Clearing the Decks

Before I saw Star Wars: The Last Jedi this weekend, I wasn’t sure what to expect from it.  Everybody knew what it would focus on: Rey’s training with Luke Skywalker and the continuing battle between the Resistance and First Order.  But I wasn’t sure what direction they would take it in.  But then a lot of early reviews came in from people who attended the world premiere, and I got really optimistic for the thrill ride I was about to go on.  And it was a hell of a ride.  I’m just going to come out with it: this was the best Star Wars movie since Empire Strikes Back, and may even be better.

The story unfolds along three main plotlines: the Resistance, whose base has been discovered by the First Order, retreats and then finds that they are being tracked through hyperspace.  Finn & Resistance mechanic Rose embark on a mission to find a codebreaker that can destroy the device that allows the First Order to track them.  They leave behind Poe Dameron and the other Resistance fighters, who continue their retreat after General Leia Organa is incapacitated following the initial attack.  Finally, Rey journeys to the backwater planet Ahch-To to bring Jedi Master Luke Skywalker back into the fight.

First off, I really enjoyed Rey’s character arc.  She was somewhat rightly derided as a “Mary Sue” in The Force Awakens, but her character development was much more fleshed out and interesting in The Last Jedi, and it’s clear that Daisy Ridley’s acting chops have developed a lot in the past two years.  She didn’t seem nearly as green and untested in this movie as before, which I suppose was part of the point.  The movie teased the hell out of learning who her parents were until Kylo Ren revealed that they were simple drunks that gave her away for money and died on Jakku.  This probably will upset many fans that were hoping that she had some relation to a prominent family in the Star Wars galaxy, but I kind of like that she’s entirely new… if that is indeed the case.  Ren could’ve been lying.  Their relationship is also explored further through a Force bond that they possess, and their interactions were very interesting.  It gives some ambiguity as to where their characters will end up.  There were moments when I thought Rey might team up with Ren, and moments where I thought Ren might come back to the light.  Adam Driver also improves on his Force Awakens performance as Ren, whose character I actually find really interesting for reasons that I may elaborate on more in a future post.

Mark Hamill delivers an absolute tour de force performance in his return as Luke Skywalker, and while it was difficult to see him playing the role of the cynical hermit who no longer believes in the Jedi, Hamill made it seem believable and compelling.  Luke also gets some of the best scenes in the movie.  I have to admit, I teared up a little when R2-D2 played back the “Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi, you’re my only hope,” message from the first movie, as well as Master Yoda’s surprise appearance in Force Ghost form.  At first, I wondered why they decided to bring Yoda back instead of digitally recreating Alec Guinness’s Obi-Wan Kenobi (as done with Grand Moff Tarkin in Rogue One), who arguably had way more influence in Luke’s life.  But Yoda’s appearance was still great, and the filmmakers probably don’t want to overuse the digital recreation technique if they can avoid it.

 

RIP Luke Skywalker 😦

Oscar Isaac, who was underutilized as Poe Dameron in The Force Awakens, is developed much further here.  The tension between his more trigger-happy approach and the big picture viewpoint presented by General Leia and Vice Admiral Amilyn Holdo (Laura Dern) provided an interesting storyline in the midst of the Resistance’s battle and retreat from the First Order.  Unfortunately, Leia spends a lot of time in a coma in this movie, which is unfortunate given that it is Carrie Fisher’s last film.  While her performance was solid, she played more of the “older, wiser strategist” role in this installment, as opposed to the more energetic Leia of prior movies.

The one character that didn’t get a lot of further development was Finn, as he was largely along for the ride with new character Rose (Kelly-Marie Tran) in their mission to find a codebreaker to help the Resistance.  This was disappointing, though he got a lot of good development in The Force Awakens, and he may have more room to grow in Episode IX, for reasons I’ll elaborate on below.  Finn also didn’t have as many endearingly funny moments as in the previous movie, either, but his chemistry with Rose was solid.  He also had a great duel with Captain Phasma (Gwendoline Christie), who ends up being one of the biggest missed opportunities as a character in the entire universe.  I thought for sure they’d flesh out her story more, but she kind of exists solely to fight with Finn and then dies.  The codebreaker Finn & Rose find is a shady fellow named DJ (Benicio del Toro) who other than being the first Star Wars character with a stutter, wasn’t especially compelling.

The other interesting thing about The Last Jedi is that everyone ends up in a bloody, Shakespearean heap at the end.  Phasma, Holdo, and Captain Canady (a new First Order character that’s in the movie for about five seconds) all meet their ends, as well as Snoke, who Kylo Ren slices in half after he psychologically berates him at the beginning of the movie and then orders him to kill Rey later.  Ren then assumes his mantle of Supreme Leader of the First Order after failing to turn Rey to the dark side.  I thought this was a great twist, and it continues the Star Wars tradition of the overconfident big bad guys.  And, finally, Luke Skywalker becomes one with the Force at the very end.  Luckily, he helps the Resistance escape before doing so, and gets the noble end he deserves. Rose’s fate is also ambiguous at the end, much like Finn’s at the end of The Force Awakens.  She’s thought to be dead, but I have a feeling they’ll bring her back.  Surprisingly, the filmmakers chose to keep Leia alive despite Carrie Fisher’s death.  How they deal with that in the future will be interesting, as it’s been established that she won’t be in Episode IX.  While it’s hard to lose that many characters at once, the story was getting kind of overcrowded, so that could allow the remaining characters to be developed further.

Turns out Kylo Ren was extending his hand to Rey in the trailer after all

There were also some nice funny moments in the movie.  While many fans felt they were forced, I enjoyed most of them.  My favorite was probably Luke brushing off his shoulder after Kylo Ren hits him with an inordinate amount of blasterfire following his appearance at the Battle of Crait (which we later learn was a Force projection).

Most of the other issues I had with The Last Jedi were fairly minor.  There isn’t really an extended lightsaber duel like in past films, although there were several smaller ones (Luke vs. Rey, Finn vs. Phasma).  Luke’s Force projection duels with Kylo Ren at the end of the film, but its value lies more in its emotional/storytelling impact than for pure lightsaber action (it kinda reminded me of Darth Maul and Obi-Wan Kenobi’s final duel in the TV series Star Wars Rebels).  There also were some flashback scenes to the incident between Luke and Ren that pushed Ren toward the dark side and Luke into exile where they tried to make the two characters look slightly younger by, I presume, digitally altering their faces.  Knowing how good that technology is, I thought the looks they produced were not very good.  I also wish we’d gotten to hear more about Snoke’s past or the Knights of Ren, which was a plot element from The Force Awakens that just got dropped.  Either way, I’d say this entry in the Star Wars saga is an unqualified success.  It would have been so easy for this movie to fall into tired, predictable tropes, but the latest entry takes the whole saga in a fresh, new direction that makes me very eager to see what happens next.