I was effusive about the last Star Wars movie, The Force Awakens, so I felt like I had to say something about The Last Jedi. (Obvi, spoilers abound.)
But it was so hard. As I’ve aged, my opinions come much more slowly, and they’re becoming mired in self-reflection. I used to be able to tell you what I thought within 10 minutes of seeing something, and now I have to stew, ponder, and sleep on it before anything begins to take form.
The Last Jedi was even worse. I saw the movie – I liked the movie, but for some inexplicable reason, it left me feeling dead inside.
Was it the death of Luke Skywalker? Was it knowing that Carrie Fisher would never return?
I thought and thought, read articles and found some interesting ideas: the movie represented the death of the Star Wars past, it was political, it didn’t provide the sweeping revelations of The Empire Strikes Back. Usually when reading I’ll find at least one article that pretty well sums up my thoughts on the movie, but in this case, I honestly couldn’t find one that captured the own spirit of ennui I felt leaving the theater.
I broke it down into the things I liked and the things I hated to try to make sense of it:
Likes:
I loved Vice Admiral Holdo – Laura Dern’s performance was absolutely brilliant. As she awkwardly took the center stage in her first scene, I had no idea if I could trust her. The arc she brought me through during the movie was amazing – from distrust, to fear, to admiration for the most heroic (and badass) scene in the movie.
I continue to love Rey. Her optimism and goodness are amazing in a world where it seems we are constantly drowning in cynicism. She was tempted by the dark side, yes, but she was not broken by it – awesome.
Snoke’s death. Loved this. The fact that Kylo now is the “ultimate” baddy is really pretty awesome and a great twist to the movie.
Dislikes:
Cartoonishness – this is not to be confused with the humor. I loved the porgs – the slapstick of Rey breaking the wheelbarrow was one of the best scenes in the movie for me. What I hated were the scenes that broke our understanding of reality – Admiral Leia using the force (?) to bring herself back to life and float back into a space station. Luke getting blasted by laser fire and coming out unscathed (this is later explained, but I was still like… this is ridiculous). Rey’s study under Luke consisting of her closing her eyes once and understanding the totality of the force… These parts just clanged for me.
Luke’s death to me was not… good. I get it… he astral projected and distracted Kylo so the others could escape, but the Luke Skywalker from the original trilogy wouldn’t be that lame. Luke in the original trilogy did anything for his friends, and his father, so to see him sitting on a rock… it just seemed like a lame cop out. They had to get him to the weird salt planet and why not Astral project him there?
In looking at the dislikes I realized my core issue with the movie, why I will no longer have the excitement of getting opening night tickets to a Star Wars movie.
It’s complicated, so bear with me.
Essentially, it boils down to the fact that the original trilogy cultivated this incredible mysticism and wonder around The Force. It was something the audience didn’t understand – it helped you move rocks and swing lightsabers, but no one really knew what it was. What was the true potential of this understanding of the natural world?
I.e. when Yoda raises the X-Wing from the swamp in The Empire Strikes Back, it pushes the boundaries of what we understand this Force to be. We’d seen Vader choke people – we’d seen Obi Wan project himself from beyond the grave – now it allowed one to actually move incredible objects with the power of the mind.
Likewise, in the Dagobah scenes, the force is something that has to be met with and controlled. It could sense your fear, it could project your fear. When Luke goes into the swamp and kills Vader to see his own face, it only adds to the mystery and wonder around this mystical power in the universe.
Even the prequels pay homage to this. The Force is shrouded in secrecy – yes, we see the temple and students practicing Jedi powers, but Darth Sidious reveals that there are yet untapped potential to the power of the force – the ability to resurrect the dead.
Star Wars movies, always tacitly, expanded the boundaries of the force. It was some sort of magic that infused itself to the core of the Star Wars mythos. At once it could take you to the heart of yourself, to battle your greatest fears, and yet could also manifest in the manipulation of the physical world, in focusing your mind to do unreal things.
What I hated about The Last Jedi is it destroyed this. I don’t care that Luke died. I’m going to miss the hell out of Carrie Fisher, especially after getting her for two more movies, but it didn’t kill my enthusiasm for the new trilogy that she was gone.
Essentially, The Last Jedi took the magic and mysticism of The Force and turned it into cheap parlor tricks, into a way to get from point A to point B due to convoluted plotting.
Admiral Leia has literally never held a lightsaber… and all of a sudden she accomplishes the greatest feat of the dark side of the force by resurrecting herself and flying back to a space ship.
Rey, in literally 2 minutes masters the force and can understand everything about the natural world. Luke literally trained for weeks and struggled lifting one rock.
What I deeply loved about the original trilogy was the sense of mystery that the force evoked. In the back of my mind there was an unlimited potential, and the heroes of the saga had the ability to tap into that and use it for incredible things. Plot twists are amazing, but knowing that this incredible energy that surrounds the heroes was available to be used in unique ways, when they needed it, added a layer of mystery and intrigue that always kept me coming back.
In the original trilogy, they didn’t have the budget to CGI people flying through space, so we had to primarily love the characters and rely on physical action for tension. The Force was used in small, subtle ways throughout the movies and we got to experience the awe and wonder of it along with the characters.
Now it’s blown wide open. People can fly – astral projections are a thing, and our heroes don’t need to put their real bodies on the line because of a little force magic. You don’t even need to be that connected to the force to be able to fly and bring yourself back to life – you just need a little Skywalker chutzpah.
Did I like the movie? Yes, it was an incredible action movie. I’m excited to see where the last episode takes us for sure. But I won’t by tickets to day one. That little extra magic within the Star Wars universe – that thing above simple ideals of heroism and adventure – the idea of something that cannot be fully understood or controlled, an idea that the universe is unknowable, inconceivable, but pervaded by goodness, has been broken. What was once something mystic has become mundane. No longer is there a mysterious edge to the world of the force, it’s just a superpower that fills plot holes.
The real magic in the original Star Wars movies was the ability of the story to move the boundaries of the force to new heights, but always keep a sense of wonder. Small miracles added up to the mystic presence that you could trust and know would help our heroes. The Last Jedi shattered those boundaries, and, I suppose, the idea that a series of action movies could explore something bigger, unknowable, and infinite.