Review by Trevor Vos
https://soundcloud.com/starboyspodcast
SPOILER ALERT: This review contains thematic spoilers, but avoids explicit narrative reveals.
A new edict has been issued by the Lords of Hollywood: In order to maintain the attention and spending power of the valuable millenial demographic, henceforth all characters in all films shall speak like Joss Whedon. No longer shall we be burdened with humor that springs organically from well-written characters. Instead, all characters in major motion pictures will be painfully aware that they are characters in major motion pictures. If there is a tense emotional moment in the film you’re watching, don’t worry, it will soon be undercut with irony. Luke Skywalker will turn to the camera and roll his eyes. Poe Dameron will do a drive time radio bit when talking to General Hux. Leia will… well, no, Leia’s pretty much perfect.
Star Wars: The Last Jedi continues the adventures of Rey, Finn, Poe, BB8, and new recruit Rose, as they fight the New Order under the mentorship of Luke, Leia, Chewie, C-3PO, R2-D2, & Admiral Ackbar. Despite the familiar faces, the themes at play in this 2nd installment of the new trilogy are starting to drift further from what we have come to expect from the Star Wars franchise. Although The Last Jedi still suffers from a tendency to imitate past Star Wars tropes & narrative beats, this film moves beyond The Force Awakens and begins the process of telling new stories. The Last Jedi is not just about good vs. evil. It’s also about the danger inherent in that differentiation.
Before new ground is broken, we are forced to suffer through some truly baffling choices that threaten to derail the entire endeavor. There is the aforementioned Whedonesque quality of the early scenes. There is an FX-laden spacewalk scene that ends up looking like witchcraft. There’s a mercifully brief sequence where Finn reenacts the scene from the Star Trek reboot where Kirk is getting injected with various viruses while running around the ship. A CGI character literally phones in their performance while apparently playing a video-game. We’re also treated to some of the sloppiest digital compositing we’ve seen in a Star Wars film since the prequel trilogy.
There are a bevy of mediocre moments in the first half of the Last Jedi that may have you questioning its favorable critical reception, but the film is ultimately redeemed through the strength of its characters and a rather bold effort to push the series in new directions. The Force Awakens had its faults, but it brought us some entertaining and sympathetic characters in Rey, Finn, & Poe. The Last Jedi adds to that with the introduction of Rose, a mechanic who’s a little starstruck by our heroes. She’s certainly humble, but Rose steps up when it’s her duty to do so. Her loyalty to the cause of the Resistance is unwavering.
Star Wars has always been about the little guy triumphing over the evil empire, but The Last Jedi takes that further in some interesting ways. While in the past this distinction usually boiled down to good versus evil, here the divide manifests as a class division. On one of many adventures, some of our protagonists visit a planet that is introduced in a manner that echoes Obi-wan’s “wretched hive of scum & villainy” line from A New Hope. Only now, the scum & villainy are not low-life punks & criminals, but the morbidly wealthy, and those who profit off of others’ suffering. The Last Jedi is the most explicitly anti-capitalist Star Wars film, and this bold new theme suggests there may be some hope for future Star Wars films not becoming a homogenized mass.
In the original Star Wars, Han Solo was an opportunist, whose greed led him to discard a good cause, before ultimately having a change of heart & returning to save the day. There were a few crime-bosses, the Hutts, who operated at the fringe of society. In The Last Jedi, there is a whole class of people who thrive on the backs of hardworking people & aliens, and who profit off of war, which once seemed such a noble & binary enterprise. I don’t think anyone actually says the phrase “military-industrial complex” in the film, but that’s not to suggest that it’s in any way subtle. We see that arms dealers have been profiting off of both sides simultaneously, which has the result of making endless war a positive outcome for them. The new heroes that start to emerge in this installment are the ones who suffer due to this broken system. They live at the fringes of society, perhaps laboring to entertain the rich, while barely making enough to get by. They are the ones under the boot of the advantaged, inspired by tales of rebellion, ready to cast off their shackles.
For much of its substantial runtime, The Last Jedi feels like a nostalgic retread in many of the same ways as The Force Awakens. There are obvious analogs between the Resistance on the run & the Rebellion of the original trilogy. And Rey seeking tutelage from Luke Skywalker is obviously meant to echo Luke’s enthusiasm to train with Yoda. One could be excused for sighing & lamenting that true creativity is dead & this is just Empire Strikes Back 2, but about halfway through something curious happens. We fast-forward through some of those familiar 2nd-installment beats and suddenly we realize we’re already at the end of Return of the Jedi. It’s a delightful feeling, when you realize that we’re approaching the end of what’s known and might be embarking on a new project altogether.
That is what inspires hope for the future of this trilogy and the franchise. While the Last Jedi has kept intact much of the world, the awe, the adventure of Star Wars, director Rian Johnson realized that the series needed to expand beyond mere good versus evil. It needed to expand beyond the Skywalkers. The franchise has taken a much-important first-step into a broader universe here, more so even than the supposedly intentionally divergent Rogue One. Disney has hopefully learned the importance of telling new stories, and giving Rian Johnson the keys to a new trilogy is an encouraging next step. The Last Jedi may not be the perfect sequel that Empire Strikes Back was, but it accomplishes similar goals in opening up a world that was in desperate need of expansion. Now, if we could just go one scene without a character winking at the camera.
***/**** (3 out of 4 stars)
