no spoilers contained
Star Wars is one of my favourite fictional universes. With its constant battle of good and evil, of the weak overcoming improbable odds, and of the development of a young youth transforming into a hero who touches and changes the lives of everyone, Star Wars meet remains of mythic quality. And in the vein of myth I was brought into not only the movies but the expanded universe (now known as Legends) as well. That, however, is not the new Star Wars. And for better or worse, The Last Jedi humanizes the struggle between light and darkness, makes murky the balance between good and evil, and tries to grapple with understanding lofty ideas of success, redemption, and sacrifice. It brings Star Wars into an analogized 21st century. Yet, while I’m sure that many (maybe most) will enjoy this new take on the Star Wars canon, I think it falls flat, buoyed up only by nostalgia, forced plotlines, and failed execution of grand ideas.
The highlights of the movie include a final return of Carrie Fisher whose every appearance rouses the audience with emotion as we remember her death, Mark Hamill’s appearance as Luke is probably shorter than many hoped but he helps flesh out the universe by tying the present to the past. The visuals, as always with star wars, are on point. The appearance of Skellig Michael with rocks and cliffs functioning as The Last Jedi‘s Degobah, or Salar de Uyuni, the world’s largest salt flat recalling Hoth, provide a visual and thematic continuity with the past while twisting our expectations in a new, and often enjoyable way. The CGI also remains top notch with one scene standing out as one of the best and most beautiful scenes in the whole of the Star Wars canon (even if it raises deep plot questions for past movies).
In is in this way, with exotic locations and amazing CGI, the setting is set. With typical pomp and spectacle, defying of physics, and excursions beyond lightspeed, The Last Jedi, brings us into a world where evil is winning and hope is fading. Yet, compared to the grand space operas of the original and prequel trilogies, this movie, indeed this series, lacks a sense of scale. The thing that made Star Wars so grand, a sense of galactic struggle, of war between worlds parsecs apart, of people far and wide taking sides, is not present in this movie. Instead the world is made into a seeming city block. Journeys to the distant ends of the galaxy and back (and with a major excursion in the middle) are made within the span of a day, entirely ignoring the sense of scale set in the original trilogy (in my opinion violating continuity with past movies depiction of interstellar travel)
What happened to the sense of scale is a major indicator of what happens throughout the rest of the movie. The move takes certain parts of the new Star Wars canon seriously, and yet disregards others. It includes references to the prequel and brings in an older luke from the original, but fails to remember that hyperspace takes time. It occasionally makes everyone feel so small in the grand scheme of things, typically by showing the vastness of space in relation to a single vessel, and yet also makes everyone feel far closer, not only in distance, but also to each other by having armies no smaller than a few hundred soldiers battling it out, even with ships many of kilometres long. What was once a soap opera of galactic proportions now seems like a small insurgency. What was once a galactic government is made to feel like an Iraqi insurgency. Large in its area, but not large enough for the world to care beyond occasional newsreels.
Like the movies before it, and recent remakes of other series. This movie seeks to deal with serious topics of insurgencies, government, religion, hope, failure, destiny, and character (just to name a few). While a full discussion of these will be saved for a second post (given the spoilers required), these topics are important in a world where many disagree with the direction of their government. These themes will resonate with the many who watch that are disillusioned with the direction of government, of struggle with ideologies, and who are trying to find a sense of identity in a world where identity is something we increasingly hold dear. Rian Johnson, the screenwriter and director of the film addresses these topics with plot, addressing ideas mostly through action instead of the exposition more common in the earlier film. We see the characters viscerally struggle with these topics and what we, the viewer, take out of the film depends on how deeply we think about the plot. It’s a movie that requires at least a second watching in order to understand how all plotlines are resolved (since, in more than one instance, the plot is satisfied not by dialogue, but by the presence of an object in a scene).
However, while the goal and themes are worthy of a treatment in Star Wars, the execution of the plot left more than a little to be desired. In a movie with themes of failure, there were times that the failure was less than complete. Seemingly improbable events are a normal occurrence in Star Wars, but they take on a new level in The Last Jedi. The plot gets away from Rian, and we find characters doing things for the sake of doing things. It is as if the characters walk the tightrope of plot and we are all just along for the ride. The plotlines join and mix, but so often it feels like that the plot has no reason to exist other than to make a point or to teach a lesson. The plot thus addresses all these themes, but it does so in a way that feels unnatural. It presents the low point of the trilogy, but does so in a way that feels forced. The plot fails to truly take advantage of the amazingly beautiful cinematography present throughout the movie. To top it off the tone feels like that of Avengers with a sense of humour foreign to the serious nature of the content, and a lack of characters to pull it off.
The Last Jedi reaches for the heavens but falls back to earth. It’s endless plotting presents a complete story, but it is a story filled with large plot holes resulting from Force ex machina and it presents a small world with a disjointed intramovie continuity. It is unfortunate because the themes it seeks to address are directly relevant to today’s world and yet a full treatment of any single theme is hampered by the attempt to deal with too many. It is a movie I started out with high hopes, but ended disappointment and it leaves me feeling tepid about how Episode IX will turn out. Success is failure and failure is success, this is the paradox of the movie and it is what ultimately will shape the new Star Wars in its future directions.
An Exploration of Life 