The Last Jedi (or Return of the Jedi We've Been Wating For)

Imagine waiting 34 years to meet Luke Skywalker as a Jedi Master, and finding him to be difficult, abrasive, engaged, and unlikable.  [1] That's what we have with the Last Jedi.  There's still a lot of a whiny farmboy in him. After the awful sequel-reboot that was the Force Awakens, this one is much better, but still missing something. [2] Is IX a reboot of V?  No, but it's a little too familiar.  We start with the Rebels desperately fleeing their base (an even more reduce version than the Rebel Alliance), a novice force user confronting the last member of the Jedi order- who is difficult and hostile to training- on a remote, hidden, and undeveloped planet, and a land battle against AT-ATs on an apparently snow-like planet. I'm not sure I like how Luke is presented, a lot more could have, and should have, been done with this character, but it was done better than Solo.

The big question is how does this all fit together? Rey is still the strongest part of the last trilogy, despite really being a Luke clone.  But, it remains to be seen how this story completes the Skywalker epic.  This certainly does not feel like the story Lucas would have continued.  The Last Jedi moves the story along, but it also places a higher pressure on Episode IX to end the story with a coherent and unified conclusion.

The biggest problem, in my view, is the origin point of the trilogy: while being the New Republic, the Galactic government is instantly reduced to a group of Rebels, and by the end of the second film, just a group of people transportable by one piece-of-junk cargo chip.  While the novels try to retcon how the First Order became so powerful behind the scenes and were able to overpower the Republic, a better setting for the trilogy would have been the struggles of an ascending Republic and a new enemy, not just the old Imperial Navy/ Dark Force mix. It just feels like a repeat of the middle trilogy. But, the first time, the Empire was the ultimate domination, so it made sense that even after the loss of the Death Star they could  begin to get the upper hand against the rebels.  Here, the loss of the First Order weapon/base doesn't retard their destruction of the established government, and the fringe militant group still has domination.  It doesn't make sense.  Hopefully this will all pay off, but there is only one chance, everything rests on IX.

Other thoughts: I like the look of being in hyperspace, [3] borrowed from the games.  The timing is a little better.  At least some length of time is shown while traveling, unlike the instant travel through a hole in The Force Awakens and Rogue One (something that started back in Episode III). The WWII air campaign battle styling was interesting.  Kylo came across as more, well, characterized, and his ambition beyond what Darth Vader pursued was an interesting plot point. There is still too much attention on comedy, at least at the most illogical points, and it's a little too forced. Leia's fake death seemed unnecessary and a waste, as we know she had too be written out anyway, why not make a dramatic and useful death scene that makes a significant plot point.  Laura Dern's character seemed completely out of place.  That's what an admiral acts like in the New Republic fleet? It would have made more sense to have her the last member of the civilian leadership.  Benicio Del Toro's character also seemed misused.  Looking back, the subplot makes a little sense, but seems somewhat like a waste of a character.The entire Resistance escape makes no sense.  They should have used the first of three ships to destroy the Mega-Star destroyer, saving the final two (the venerable Nebulon-B and the Calamari Cruiser). But, even after destroying the First Order fleet, they land and lock themselves in a salt version of Echo Base and then wonder how to escape, not realizing the just flew in on transports that could now be used to fly away from the no longer existing enemy ships (especially once the Falcon can provide escort).  Do they have phones in their Universe? Do phone jokes make any logical sense?

Instead of the dark, moving set up for the final resolution, we get a movie where nothing goes anywhere.  Everything could have been done in the first battle: The Resistance is destroyed, Kylo kills Snoke, and Rey is off learning that Luke is no longer the Luke of legend.  The End.  Episode VII didn't really do anything in terms of narrative advancement because it had to introduce new characters and integrate them with the old.  It was the set up. OK.  Now, Episode VIII doesn't really go anywhere. The only thing these movies have done is negate the resolution found in Return of the Jedi, it just resets the situation back to Episode IV/V. So almost the whole story of trilogy three will reside in Episode IX.  Seeing Luke as a Jedi Master defeat all perceivable threats, and then be confronted with the danger that his student (and relation) might be the thing that resurrects the Sith, forcing him to prevent that by any means, would have made a great story.  That's what the trilogy should have been, rather than putting the interesting narrative in flashbacks just to explain situations that may or may not have any significance and which we may never even get a complete answer to.  These movies revolve around the edges of the real story. Unless Rey is revealed to be a Skywalker and brings the Anakin/ Luke lineage to a conclusion, she should have just been set up at the end to carry on in the upcoming trilogy.   As for the Republic and First Order, unless the destruction of both of them together is meant to be a parallel to the necessary negation of the Jedi/Sith dichotomy, the inconsistency and flux in their respective power positions makes no sense. 

It's just disappointing that by getting this story we will never get the Skywalker tale we were waiting for.  This seems like fanboy fanfiction (which JJ might be the worst of all), "wouldn't it be cool to see someone do this?" "Wouldn't it be cool to see Luke milk a walrus?" Etc.  No, it wouldn't. Have any of these people seen the original films - in a way they understand the characters and can continue to develop or adhere to them?  Ultimately, the story of this trilogy is just bad, it can't really be saved. The value of Star Wars is its cultural mythology.  It became entwined with fundamental human existence, to become an active mythology that will persist to embody the late twentieth century.  That is why it important to take it seriously.

For all those defensive replies that Star Wars was always a simple, youth-oriented story, I have two points: 1. We, as a media receptive audience are far more sophisticated now than in the 1970s.  Film making has evolved immensely in forty years [4], replacing (and becoming) literature as the dominate cultural engagement with narrative art.  Look at Game of Thrones, or any of the New Golden Age of television [5].  2. Star Wars (A New Hope) is largely responsible for this generational leap.  It began a new era where sci-fi was not just awful B movies.  So, it has to compete against its own history as a measurement and evolve as well, resulting in the final parts of the story more advanced than the original that was a (relatively) low budget fantasy of an independent filmmaker. It has been reported that Lucas was distraught after making A New Hope, realizing that he made "a kid's movie,"
 rather than a sophisticated epic.  Even if that is true, there has been continual opportunities to take that simple story origin an expand it toward the other side of the spectrum, that it making it an advanced story while still retaining the basic elements of the original.  Lucas may have tried, with the result being some politically obtuse Prequels, but he also never did really try, focusing effort on elements like Jar Jar.

Since Disney has no plans to slow releases, we always have more forthcoming films to enhance the legacy (and maybe the dark, gritty TV series planned by Lucas will eventually materialize), but hopefully the legendary Skywalker center of this universe will remain intact following Episode IX.


Updated 12.20

[1] If someone had long ago told me that after waiting half a lifetime, the next time I see Skywalker, he will be milking a space walrus, I would have inquired as to what kind of bizarre alternate universe this person travels from.  Of course, I've already been asking myself how I came to be in that weird alternate universe. [A] 

[2] Beyond being a retelling of A New Hope, another (God please stop) larger Death Star, the annihilation of Han Solo's character and far too much emphasis on comedy, the main problem was the logic of each scene.  Despite having much larger, more capable Star Destroyers, the First Order's only attempt to stop Finn and Poe is a few concussion missiles. Their only ability, despite being a massive starfighter carrier, is to send a few Tie fighters against the Millenium Falcon, etc. And, don't get me started on the Starkiller weapon.  Having people watch  (as through visible light) a hyper-space beam destroy multiple star systems at least light days away from each other is possibly thew stupidest thing ever done in sci-fi.

[3] But did they really have to constantly use the term lightspeed? It's just bad science, and sounds worse now than when Battlestar Galactica insisted on it in the 1970s. Speaking of which, the space battles seemed a little too influenced by the Galactica reboot (ships emerging from Hyperspace, tracking through jumps, the camera being too prominent in the framing, etc). But, I guess that's just a little historic revenge.  The original trilogy had the best scientific consistency(for what that's worth) and it has continued to go downhill when it could easily be rectified.

[4] Here I don't mean technologically, although Star Wars deserves recognition for its great visual advancements and contibutions.

[5] This may partially explain why TV now seems much more interesting than film.  These two hour dramas have embraced the idea of a visually exciting story taht fills the time, but doesn't leave lasting room for contemplation that very long series can.

[A] Where the FBI is the enemy, the Russians are the good guys, the free press is bad, etc