I didn’t get to see Star
Wars: The Last Jedi until nearly 2 weeks after it was released. I had
avoided all spoilers and had middling hopes for it because Star Wars has burned
me so many times before (fuck you, episodes 1-3). So when I saw it, and loved it – I was overjoyed! I haven’t
been that thrilled in the theater since Avengers,
honestly.
Then I left the theater and my husband practically foamed at
the mouth as he ranted about how garbage it was, how it was a perfect failure
of the JJ Abrahams mode of storytelling, blah blah blah – I was so disturbed by
the contrast of our interpretations of the movie I burst into tears. No, I
wasn’t just crying because someone disagreed with me about something that I
love. There was more at play going on in my life at that moment; so don’t go
rolling your eyes at me.
It’s been about a week since then, so here’s where I will
address the criticisms of the movie in a more logical and measured manner, but
mostly I will extoll the movie and explain why I liked it as much as I did,
despite its obvious flaws. Leave now if you still haven’t seen it because it’s
all spoilers from here on out.
First of all – if your biggest complaint is that the movie
didn’t answer who Rey’s parents were to your satisfaction – go fuck yourself.
So many people (husband included) are whining that episode 7 spent so much time
implying that Rey must be descended from someone of consequence to the original
trilogy that when we find out the truth (this may not even be the truth, mind
you – it comes from Kylo Ren’s mouth and he’s not really a bastion of ethical
behavior) – that she was abandoned by piece of shit parents on Jakku and has no
relation to Obi-Wan Kenobi or the Skywalkers or any other canon-established
Jedi lineage – it was a disappointment of epic proportions; a veritable bait
and switch. Well guess what, whiners: there already exists a Force-capable
legacy in this trilogy – Kylo Ren! It would be repetitive and limiting to
shoehorn a long-lost granddaughter of Kenobi ancestry or a Force-conceived
messiah baby into this story – it’s perfectly acceptable that Rey has humble
origins. You know who else was a fucking nobody? ANAKIN SKYWALKER. Plus – since
this flick serves as the second movie in this round of trilogies, it is a
spiritual successor to the Empire Strikes
Back – the second and greatest Star Wars story to be put to film. A
warranted criticism of Episode 7 was that plot-wise, it too resembled Episode
4-A New Hope. Clearly the writers here wanted to establish a better balance in
episode 8 between homage to the original flicks and fresher narrative material.
A surprise paternity revelation was the hallmark of Episode 5 (Vader is Luke’s father!?!?!) – to pull
the same trick in this movie would be lame. The fact that Rey shows remarkable
skill despite her ordinary parentage shows that Force sensitivity isn’t the
sole domain of the Skywalker clan – that even though the Jedi were all but
exterminated during the execution of Order 66, the Force is still strong in
unsuspecting people across the galaxy – further evidenced by the young slave on
Canto Bight, who in the film’s final scene picks up his broom without touching
it (the force is strong with him, clearly). It lays the groundwork to show that
should the Resistance find a way to organize more help from disparate planets,
there are capable rebels who might be able to use the Force to turn the tide of
the war, even if they have no formal Jedi training.
The other most persistent criticism is that the message of
the movie seems to be “being sentimental for the past is pathetic” and “stop
trying to smartypants-predict the outcome and then be disappointed when what
happens isn’t what you thought should happen.” Kylo Ren has like 3 monologues
related to this topic (“Let the past die. Kill it, if you have to.”) Luke
Skywalker says “This is not going to go the way you think!” to Rey on Ahch-To;
it’s an admonishment to her but also a meta-warning to the audience. Also, when
Luke boards the Millennium Falcon and bumps in to R2D2, he meta-groans at R2
showing Leia’s original transmission to Obi-Wan from A New Hope, calling it “a
cheap shot.” Petulant fanboys seem to be interpreting these thematic choices as
a direct assault on them: they whine that Disney is attacking the sanctity of
the original films and effectively saying that Star Wars nostalgia is a futile
exercise in arrested development. This pearl-clutching demographic sees Episode
8 as a vehicle for the film-makers to flip off consumers of their content with
a giant nihilistic middle finger.
Now, as someone who worships the original trilogy and spent
2017 watching revivals of 90’s staples like The
X-Files and Twin Peaks (not to
mention 80’s nostalgia-fest Stranger
Things) – I fully appreciate the desire for more quality content from an
older beloved franchise. I can sympathize with people who didn’t like the
movie. But realistically, it’s kind of tricky to find the balance between old
and new– new material could very easily fall down a fan-fiction hole (Harry Potter and the Cursed Child comes
to mind – pure trash), or veer so far from the source material in its desire to
be independent that it alienates the audience and feels like a violation
(Indiana Jones 4, anyone?). I get it. However: I think The Last Jedi handled this balance far more gracefully than Episode
7 did.
The most productive thing to do with this trilogy would be
to look back on the past, incorporate the parts that were successful – and forge
onward, using new characters and ideas to prevent things from being derivative
and stale. So when beloved protagonists behave somewhat uncharacteristically
(see: Luke Skywalker being a sarcastic prick towards Rey), or aren’t featured
as prevalently as the audience may want (see: Luke Skywalker only showing up in
the last 10 seconds of Episode 7), it will inevitably generate outrage from
certain sectors of the fandom. Even Mark Hamill himself expressed displeasure
with the direction Luke’s character took in this film– despite it falling
neatly into disgraced-Jedi precedent (both Obi-Wan and Yoda retreated into exile after their failure to prevent the
rise of the Empire).
The new main characters meshed rather brilliantly with the
old – the Rey/Luke butting of heads was a great contrast to Poe/Leia’s fond
dynamic, and the gimmick of Rey and Kylo speaking through a mysterious telepathic
Force-link worked surprisingly well considering there was no prior evidence
that you could do that from the previous films (this also may provide the
answer to how Ben Solo was seduced to the Dark Side by Snoke, despite being
cloistered away at the ill-fated New Jedi Academy). Not to mention – THEY
BROUGHT YODA BACK! Real Yoda – not
shitty CGI Yoda! Yoda returns in Force-ghost form to advise a conflicted Luke
and utters the most relevant bit of dialogue to this line of discussion: “We
are what they grow beyond.” As in, as Rey and the new Resistance must grow
beyond the foundation that the New Republic (Rebel Alliance) established in the
first trilogy in order to defeat the New Order (the Empire), we as an audience
must grow past our attachment to the first films and grow with the franchise as
new films are made.
That’s not to say the film didn’t have problems. The Star
Wars universe continues to defy physics (you can’t drop bombs onto a Dreadnaught, guys – gravity doesn’t work that way
in space! Things must be projected to
move, in keeping with Newton’s Second Law of Motion), to shirk narrative
completion (we still don’t fucking know who Snoke was, or how he came to power,
and since he’s been killed by Kylo we likely won’t ever find out), and it
chooses to create interpersonal conflict among the good-guys simply to disguise
the fact that the plot is spinning its wheels instead of moving forward (see:
Laura Dern’s inexplicably Snape-like General Holdo).
People are bitching and
moaning about how Finn and new-comer Rose’s entire storyline is a giant
McGuffin that ultimately contributes nothing to the forward momentum of the
Resistance (in fact – one could argue their shenanigans resulted in the
accelerated destruction of the Resistance fleet), and that Poe’s mutiny during
Leia’s coma was equally as unproductive – and I completely concur. But what the
fuck would you prefer? C’mon – wasn’t the excursion on Canto Bight and the
tension between hot head Poe and ice bitch Holdo a whole lot more entertaining
than all of our heroes watching the fleet get picked off one by one from the
safety of the main ship!?
The whole movie ends on a down note (as Empire did before it): Luke sacrificed himself so that the Rebels
could escape the salt-planet, the Jedi sacred texts were destroyed by
ghost-Yoda, the Resistance is reduced to whoever could fit onto the Millennium
Falcon. The anticlimax of Rey not actually getting much formal Jedi training (I
can still hear my husband complaining about the comical toss of Luke’s old
lightsaber over his shoulder, as if Rey had handed him an empty carton of milk
or something) and Kylo Ren not actually getting to light-saber duel Luke was
frustrating for some, but it didn’t actually bother me that much. The only
protagonist left from the original trilogy (RIP Admiral Ackbar – I didn’t
forget about you!) is Leia – and that’s a huge problem because Carrie Fisher
passed away last year and can’t reprise the role for Episode 9 (*sob*). But I
still left the movie feeling invigorated because hope for the resistance has
been sown. Plus – the new aliens fell safely above the “Jar Jar Binks Threshold”
for annoying/insulting presence, we got to see a lot more of Carrie Fisher than
we did in the last film (and she uses the Force to save herself from certain
death!), and there was a drastic increase in the amount of secondary female/people
of color characters.
Also intriguing was the fact that Episode 8 is actually a solid
rumination on our current political climate. At least, it was written so that
cuck liberals like me can read into it that way; you could ignore the parallels
entirely if you wish. Kylo Ren is so brazenly Trumpesque in his petulant
dynastical entitlement and dangerous nostalgia for when the Empire was great it
truly surprises me that there wasn’t a stronger backlash against the film from
conservative viewers. You could draw any number of comparisons – Trump/Kylo vs
Clinton/Rey, Kylo as the extreme evangelical antiestablishment branch of the
GOP vs General Hux’s more traditionalist patriarchal politician branch of the
GOP, Trump/Kylo vs Bernie/Rey. Or don’t think of it that way at all – either
way the movie tears down the conventions of the old Star Wars so that a new
kind of heroism/villainy can play out in Episode 9. This isn’t necessarily a
bad thing – let’s not forget the Jedi Order was so convinced of its effectiveness
it failed to catch the fact that Palpatine was a Sith Lord consolidating power
right under their noses until it was too late to prevent their own destruction.
Kylo Ren killed Snoke and saved us all from having to be bored with the same
old megalomaniacal brand of evil – what will the New Order look like with Kylo
at its helm (Hux snipping at his heels), conflicted and angsty as fuck because
his greatest threats are now a no-name girl with enviable Force ability and his
own mother?
Overall, despite its obvious flaws, I adored this movie and
was pleased with the way things panned out. Would I have loved to see Luke fight
Kylo in the flesh, or a more operatic space battle, or a more dignified death
for Admiral Ackbar? Yes. But am I going to lock myself up in my room and listen
to Morrissey and brood because it didn’t check off everything on my wish list?
NO. Morrissey sucks. Episode 8 didn’t.
 |
| May the Force be with you, Carrie |
