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| Hamill, Ridley, and Driver in Last Jedi |
“The
Last Star Wars Film”
A Review of Star Wars: The Last Jedi by Nick Olszyk
MPAA Rating, PG-13
USCCB Rating, A-II
Reel Rating, Three Reels
Warning: This review contains spoilers – a lot of spoilers. I am also
basing my opinions with the assumption that everything the audience is led to
believe is true is fact rather than misdirection. I haven’t read the script to
Episode IX, but, knowing J.J. Abrams, anything is possible.
Star Wars: The Last Jedi is easily the
most anticipated film of 2017. After The
Force Awakens did a
great job at relaunching the franchise and teased fans will a million
questions, The Last Jedi was expected
to deliver a darker and more complicated narrative that deliver on its
predecessor’s promises. It’s pleasing to announce The Last Jedi is a brilliant film in almost every aspect of its
production, yet it also left myself and many fans unsatisfied, even
upset. I’ll take Obi-Wan’s advice and “search my feelings,” trying to
understand this schizophrenic reaction.
The story picks up
right where Awakens left off with Ray
(Daisy Ridley) finding the reclusive Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) on the rocky
island of Ahch-To (bless you). Yet from the moment Luke Skywalker tosses his long-lost
lightsaber over his shoulder without even a single question to the mysterious
woman who handed it to him, the audience senses something is off. Things get
even worse when he tells Ray that “the Jedi must end,” even attempting to burn
the last of the ancient Jedi texts. Yoda, in a great cameo, seems unmoved.
“Page turners, they were not,” he sighs, but I’d sure like to read them.
Despite not
being the near clone Awakens was to New Hope, there are strong echoes of The Empire Strikes Back throughout The Last Jedi. Despite destroying
Starkiller Base, the First Order is nearly complete in their military takeover
of the galaxy, hunting the last remnants of the Resistance across the reaches
of space. General Leia Organa (Carrie Fisher in her last role) is running out
of fuel and time, so Poe, Finn, and BB-8 team up to buy her some time. Some of
the best parts of Last Jedi involve
this duo’s space intrigue as they bomb starfighters, visit a casino planet, and
impersonate Imperial officers.
In the
background of these two stories, arises a third plot as Kylo Ren keeps up his
whiny obsession to capture Ray and assume the mantle – and mask – of his
grandfather Darth Vader. His horrific act of patricide in the first film seems
to have done little to sway his angst as he continues to throw tantrums, boss
Hux around, and in general put everyone in a bad mood.
As a slice of
escapist space opera, The Last Jedi
is the most successful Star Wars film
since Empire. The battle scenes,
whether with laser guns in space or light sabers on the ground, are incredibly
well choreographed by director Rain Johnson. The special effects and visuals
amaze without distracting. It also manages to balance the difficult tone of
being neither too serious nor too lighthearted. It brings up themes of
vengeance, failure, anger, and despair while enjoying several hilarious scenes
between Chewbacca and the progs, cat-puffin like creatures that will serve as
the Ewoks for the Post-Millennial generation. The dialogue also finds its
proper niche between solemn speeches and eye-rolling wisecracks, especially
from “I’m too damn old for this” Luke. In all of this, no one blinks once but
all take it in stride. That’s enormously hard to pull off.
Luke believes
that he has failed his former student Kylo Ren, who embraced the dark side and
killed the Jedi. Yoda shakes his head. “The greatest teacher, failure is,” the
grammatically impaired alien muses. It appears Rain Johnson has taken Yoda’s
advice to heart. Again and again, the audience is reminded that many of the
central ideas that made the original films so popular were wrong – that the
series was, in the end, a failure. It was too simple, too ignorant, too black
and white. It believed the good and evil were opposites, and that good always
triumphed through the actions of heroic individuals. In 1977, at a time when
everything seemed gray, this was a refreshing reminder of the Christian ethic
that formed the human heart and man’s greatest literary archetypes.
Yet The Last Jedi suggests that the 21st
century, despite even more dire circumstances, demands narrative diversity and
progressive conformity. Johnson goes even beyond Yoda’s advice and takes Kylo’s
words seriously: “Let the past die. Kill it, if you have to. That's the only
way to become what you are meant to be.” It’s not just that new characters are
introduced, but older ones are snuffed out. Luke doesn’t just die, he becomes
“un-Luke,” and Leia spends half the film unconscious. The revelation of Ray’s
parents as unknown “desert folk” is also a let down. After everything that is
teased in Awakens tossing aside such
important questions as unimportant is worse than not answering them. It’s
downright insulting. Johnson’s intention, no doubt, was that one’s origins do
not matter. Yet this is already understood through Luke’s humble origins and
the force sensitive slave children at the film’s conclusion. A new chapter in a
series must have fresh ideas, but they should flow organically from what has
been already built.
Johnson’s
inadequacy comes from a larger problem within storytelling today. Fantasy is
archetypal in nature, yet from Harry
Potter to Game of Thrones to Star Wars, 21st century
authors try to ground it in human concupiscence rather than Platonic forms.
Johnson rejects Ray as a Skywalker because it would be too Shakespearian and
Patriarchal. “Why does this family matter so much,” he wonders. “Doesn’t every
family matter?” Because as a fantasy, they are a stand in for every family. The
necessary message is that every human is an heir to the King. The
stormtrooper’s shift from nameless cannon fodder to conflicted hero in Finn
would work great in a WWII epic, but in Star
Wars one can’t go through that story process, then expect to kill countless
imperials with impunity.
There are many
other examples, but the death of Luke is by far the most infuriating. After a
major victory, when the audience is at the height of their joy, he simply
disappears without explanation. It is a redemption, in a sense, but barely. He
will never get to become an aged Master, never train generations of Jedi, never
even leave that stupid island. This nine-film trilogy is his story, not Ray’s.
She can have episodes ten through eighteen.
To be fair, Star Wars has always been more
pantheistic than Christian in its worldview. One could make an effective
argument that Johnson is being true to the Jedi’s Buddhist roots, that he is
challenging our attachment to this story as an audience and we must realize
nature as transient. Yet, I would argue that the original trilogy’s story of a
boy’s transformation into a man and his refusal to cooperate with evil is
thoroughly Christian at its heart, even evangelically useful. It wasn’t that
Johnson failed in making a great Star
Wars film; he didn’t even try. We all know what Yoda said about that.
This article first appeared in Catholic World Report on December 22nd, 2017.
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