“Luke Skywalker has vanished.”
Those yellow words lit up the screen two years ago, slowly scrolling past stars, as the first moments of The Force Awakens dissolved into darkness. That movie ends with only a brief appearance of the Jedi Master, tagging an unspoken promise that we would see more of him in a later installment, in a galaxy without Han Solo.
The Last Jedi follows through on that pledge, wielding it like a lightsaber, a civilized weapon over the expectations of fans. It is, in totality, Luke Skywalker’s movie. Every word in Rian Johnson’s script, every action and brush of the shoulder, plays with perceptions and theories and demands that I’ve seen written on internet forums by fans over the past two years.
A lot of those fans are disappointed and I sympathize with them. Reading through the same sites and subreddits after I left the theatre, I was honestly shocked with how many people responded negatively to this movie. “This is not my Star Wars”, they shout to a digital echo chamber, “This is not what Star Wars means to me”.
This is the first movie in the franchise since, really, The Empire Strikes Back, where there are additions to the galaxy and its mythos. Director Rian Johnson brings new powers and characters, new directions and dialogue, even new types of shots into a forty-year-old story that, a week ago, could have probably been predicted beat-for-beat. He unceremoniously kills the “new Emperor” of this trilogy (quickly tossing away any chance that he is Revenge of the Sith’s Darth Plagueis), removes any chance of Rey being related to Kenobi or Solo or Palpatine and reveals Luke Skywalker to be a disillusioned, jaded Jedi who, for the briefest of moments, faltered in his beliefs of inherent good. It is a Star Wars universe that we have not seen before and, to some, that is frightening.
In The Beginning, an oft-parodied but very important making-of documentary on The Phantom Menace DVD, George Lucas tells a group of visual effect supervisors that the Star Wars saga is “like poetry … every stanza kind of rhymes with the last one.” Fans have taken that to heart, allowing the familiarity and comfort of the prequels to settle in, the mirroring of the stories of Anakin and Luke to become an important part of how a Star Wars movie feels to them.
When The Force Awakens also “rhymed”, it arrived to complaints from those same fans. In 2015, people claimed it followed the original plot of the first movie too closely, not allowing characters to become any more than archetypes of heroes past.
I always had a problem with that complaint: yes, The Force Awakens tackled similar plotlines from A New Hope, leading viewers on a journey from sand planets to rebel bases … but it was, in my mind, actually a retelling of the entire original trilogy, not just its first act. The plots of Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi run concurrent with JJ Abrams’ story, taking fans back to ice worlds and lightsaber duels, trench runs more similar to the second Death Star than the first. The characters develop quickly through their relationship with the Force, heroes die and evil is vanquished.
The Force Awakens told that full story of the original trilogy, completing a full stanza of Lucas’ poetry in just about two hours, so that The Last Jedi could stand on its own. In fact, Episode 8 literally blows up Abrams’ hilly Resistance base in its first five minutes, a pointed reminder from Rian Johnson that things are changing and they are changing fast.
This is a wholly modern Star Wars movie, with quick, weird cuts that are almost jarring when presented in the context of the other episodes, providing the saga with some of its first usages of “shaky cam” and quick zooms (like the very first shot of the movie, as the camera pans down from the scroll). A lot of emphasis has been put on the Force Projection scenes between Rey and Kylo, as it should be, but I think the defining example of this new mentality is a quick, early scene between Kylo and Leia, attuned to each other in the Force, the camera melting seamlessly and repeatedly between their similar faces. Sure, it didn’t look like Star Wars … but does it matter?
In the lead-up to this movie’s premiere, it was repeatedly described as “the darkest Star Wars movie”, which I shrugged off. But the stakes are legitimately dire, the final count of Resistance members at the end of the movie probably numbering less than 50 members (if that). Plans fail, whether it is Finn and Rose’s (mostly pointless) Canto Bight quest or Poe’s defiance towards Laura Dern’s Admiral Holdo. Red flowers (and Justin Theroux) prove to be unattainable MacGuffins, allowing heroes to falter and learn from mistakes that have devastating consequences.
And, in that way, Star Wars has stakes again, delivering real moments of pathos for previously nameless characters (the best, and earliest, example being Rose’s sister, Paige as she delivers a complete, emotional character journey in what amounts to less than two minutes of actual screen time). Admiral Holdo’s final stand in hyperspace was one of the most beautiful shots of any movie in the series, the deadly silence accompanied by a very satisfying crowd reaction.
But that is not to say I don’t have problems with this movie (and probably the biggest problems I’ve had with any Star Wars movie since Attack of the Clones).
Little, Marvel-esque one-liners jumped out at me, taking me out of the movie on my first viewing. And it will take me a few more viewings to get used to what I have dubbed “Super Leia”, not because of the usage of her latent Force powers, but how they were presented onscreen. Benicio Del Toro’s character (apparently named “DJ”, which I don’t think is ever uttered in the movie) is wholly unnecessary, adding nearly-nothing to an already-long movie (and pairing it with an odd choice made by the actor to lisp his way to the bridge of the Surpremacy, as if starring in an upcoming Harry Potter movie). The entire Canto Bight sequence seems equally unnecessary, as well, as if they struggled to figure out Finn’s place in the story.
But those are the larger issues, with my hastily scribbled complaints then becoming very nitpicky. Ackbar’s death is nearly-off-screen, definitely not highlighted enough for an Original Trilogy mainstay. And, in perhaps a concerted effort to take a step past JJ Abrams’ installment, Greg Grunberg’s Snap Wexley (star of the Star Wars: Aftermath book trilogy) is oddly absent, after getting significant screen time in Episode 7. (I also didn’t need to see my childhood hero Luke Skywalker milking the nipples of a bloated, beached alien, but that is for a different article.)
But these issues don’t affect the brilliance and importance of The Last Jedi. And it does not negate the impact of one particular performance that was literally forty years in the making, which is what really allows this chapter to live on the same level as its classic siblings.
Luke Skywalker may not have spoken on-screen since 1983, but Mark Hamill has spent the last decades growing with the character. The Last Jedi’s script allows that and embraces it: more than any of his previous appearances, this is a Luke with Hamill’s humor and warmth and wryness. It’s almost an on-screen adaptation of his re-embrace of the Star Wars fandom and the community that, for the longest time, just wanted him to be the same farmboy they met in 1977.
Every time Mark Hamill appears on screen is some of the most magnetic, dynamic acting I have ever seen. Rooted in earned emotion, scenes between Luke and the original cast give the story needed closure (and are also my favorite moments in the movie). The reunion between Luke and Artoo (paired with a Kenobi-like removal of his hood and a replaying a certain hologram) proved to be the most effective impetus for Luke’s return from exile, while the giving of Han’s lucky dice and a kiss on the forehead to Leia is even more bittersweet following Carrie Fisher’s passing. Even the quick wink he gives to C-3PO is incredibly played, a quiet moment between a moisture farmer and his droid. (And I could write an entire article about his surprise interactions with Force Ghost Yoda, puppeteered and again voiced by Frank Oz. Truly blessed, we are.)
The last “battle” of the movie again toys with the perceptions of fans who long-clamored to see Hamill wield his lightsaber again (we technically did), who theorized about Luke’s incredible Force powers and who just wanted to see the powerful, Jedi Master that had been “promised” to them. They got it but, for a lot of people, it wasn’t enough. No, we didn’t see Luke take down the entirety of the First Order’s heavy machinery. No, we didn’t see Luke best Kylo Ren in a duel (or even see him swing a saber). But we did finally realize the awesomeness and importance of the Force and Luke’s connection to it.
The galaxy, and the audience, needed Luke Skywalker and he answered. And, two years after we learned Luke Skywalker had disappeared from the galaxy (and thirty years after we last saw him, beardless and full of hope on the forest moon of Endor), we got to say goodbye. And he got to respond, looking straight through the screen and directly to a five-year-old me: “See you around, kid.”
The next time you watch the movie, pay attention to how many times characters use the word “hope.” No matter the scene, no matter the situation, this, more than anything, drives the actions of the heroes (and the villains). There is no Death Star, no villain in the entire universe, who is more powerful than hope. Not even Luke Skywalker himself, a simple farmboy from Tatooine, can be more powerful than the hope his mere presence brings. The coda at the end of the film (again, something never done before in one of these movies) hammers that home: Star Wars is more than lightsabers and action, more than powerful heroes and clear villains, more important than internet theories and lineage.
It is about allowing stories to shape who you grow up to be … and allowing those stories to give you hope.
Rating:
Very well wrote article and a thought provoking read.