Star Wars: The Last Jedi is the latest entry in Disney’s space saga following the galaxy far, far away and the struggle between a fascistic regime hellbent on taking over the galaxy by force, and a small band of fighters determined to stop them. The movie picks up after the events of 2015’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens with Poe Dameron (Oscar Issac), General Leia Organa (Carrie Fisher), and Finn (John Boyega) working to help the Resistance survive the wrath of the First Order while across the galaxy, Rey (Daisy Ridley) seeks to convince Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) to join their cause and help turn Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) back to the light side of the Force and away from darkness.
The movie’s main theme revolved around the meaning and purpose of being a hero. The film was littered with characters taking risks in service of a cause, even at great sacrifice to themselves. The Last Jedi begins with a Resistance fighter sacrificing her life to ensure the destruction of a destructive First Order ship. Following this, we spend a third of the movie following her sister Rose (Kelly Marie Tran) fighting to honor her sister’s memory by striking back at the First Order and saving the remnants of the Resistance. Rose goes on to make her own hero’s sacrifice, saving Finn from a suicide mission at great cost to her own well-being. Luke Skywalker resists fighting on the side of the Resistance for the majority of the movie, cowed by his previous failures in saving souls and distrustful of his ability to ever do so. In the end, he martyrs himself so that others, and more importantly their cause, can live on and be inspired by the choice that he made; becoming the hero he no longer believed he could be.
The second theme was that of new beginnings. “Let the past die” was a common refrain and the movie’s developments reflected that. With Luke’s death, a new generation unwed to the old Jedi order and its ways is born. Poe Dameron’s resolve and decisiveness in the face of tough decisions impressed his older superiors and clear his path to leadership within the Resistance. The movie felt like a changing of the guard as familiar faces took step backs and the newer characters stepped to the forefront of the franchise.
The movie also takes some original directions with its plot. In a heist subplot to find a master codebreaker that will help Finn and Rose break into the First Order’s lead Star Destroyer ship and disable its tracking device, our protagonists actually fail at their mission instead of a cliched success where they save the day and everything goes to plan. As a result, their friends in the Resistance must utilize another plan to make it to safety. Also, the villain behind the curtain Supreme Leader Snoke (Andy Serkis) is killed halfway through the film, and appears to be staying dead. In a franchise predicated on having a bad guy in the background pulling the strings, the new trilogy appears to have actually allowed his underling to successfully stage a coup and ascend to the top in real time. And Kylo’s betrayal of Snoke is played for a time as his return to the side of the good guys but in reality, it’s a mere power play and he does not turn so quickly. These bold choices really elevate the movie and were something I appreciated as a fan of risk-taking cinema.
The Last Jedi has two major issues with the first being comedy the feels misplaced place at times. The movie begins with a slapstick comedic routine that includes a “Yo Mama” joke and threatened to take me out of the movie at first. This type of overt, on the nose humor did calm down a bit afterward. but, even for a historical kid friendly franchise, it felt like the humor undercut some tense moments where the intense and serious tone should have been allowed to linger.
The second issue with the film is its treatment of some characters that have been presented as being integral to story within the trilogy, but were seriously underdeveloped and ultimately discarded. Snoke has been the mysterious villain behind the curtain, the one who turned Kylo Ren from Ben Solo to the dark, twisted, conflicted young antagonist. His past has been kept secretive and many viewers had hoped we’d be given a thorough explanation of where he came from and how powerful he is. Instead, he is killed halfway through the film by Kylo Ren in a manner that contradicts what we’ve been shown of his power level just minutes before his death. Before he is struck down, Snoke explains that he had used his powers to link together the minds of Rey and Kylo in order to lure Rey to him and find Luke, and that both were powerless to stop him. Yet, moments later, Kylo is able to hide his intentions of killing Snoke from Snoke’s mind and surprises him with an attack. How is Snoke powerful enough to control Kylo’s mind one moment but weak enough to not be able to read his thoughts the next? And why was he killed before any insight to his character’s past or how he built the First Order were established? Captain Phasma (Gwendoline Christie) suffers from nearly the exact problem as Snoke. Built up as a formidable villain, for the second straight movie, Phasma is left with little to say and is easily and quickly disposed of by the film’s heroes.
All in all, Star Wars: The Last Jedi does show some level of disrespect for its audience due to the constant introduction to humor and disregard to logic and build up for some characters. The film excels however in taking some bold decisions and risks with the direction of other characters, the removal of others, original, non-cliched plot directions, and the diverse cast that it assembles. You can feel the movie’s two and a half hour length but the pacing is handled very well so it doesn’t feel like a chore or a problem for the movie to overcome. Seeing it on the big screen with a large crowd is definitely worth your time.
Image: Walt Disney Studios
