THE LAST JEDI: A NEW HOPE
Latest film offers a way forward: Griwkowsky
Star Wars: The Last Jedi is a philosophical titan that, like its ski-speeders on Crait, breaks necessary new ground in the ongoing adventures of the Skywalker clan, tearing at the surface to reveal the blood beneath.
Very much like 1980’s Empire Strikes Back, it’s a film that scars.
Besides being surprisingly thoughtful and packed with metaphor, Episode VIII’s action sequences are tense and terrifying, and even its humour repeatedly serves a greater purpose. Think of how Chewie gets his savage vibe back as he readies to eat a roasted Porg — then hesitates as its family stares at him. In the tiniest of wordless skits, we’re considering the Wookie’s instinct and character.
And character — especially the character of Kylo Ren, Rey, Luke Skywalker, Leia Organa and, really importantly, Poe Dameron — is just one of Episode VIII’s behemoth strengths.
After waiting two years to see Luke’s next move as Rey passes the canonical blue lightsaber to him in J.J. Abrams’ cliffhanger style, The Last Jedi writerdirector Rian Johnson makes a bold statement. Luke hilariously tosses the antique, and we learn so much about the old wizard in an instant.
But rather than being a throwaway joke, this opens the door to just one of The Last Jedi’s major, iconoclastic themes: “Let the past die,” as Kylo Ren later pleads.
The idea of moving on past the familiar flashes like lightning through the whole movie, including in Yoda’s attitude about the sacred Jedi texts, which he jokingly dismisses as real “pageturners.”
Having the saga’s great philosophical figure mock Luke — substitute the fanboy audience here — clinging to Star Wars orthodoxy seems in part to be a response to the derivative nature of The Force Awakens which, while fun, was innovatively bankrupt. As filmmaker, Johnson knows this impression, and speaks to it directly when hitting the same dismissive note when Supreme Leader Snoke orders Ren to take off his “ridiculous mask,” which is then smashed. The director later does away with golden Gollum Snoke — an echo of the original trilogy’s Emperor.
But, to Johnson’s ongoing credit, by sacrificing Snoke — both Rey and Ren’s goal — he builds something more important between them. The moment their seduction toward each other is torn apart by their fundamental misunderstanding of one another is tragic and beautiful: Rey says, “Don’t do this, Ben,” then Kylo begs her to stick with him, anchored on the whispered word, “Please.”
It’s in this gorgeous setting we also shrug off the tease of Rey’s family history, perhaps Johnson’s boldest move against the last film and the entire saga. Who were Rey’s parents? “Nobody,” she sniffs.
And who, ultimately, was Snoke? Seriously, who really cares? He served his purpose, then got out of the way for the real core of the new trilogy: the Rey-Ren relationship. Here, Johnson tosses lightsaber after lightsaber over his shoulder.
Now, let’s talk about Luke a bit, as we will for generations. A destroyed old man hoping to die when Rey meets him, Luke’s legacy of blowing up one Death Star, rescuing a buddy from a gangster, then having the crap beat out of him so his dad Darth Vader had to save the galaxy (which didn’t even work) was a long story of spiralling failure.
That’s where Abrams left us. Johnson pulled Skywalker back from the cliff.
I hoped for about five things from The Last Jedi; Johnson gave me at least 10, including a continuing barrage of true surprises and new ideas.
We see Leia use the Force to save herself (ironically, R.I.P.); a ship torn in half with a hyperspace jump; Snoke use a Force switchboard to connect Rey and Ren; Rey confronting useless countless echoes of herself as she tries to unravel her lineage; criticism of war profiteering.
But it’s the new ideas surrounding Luke that make this his film, including the flashbacks of how Ren fell, seen from three not-socertain points of view.
Yoda’s lesson that Luke’s missteps are part of Rey’s lesson is wonderful, and another key theme of the film: the necessity of failure.
The R2-D2 moment was also heart-melting. Now an old robot sleeping most of the time, Artoo is actually the one who tips Luke’s stubbornness — literally talking to him with Leia’s message to Obi-Wan Kenobi. After this, Luke checks in on his hospitalized sister and makes his ultimate decision to sacrifice himself. Artoo, as ever, saves the day.
Luke’s power to project his image across the galaxy to stall Kylo Ren was magnificent — and it kills him, as Ren warned Rey earlier. But in doing so, this film creates Luke’s final redemption. He’s returned from the Grey Side to be part of a new hope moving forward without him.
Now let’s discuss the film’s most controversial aspect: the outright failure of Finn and Rose’s plan, which Poe Dameron takes up like a typical Hollywood hero, defying authority to save the day — except it didn’t work. If Poe hadn’t snuck around Vice Admiral Holdo’s back with his space cowboy routine, Benicio Del Toro’s DJ character couldn’t have sold Finn and Rose’s discussions of the Resistance’s moves to the First Order — and a great number of people, including Luke Skywalker, might have been spared.
But Dameron, several ranks lower, didn’t give the serious lady with pink hair credit, and it costs everyone. There is, as there is throughout The Last Jedi, a feminist message here: men often don’t listen to women.
Full disclosure, I didn’t like or trust Holdo at first, either. But she’s someone in whom Leia put her trust, and because Poe didn’t respect that, the central character of the original trilogy had to play his final hand.
Blaming Holdo for not letting Poe in on the escape plan to Crait is as ridiculous as expecting her to roll with the flyboy’s plan to destroy the hyperspace tracker — besides, he never told her. “The greatest teacher, failure is.”
Moving on to the film’s final scene, an unknown nobody slave with telekinesis is inspired by Luke Skywalker’s story and looks to the stars — the literal embodiment of “a new hope.”
As much as Yoda, Kylo Ren and even Rian Johnson are saying it’s time to move on from our old heroes, let’s not forget about Rey keeping the orthodox candle lit. She has faith in the old way.
While Luke hesitates and tries to save the Jedi Texts as Yoda zaps the ancient tree, Rey is already ahead of him: at the end of the film, the books are aboard the Millenium Falcon, alongside the last active remnants of the Resistance and old Rebellion.
For me, the most gratifying thing about Johnson’s film is he’s not dogmatic about his themes of moving on, his iconoclastic statements about heroism or the value of failure — which doesn’t seem to resonate with the part of audience most craving pure escapism.
But these are just concepts to think about, not one-sentence answers. You might want to sit down for this: Johnson is having his characters speak simultaneous, contradictory truths. It’s your call with which you most agree.
For me, I’ll take this nugget above all — from the mouth of someone still mourning her dead sister: “That’s how we’re gonna win. Not fighting what we hate, saving what we love.”
Rian Johnson pulled that off, the Force with him as he stepped into a larger world.