Is it too late for me to talk about Star
Wars? Is everyone pretty much over it by now? That’s ridiculous. The answer to
both of those questions will always be a hard, “NO.”
So here’s the thing… I’m not usually one
for firm absolutes. I’ll often say something like, “I don’t like collard
greens” and then I’ll later reconsider my whole outlook and be like, “Have you
tried the collard greens? They’re totes yum, yo!” Some may call it being
wishy-washy. I like to think that I’m just really good at embracing change… I like to think that, at least. After all,
only a Sith deals in absolutes! Of course when you say, “ONLY a Sith” that
statement, itself, becomes an absolute, so…….. wow…. That was a bad movie.
Where was I going with all of this?! Oh yeah.
One thing that I’ve been changing my mind
about quite regularly, as of late, is the latest installment in the saga from
that galaxy far, far away. I’m speaking, of course, of Star Wars: The Last Jedi. Like collard greens, sometimes I like it…
sometimes I don’t. UNLIKE collard greens, I’m willing to type a long blog post
over it going into extensive detail on my exact feelings.
I went into this movie with A TON of
expectations. Everyone did! The Force
Awakens was a barrage of setups, and we spent two years speculating over
how all of our questions were going to be answered! We’re talking millions on
top of MILLIONS of people each forming their own individual expectations for
what they thought/wanted The Last Jedi to
be! It isn’t hard to see how “dangerous” this is… is it?
The movie begins and in no time, we’re
back there on that mountain top watching Rey hand Luke Skywalker his father’s
lightsaber. What’s he going to say? What could
he say to satisfy the said millions? I feel like it would be similar to
watching a sequel to Christopher Nolan’s Inception
and having a filmmaker tell us whether or not Leo’s top keeps spinning. We
each have our own ideas on if it does or doesn’t and ANY answer, one way or the
other, would ruin the original ending. The same is the case here. The Force Awakens ends on such a
magnificent beat that following up with any one specific answer would only
deflate the moment. So what happens? Luke chucks the thing over his shoulder.
THROW AWAY your expectations, kids! As he says much later on in the film, “This
is not going to go the way you think!”
And why should it? Why do we have to know
what happens BEFORE it happens? Isn’t it considered a good thing for a movie
plot to be unpredictable? While I would answer “yes,” I’ll admit that, on
opening night, I was one of those people who was disappointed that things
DIDN’T go the way I thought. What has Luke been doing? Moping. Who is this
Snoke guy? It doesn’t matter. Who are Rey’s parents? They’re nobody. These are
not the answers I originally wanted and coping with the devastating fact that I
am a fan who was flat out WRONG has been quite the rollercoaster! In the film’s
behind-the-scenes featurette, Daisy
Ridley says that what director Rian Johnson has done with The Last Jedi is “unexpected, but right.” And after getting over myself a little bit, I see that
that’s exactly the case.
Let’s start with Snoke. I could, and have,
spent hours coming up with my own head-canon on what this guy’s story is. Was
he a maybe friend of Luke’s? What happened to his face? He seems old, so he was
probably around during the time of the Empire. Where was he? What happened to his
face?!? I was a little frustrated with not having any of these questions
answered, but then I thought about C-3PO and the red arm he had in The Force Awakens. There could have been
15 seconds or so where Threepio explains what happened to his old arm, but it
would’ve been a waste of time! Who cares?! It had nothing to do with the actual
plot of the movie and wouldn’t have affected the characters in any way
whatsoever! The same is the case with Snoke. Like Threepio’s arm, I’m sure
Snoke’s backstory will make a mildly entertaining graphic novel or something, but
for the sake of The Last Jedi, it
doesn’t matter. The characters that may already know it, don’t need to hear it
again and the characters that don’t know it… don’t care.
Oooh! What if the story of
Threepio’s arm and Snoke’s backstory are one in the same?!
When you get down to it, the only thing The Last Jedi needs Snoke to be is a catalyst for Kylo Ren. Here’s a
guy who doesn’t just want to be the next Darth Vader. He wants to be even
“better” than Darth Vader and to do that, he more or less needs an Emperor
Palpatine. He needs an evil master to guide him down that particular path. In The Lord of the Rings, Gandalf gets the
characters to a certain point in the story and is then removed to allow them to
develop even more on their own. It’s the same with Snoke and Kylo. Masters are
what their pupils grow beyond? Well Kylo Ren, albeit violently, does just that.
Now on to a more sensitive topic. Let’s
talk about Luke Skywalker! After my initial viewing, I would have summed up
Luke’s “arc” like this: He drinks the breastmilk of a giant Zoidberg thing,
whines a lot, projects a fake image of himself that looks like Billy Mays, then
dies. Needless to say, I was somewhat hurt. It’s been more than 30 years since we’ve
seen this guy, and when we finally get to see him back in action, what’s he
doing? That!! Milking a Zoidberg!!
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| Two words: Pee. Yousa. |
I had this guy built up into another John
McClane! I wanted him to look at that lightsaber Rey was handing him and be
like, “Keep it! I’ve already got one!” Then he lights up his green one and the
two take off to save the day! I wanted a Luke that not only gets to fly the
Millennium Falcon, but is awesome at it! I wanted a Luke that could use the
Force to crush a whole squadron of AT-AT’s! I wanted a Luke that would go
lightsaber-to-lightsaber with Kylo Ren and give that little punk the
metaphorical spanking he deserved! I EXPECTED these things to happen, and I
basically got the opposite.
Aaaaaaand then I came around to another
way of thinking. The Force Awakens faced
the daunting task of creating a Star Wars villain that would trump Darth Vader.
Rather than attempt this impossible feat, they instead worked the difficulty
into the story and gave us a villain who’s jaded by the fact that he can’t trump Darth Vader! I would argue
that The Last Jedi does a similar
thing with this whole Luke business. There was someone else, besides myself and
millions of others, who expected ridiculously great things from the legendary
Jedi… and that’s the character Rey.
When the film starts, Rey is in our same
shoes. She’s heard the stories of this hero and, even though she’s probably never
seen Die Hard, also wants him to be
this John McClane type character that swoops in and basically does all the
things I listed above, thus saving the galaxy from evil. What we’ve done, Rey
included, is place Luke up on this pedestal and when you place someone on a
pedestal, even if they’re a fictional character, you’re only setting them up to
disappoint you.
Luke Skywalker was never this Superman
that we, for whatever reason, wanted him to be. He helps redeem his father in Return of the Jedi, yes, but when it
comes to stopping the bad guys and saving the galaxy, he receives more credit
than he deserves. Its Anakin Skywalker who ultimately saves the day and Luke is
the one who’s left behind to get all of the glory. It stands to reason with
this glory would also come a heavy burden. It’s up to him to maintain this
peace that exists, and when he senses this new evil growing in his nephew, he
does what he’s always done whether right or wrong. He acts on instinct.
The
Last Jedi shows us Luke finally reevaluating this whole problem solving approach.
He charged in without thinking, and in doing so, lost the son of the two people
who mattered to him most. Now he’s going to do the opposite of what he did on
Dagobah when he rushed off to save his friends, he’s staying put. He's removing himself from the
equation. All great characters have depth and Luke is no exception. The Last Jedi adds to that depth, but
with depth, comes some pretty serious flaws. UNEXPECTED… but RIGHT!
Now back to Rey! After all, this isn’t Luke’s
story anymore. It’s hers. For Rey to continue to be the active protagonist that
she is, she needs to be able to stand on her own two feet. If Luke turned out
to be the legend she believed he was, there wouldn’t have been anything left for
her to do. She would’ve just been there in the background! What happened with
Luke wasn’t what she wanted, nor was it what we wanted, but it’s what needed
to happen to make Rey step up to the foreground and take charge of the
situation as the new hero of Star Wars! It’s the same with Finn, Poe, and Kylo Ren. If these are going to
continue to be great characters, they can’t just be along for the ride. They
have to make mistakes, learn their lesson, then grow the heck up! Luke’s not
going to hold Rey’s hand and solve all of her problems. Neither are her
parents. She can cry about this, or she can straight up jack those dirty old books and do like she’s always done – figure things
out for herself!
So yeah… I’ve flip-flopped quite a bit on Episode 8. If I had to pick a favorite scene, it would
probably be the one where the sage master Yoda returns to pass on a few more
words of wisdom to his former pupil. He tells Luke that failure is the best
teacher. This is a lesson that pretty much every character in the film has to
learn, and it’s a hard one, both for them as well as for myself as a fan. Now I
don’t mean to be saying that if you didn’t like The Last Jedi, then you fail as a fan. When it’s all said and done,
this is just a movie, and it’s perfectly fine to not like a movie. I think it’s
important, however, to base one’s opinion of a film on what said film actually
is, and not on how it compares to one’s specific expectations. This is the
lesson that I learned from The Last Jedi and
having learned it, I’m prepared to enjoy Episode 9 for everything it offers.
…Just so long as it has Lando.
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| They put Poe on the same side as the bad guys because he basically kills most of his friends. |
