The Spark: “The Last Jedi,” Three Years Later
For all the science fiction jargon, proper nouns and lore Star Wars throws at you, the terms that really matter are the simplest: rebellion, faith, hope. From the simplest entries to the most convoluted, the cinematic stories are driven by one thing and one thing only, pathos.
True enough, Star Wars is also a genre-blending, politically-minded, Kurosawa-aping series of space opera action movies. The enormity of its fan base should be proof enough that trying to flatten four decades of fiction and counting into a single idea is foolish, but even so, I believe fundamentally all nine installments of the “Skywalker Saga,” the two adjacent “Star Wars Stories” and everything Dave Filoni ever touched all tightly orbit simple emotional concepts. Packed into that last sentence are my rebuttal to virtually all anti-The Last Jedi sentiment, and frankly, I also think I’d stand that reasoning while defending (almost) any entry in the franchise. Star Wars is more than continuity, it’s more than the names of spaceships and planets and alien races, it’s about the emotions of the people who make up the story, and it’s about those same emotions inside us.
From jump street, George Lucas’ Campbellian vision was to create a work of genre, wherein all its elements are symbolic of classic mythological ideas. That first entry liberally mixes sources like The Hidden Fortress, Buck Rogers serials and archival WWII footage. What links the disparate threads of influence is the story of the unkillable spark of hope torching the machinations of evil. It is Lord of the Rings. It is The Wizard of Oz. It is the apotheosis of all fantasy tales of good versus evil, and with that there’s a lot of talk about light and dark, and finding balance in the Force.
The Force is, perhaps, the one piece of Star Wars jargon that truly counts for something. It is the mystical metaphorical sauce that represents the emotion I’ve been talking about. It is the thing which must be balanced, because like our feelings, our instincts, our thoughts and our ambitions, it can be skewed to create or to destroy, to love or to hate. The one aspect of every installment I immediately consider is, “how does this writer treat the Force?” Is it a tool to move the plot, or a tool to help you understand the theme? And once you have the answer, the next question is when a character speaks about balancing the Force, what precisely do they mean?
In my least favorite Star Wars entries, the Force functions like The Doctor’s sonic screwdriver. It’s an object in the writing that accomplishes things, no more or less complex than Indiana Jones’ whip or indeed the Jedi’s own lightsabers. The best movies, by contrast, treat it as it truly should be — an internal wellspring of feelings and power that stretch beyond oneself to mingle with those same things all around you. The Force is not bound to Jedis or Sith or humans or aliens, but runs deeply through all things on all worlds. And it is with this understanding that The Last Jedi handles this concept better than any Star Wars movie ever has or likely ever will. From the inception of his script, writer and director Rian Johnson refused to let the Force be a superpower, and instead laced it subtly into every scene and into the structure of the movie itself.
The one way I feel the movie is particularly unique is its ideas about the notion of balance. In the 2000s, George Lucas returned to his magnum opus to tell the story of Anakin Skywalker, the young man who would become perhaps the galaxy’s most infamous villain. And that tragic setup means all three movies talk a lot about good and evil and the tenuous balance between them. Indeed the Jedi Council frequently discuss whether Anakin is the chosen one, the individual to bring balance to the Force. One issue I have with those three movies is how unclear that statement is, and I think perhaps Lucas meant for Yoda, Obi Wan and Mace Windu to all misunderstand it themselves. Often these characters speak on balance as if the goal is to destroy the dark side of the Force or to reject it, which is pretty antithetical to the definition of “balance.”
Rian Johnson certainly meant for Luke to misunderstand it (much as the character misunderstands many things from the first entry on, but I digress). Luke fears the dark side, with good reason, he’s seen all the destruction it can bring. Yet my interpretation of Return of the Jedi is that Luke himself taps into that dark side when fighting with his father, and that moment is as critical to his victory as him throwing down the lightsaber before finishing the deed. Balance then, is not about destroying the dark, but finding equilibrium between the light and the dark within one’s own self.
There are so many indelible images and moments in The Last Jedi it’s very difficult to pick a favorite, and it’s only right that mine should be less a scene and more a series of small ones. It begins in earnest with Rey and Luke’s lesson on the nature of the Force, a conversation which revolves around the notion of balance and critically, ends with Rey going “right for the dark” in Luke’s words. This moment between them is contentious, but vital to the narrative. It is after this moment, Rey makes an earnest connection with Ben, one of only a few signs of true humanity from the character. And it also does something else. As Luke chastises Rey for her impetuous dive into the abyss, so too does she criticize him for having disconnected himself from the Force. And it is that provocation that leads to the most mesmeric scene, maybe in any Star Wars movie.
Very early on Leia is dispatched by a major explosion, and she spends a very good chunk of the movie laying in a space coma, underscoring the hopelessness of the heroes’ situation. After the scene described before, we are treated to a very private moment with Luke in the darkness on Ach-To in which he goes to the cliff where he and Rey had their exchange, and for the first time in years, he reaches out with his feelings to communicate with his sister. Luke. Leia. No matter how many times I’ve seen it (and that number is, uh, very high!) the filmmaking in that sequence takes my breath away, but it’s the writing that really makes it.
The entire finale of this film hinges on Luke’s decision to be the hero the galaxy needs, and that decision hinges on this connection with Leia, and that hinges on Rey’s trip to the dark side. Like Return of the Jedi, Johnson’s script offers the staggeringly powerful idea that the balance is not about the light besting the dark in a sword fight or with its telekinesis. It is about experiencing and embracing both sides of the story’s emotional spectrum, and it is about rejecting the cynicism that comes from detaching oneself from the cycle.
There are better paced Star Wars movies and Star Wars movies with cooler planets and more dense with setpieces. The wide reach of the franchise means whatever you come for, you can find something. But what makes The Last Jedi special, and not just to me, but truly special among these films is the way it challenges the essential simplicity and reveals a depth of emotion that even some long term fans may have missed. By treating its characters and themes with such probing honesty, suggesting that the dark side is valuable, making the force emotional instead of science fiction, The Last Jedi elevates every single entry which came before it. Scenes are imbued with meaning, even in fanservice heavy installments like The Force Awakens where suddenly the dark codes for Ben’s whiny impetuousness and the light for Rey’s quest for internal peace and purpose. It is an emotionally profound journey that heightened, recontexutalized, and reignited my love of not only this series of stories but of the concept of genre stories in general. It’s been three years, and I still think about this movie daily, because it’s not a collection of cool, well structured scenes: it is a story about feelings, the ones inside all of us. And that’s fantasy storytelling operating at the highest possible level.
