars: Episode VIII – The Last Jedi became the most maligned film in all the Star Wars franchise. That’s a pretty huge dubious honor in that it became more hated than Star Wars: The Clone Wars, the forgettable animated offering that was panned by critics and fans alike.
The film’s infamy was more magnified due to the divide between the general audience and critics. On Rotten Tomatoes the film’s critical score is almost double than what the fans have rated it. This divide has caused the haters to churn out reasons for their hatred for the film. Naturally, as this generation is the most sarcastic of any other, the way the haters have expressed themselves have been in the form of memes.
These memes are funny for the most part and offer much truth in them as well. However, not all of them have proper justification. The fact that the original Star Wars film came out more than forty years ago has meant that young people have romanticized it in their heads. Thus, it hasn’t crossed their minds that many of the traits seen in The Last Jedi were already present in the earlier films.
In this list, we’ll see memes that prove the shortcomings of The Last Jedi along with some of the nonsensical nature of fan arguments.
24 No Solving This Equation
When Episode VII – The Force Awakens was first announced, the reaction to the title name was warm. It was seen as a reference to the franchise reawakening after ten years and what better way than pointing out the force. When the second film of the sequel trilogy was due for release there was much speculation as to what the title would be. Few expected it to be what we got.
The Last Jedi was seen as an interesting name as people weren’t sure if it was meant to be singular or plural.
The word ‘Jedi’ doesn’t have plurality to it and refers to either a group of Jedi or a single one. Thus, as is seen in the picture, fans went on a math solving spree of sorts to uncover what the name meant or who it was referring to.
23 Wise Words
Let’s not beat around the bush with this one. What Chewbacca says doesn’t make a lick of sense. The character simply growls whatever he wants to say and somehow people understand. Han Solo spent decades traversing the galaxies with this creature and how he didn’t go insane with Chewbacca’s constant growling is a mystery of its own.
This is why this meme is hilarious because Chewbacca could be saying literally anything and all we have is, or are, his words for it, whatever they are supposed to mean. In this picture, Chewbacca is shown in a kind of In-Memoriam style shot and his words of wisdom are displayed alongside it. The joke’s not fooling anybody but it contributes to more of the slapstick humor of Star Wars fans.
22 The War Rages On
Ah yes, who could forget the endless barrage of whining from Star Wars fans the very day Episode VIII – The Last Jedi was released. Those who hadn’t seen the film yet were left anxious, not knowing what to expect from a film lambasted by the majority of the fanbase.
In all honesty, the fans themselves are to blame largely for this.
Seeing the 90+ critical score on Rotten Tomatoes heightened their already lofty expectations and The Last Jedi’s ho-hum storyline pushed them over the edge. In the end, we are left with a vast gulf between the critics and the fans–or rather haters, in this case–as the ‘war’ keeps raging on between the two sides over the debate whether Episode VIII was a terrible or a good film.
21 Pokémon Advanced Generation
Star Wars was acquired by Disney a number of years ago. Then a line of kids toys was to be expected, don’t you think? Disney makes the bulk of its money from sales of cutesy toys based on characters of owned franchises. The Star Wars merchandise almost literally prints money for them, and due to this, The Last Jedi introduced us to cute looking creatures bound to shift sales units.
Porgs served no purpose in the film other than comic relief. Apart from that their most distinct feature was looking cute. The foxes from the end of the film did have a crucial role in that they rescued the Resistance but their appearance was eye-catching so as to brand them for the consumers. In the end, both these creatures do seem to be more Pokémon than Star Wars.
20 A Big Leap
That did escalate rather quickly. The Star Wars film titles are always one of interest. These titles reflect the main story going on in the films. For instance, Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope was titled as such due to Episode III ending on a very somber note. Thus, a new hope arose in the form of the heroes in that film. The same goes for the rest of the movies.
The Last Jedi shows Lucasfilms approach to making Star Wars darker in tone.
Episode VI – Return of the Jedi marked the Jedi putting up a fight against the Sith. Episode VII – The Force Awakens marked the return of the force and The Last Jedi was supposed to be about...The Last Jedi, perhaps. Unfortunately putting those three in tandem sounds like the films tried going dark too sharply and too soon.
19 Not All That Difficult After All
This picture was made before The Last Jedi had been released and was done by someone who had disliked The Force Awakens. Episode VII was, in fact, a pretty great entry to the series but overexcited fans had to find nonsensical problems with it and there’s a sizable portion on the internet who dislike the film. But there is one point that this post did point out and it is a legitimate fault.
Rey battled Kylo Ren at the end of The Force Awakens and even managed to get the better of him despite lacking all the training Kylo had. Jump to The Last Jedi and this still holds true. Rey needed a mere couple days to become worthy of the force and Luke’s lackluster at best training was enough for her to qualify as somewhat of a Master Jedi.
18 Close Enough
Thanks to Yondu, Mary Poppins will never be the same in the eyes of Marvel fans at least, and now due to this post no longer will Princess Leia. In Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.2, Yondu used his arrow to hover lower to the ground with Peter Quill remarking he looked like Mary Poppins. Here we see Yondu emulating Princess Leia from The Last Jedi.
Somehow Leia mastered the force within a few seconds and soared through space to safety.
The scene involved her spacecraft getting destroyed and Leia sucked out into open space. She nonchalantly reached her hand out and defied all laws of physics. The nonsensical point comes up when you consider Leia isn’t even a Jedi. She just has the tendency in her, so this force power appearing of nowhere was a cop-out.
17 Who Needs Books?
One might argue Yoda was not needed in The Last Jedi. The Jedi master appeared as a force ghost to Luke Skywalker when all hope had been lost from his system. Yoda reminded Luke of the responsibility that came with being a Jedi and urged his former pupil to hurry and assist the Resistance. To make a statement, Yoda caused the Jedi sacred texts to burn and be destroyed explaining to a thunderstruck Luke that being a Jedi was innate which didn’t need texts to remind them.
Yet this scene wasn’t directed so well and Yoda just seems like an enormous troll who gave Luke some pep-talk that could mean anything while undermining the age-old practices of the Jedi by making fun of them.
16 The Same Jokes
Yoda is a large ham in himself. If there were a Star Wars camp he’d be the counselor. That’s how campy his style is. Upon his first introduction in Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back, Luke even mistook Yoda to be a harmless creature before he was made known of the Jedi master’s true identity. As can be seen in the above meme, Yoda had on that occasion as well acted like a complete goof.
Haters of the The Last Jedi claim the jokes ruined the film but Star Wars always had childish comedy.
Back in 1983, Episode VI – Return of the Jedi had been similarly accused of leaning too much toward the comedic side. Now in present day, nitpickers have found their latest target in the form of Episode VIII. The series as a whole has had its fair share of lame humor.
15 Too Much Of A Good Thing
Luke, in Episode VIII – The Last Jedi, gave no hint of failing health. On the contrary, he had a whole lot of spunky comebacks to Rey’s accusations of him abandoning the Jedi and the resistance. During his time of exile, the Jedi master seemed to have grown in power as well, during his training of Rey in the art of the force he gave no indication of his abilities falling either. Therefore, his eventual demise at the end of the film by exhaustion wasn’t justification enough.
He’d had three decades of mastering the force and considering we saw Kylo Ren and Rey engage in force teleportation of sorts with no problems you’d think for Luke the force illusion would be a walk in the park. Maybe all that meditation was no good after all.
14 Battle Couple Activated
The couple with the most cringe-worthy romance are guilty here again. Kylo Ren and Rey were supposed to show off their harmony as a battle couple during this scene but it ended up making Snoke’s guard look like a bunch of morons. Kylo alone was enough to fight a group of guards with minimal problems while Rey at least was shown having some difficulty dispatching the guards one at a time.
This still doesn’t hide the fact these two characters were hilariously outmatched.
But plot armor naturally kicked in and we saw them taking out the elite guards after a frenzy of choreographed action. Even the final scene where Rey passes the lightsaber to Kylo to execute the final guard was eye-rolling worthy.
13 Luke's Reasoning
Too bad Star Wars takes place in a galaxy far, far away because the rules of Earth would have done them some good. There’s something known as ‘Innocent until proven guilty’ but this must not exist in the galaxy our heroes reside in.
The kicker in Episode VIII was when Luke confessed almost bringing an end to Ben Solo’s life before he was interrupted. Luke’s justification was that Ben was surely turning to the dark side and he wanted to avert that before it started. But there’s still the matter that Ben was his blood nephew, his sister and best friend were the kid’s parents and Luke couldn’t very dispose of his nephew without repercussions. It could also be argued that Luke’s action caused the genesis of Kylo Ren.
12 All That Crying
Star Wars fans should take a long, hard look in the mirror and admit to themselves that the reason they hated Episode VIII – The Last Jedi so much was because all their fan theories were thrown in the gutter. Director Rian Johnson has become one of the most disliked figures in the film-making community due to his decision to debunk the long-accepted rumor of Rey being Luke Skywalker’s daughter.
As it turned out, Rey’s parent’s were ‘Nobodies’.
Kylo Ren revealed–or got as close to revealing it–to Rey that her parents weren’t important at all. In actuality, they were so unimportant that they went unnamed and un-elaborated. This dashed all hopes from fans that Luke would acknowledge Rey as his daughter and the entire sequel trilogy was a family saga. Instead, we got a Rey and Kylo love story (yuck again).
11 Sensing A Pattern Here
Prequel trilogy haters and Sequel trilogy haters will have a field day with this meme. It draws parallels between the two trilogies and reveals that both of them follow the exact same formula. Although the prequel trilogies followed Anakin Skywalker and his downfall toward the dark side of the force, one could argue that Kylo Ren, being Darth Vader’s grandson, could be seen as the anti-hero of this trilogy series.
Evidently, apart from the original trilogy, the formula follows a young, gifted Jedi who is trained by a master Jedi and falls for a young, independent woman only to be swayed away by a creepy old man. It wouldn’t be a meme if it didn’t have some humor in it and here Kylo’s shirtless scene from The Last Jedi is served as the punch line.
10 Supreme Chump
The main antagonists of the Star Wars series are a couple of bozos. Emperor Palpatine had the perfect planning going on throughout the first six installments only to meet his end by unwittingly zapping Luke with force lightning and allowing Darth Vader to throw him into oblivion. Meanwhile, Supreme Leader Snoke was guilty of the same as his monologuing served to be his doom when he was too hopped up in excitement to notice Kylo Ren turning the lightsaber on him.
Unlike Palpatine, Snoke had no feats to make us respect him.
For all we know, he was a chump who got lucky by tricking an easily gullible kid into doing his bidding. Snoke displayed quite a flair for the force and his failure at sensing Kylo’s betrayal made him an even bigger chump.
9 Hitting The Gym
Han Solo doesn’t have much to be proud of regarding his son Ben. For one thing, he had no clue the boy was turning to the dark side, in fact, we have no idea just how involved Han was in the kid’s upbringing as well. It’s a good thing the senior Solo met his end in The Force Awakens and didn’t have to see the embarrassing shirtless scene play out in Episode VIII – The Last Jedi.
According to this meme, though, Han has no qualms with Kylo going bare above the waist and wants to admire the gains of his son. Kylo Ren’s shirtless scene has ironically been met with the best response from The Last Jedi as there is hardly anyone who didn’t find the scene absolutely hilarious.
8 Easily Convinced Fans
Wait, what? When did this happen? Before you get all excited seeing this picture let’s make it clear that Darth Vader was never supposed to appear in Episode VIII – The Last Jedi. But when it comes to Star Wars fans, especially the most hardcore of the lot, any news – no matter how dubious it might be – reaches extreme levels of excitement.
This meme trolls the Star Wars fans who are easily convinced.
Thanks to this fake rumor, there were many who complained that Darth Vader wasn’t in the film. Although it would have been cool to see Darth Vader appear it wouldn’t have made any sense. The character passed away in Episode VI – Return of the Jedi and will never appear – unless as a force ghost – in the sequel trilogy. Next time, don’t be so gullible.
7 Love Wins?
Another lackluster pairing in The Last Jedi was that of Finn and Rose. Finn looked set to becoming Rey’s love interest judging by what was implied at the end of The Force Awakens but we never got to see the two interact until right at the end. Instead, we were treated to the Adventures of Rose and Finn across the galaxy where the two exchanged quips and worked together, all seeming like a rather forced love angle. Although this implication wasn’t confirmed right until the end when Finn’s plan on ending himself to save the Resistance was thwarted by Rose who collided her own hovercraft into Finn’s and deflected it.
Her justification before passing out was lame at best before planting an awkward kiss on Finn. This meme makes a comedy scene out of it by showing the two characters riding a bike in a park.
6 Quitting Is Easy
Now we’re digging into the real juicy stuff. The smoking gun for every Episode VIII hater is this. Luke went completely out of character to everyone’s chagrin in The Last Jedi and was a shell of his former self. However, fans argued Luke would never have regressed into being a quitter. He was seen completely skeptical of all of Rey’s reasoning and was apathetic at best to the concerns of the Resistance.
It all built up to his eventual return to save the day in the film’s climax but that wasn’t enough.
There’s still no denying Luke abandoned all his family and friends to go into exile and run away from his troubles. Mark Hamill hasn’t been too shy to voice out the same concerns.
5 The Illusionist
Maybe this hasn’t wracked with other people’s heads but why was Luke’s force projection essentially a younger version? It didn’t do anything to the plot except make him look different to how he actually looked. Regardless, that’s not the point, although something to still ponder over. In the ending of Star Wars: Episode VIII – The Last Jedi, Luke got off his sorry butt and aided the Resistance. Kylo Ren had one of his usual temper tantrums and sought to gun down the Mast Jedi only to see him standing unharmed.
Only when he struck Luke himself did he see him to be a force projection. However, by this point, Kylo Ren has had ample training and he should have sensed a disturbance in the force. Alas, we just have another reason not to take Kylo Ren seriously.