Saving what you Love: The Official Black Owl Review of “Star Wars: The Last Jedi”

(NO SPOILERS TO START!)

I want to start by describing the evening of Thursday, 14 December 2017 to you.  After a nice dinner, my wife Jennifer and I, along with her parents Rick and Anne, our daughter Hannah, and Hannah’s girlfriend Bree, went to the theater for a 7PM showing of “The Last Jedi.”  We watched the film, and as it is two and a half hours long, when it was over, most of the crew went to compete for the line to the restroom, while Hannah and I watched the credits.  (I have an Instagram buddy who did work on the film, and I wanted to see a name in SW Blue whom I actually knew- shoutout to Julianne!) We emerged from the theater, sharing a dad/daughter moment, arm in arm and all smiles, simply blown away by what we had just experienced.  We found our crew, also similarly impressed, exchanged a comment with my brilliant Mother-in-Law that this was not just a great Star Wars film but a great film on its own merits, and we all cheerfully went home.

My first sign of trouble came when another friend of mine, an avowed fan and collector (Shoutout to Aaron!) messaged me describing how awful the film was.  I actually thought he was joking, and asked him as much.  Nope, he was really put off by the movie.  

I was sorry to hear that, but I posted my standard Facebook “Spoiler-free mini review” as follows:

This movie defied every expectation I had for almost every character, and I am not sure I could love it more. Very pleased to have tickets to a second viewing already.

Then, I opened the internet and looked into a fandom civil war the likes of which a Galaxy far, far away had never seen.  There was rage against the film, name calling in support of the film, feelings of betrayal, messages of astonishment at the achievement.  It was rare I saw a mediocre comment; it was either adoration or vitriol.  “Star Wars,” always full of passionate, expressive, and opinionated fans, and become as divisive as American politics.  I always expect there to be naysayers, and I can see where there might be pushback against things this film does, in particular with the character of Luke Skywalker, but I was blindsided by how divided it was, and the lines I saw divisions forming along.  

I watched the film the next day, eager to look past the giddyness of a first time viewing that might have skewed my opinion toward a more positive look than the film deserved, and instead the movie worked like a wine that has been allowed to breathe for a while before drinking- more texture, more subtlety, more nuance came to the surface, and I walked out of my second viewing even more sure I had just witnessed something truly amazing from a storytelling perspective, but also more sure that the things that made me love this movie were going to be impediments to others, and I would never convince some of my dear friends how great this actually was.  And though I do see people out there who are hating because it’s fashionable, or because their delicate man-sensitivities were offended by the fact women have to save a lot of men from their own mistakes in this story, or just because their deeply developed “who is Rey” or “who is Snoke” theory fell through, I also see people, who love what Star Wars has meant to them their whole lives, and legitimately can’t fit what happens here into their paradigm.  Given what this film does to expectation, given the risks this movie takes to unfold its story, I can honestly understand their reasoning, though I completely disagree with it.  It doesn’t make me a better fan than them, or them better fans than me (it’s my love of the Holiday Special that makes me a better or worse fan, we all know that), but I am legitimately sad there are people whom I normally spend hours chatting about what we love about Star Wars with that I can’t do that with regarding “The Last Jedi.”  They aren't wrong.  We can both look at the sky and see it's blue, and some people love that color and some people don't.  That's taste.  

Yes, I know plenty of people who loved it, but it does force me to wonder if the fact the film is so divisive is something that should be held against it, regardless of the movie’s quality (I hear some of you already saying yes).  But in the end, I will be exploring this movie for years to come, and we might all be looking at this as a turning point in Star Wars lore, even more than the Prequel Trilogy did.  I am sorry as a fan that has happened, but I cannot turn away from the fact that this movie stunned, moved, and entertained me, and made me want more Star Wars.  I have to almost liken it to another divisive movie this year, “mother!” which (see my review) I also loved, but can see why people hated it.  There are people I know to whom I cannot recommend “The Last Jedi” (indeed, another good friend and deep SW fan texted me last night in how disappointed he was…and I knew that was coming; shoutout to Eli!) not because they aren’t fans, but because they are, and others to whom I will strongly recommend the film, because they too are fans.

So, a thousand words in, and still not having actually discussed what happens in the movie, I am going to take a lesson from the movie.  I am not going to argue against the criticism I see, but rather, I will “save what I love,” and just give my raw thoughts and feelings on this movie, as removed as I can be from the gestalt of  Star Wars fandom, and just be the 45 year old man who 40 years ago first visited a galaxy far, far away and never quite came back.  The man who spent the last two years digging through cartoons and books and dialogue for clues as to Rey’s origin, or where they were going, or why they were going there, only to find nearly everything I had surmised was wrong, and the truth was both simpler and more complex than anything I had guessed.   Perhaps I’ll do an argument or become a Last Jedi apologist at some point, but not here.  Here I am going to save what I love, because I love The Last Jedi.  It is moving, complex, nuanced, exciting, and far more invested in telling its story than delivering for fans, for better or for worse.  It’s similar to what “The Wrath of Khan” did for Star Trek 30 years ago, breaking all the paradigms to expand the consciousness of what Trek could be and challenging what Trek was to do it, leaving a bigger, better universe in its wake. People forget how vehemently TWOK was hated at the time-to include Gene Roddenberry among its detractors-but time passed and it’s greatness came to be recognized.  I hope that happens someday with this film.  But until then, here is why I loved “Star Wars: The Last Jedi.”

——SPOILERS FROM HERE ON OUT——

Let me start with what I didn’t like, as that’s short.  I think there were missed opportunities to have a deeper tie to the wider Star Wars universe.  “Rogue One” at least acknowledged “Rebels” and it has seemed Rebels was giving us some Easter Eggs that would crack open in “The Last Jedi.”  That does not happen, and I am willing to bet a lot of justified displeasure grows from that.  As a Rebels fan I was hoping we get a little more acknowledgement of what should be a shared universe, but we don’t.  There is some possibility still that Benecio Del Toro’s “DJ” is a future downtrodden Ezra, as he has a matching scar, that for some unfathomable reason they decide to put on the opposite side of his face.  It’s poor sport if Rebels is just being used to create Red Herrings and not feed the universe at large.  Another missed opportunity is the “Master Cracker” Maz Kanata (in a delightful cameo) points them toward on the casino world of Canto Bight, should quite obviously have been Lando Calrissian.  Even in the short cameo, it would have really tied us to the larger universe, and OF COURSE Maz knows Lando, and OF COURSE we find him in a casino.  Real mistake there.  

I wanted to also say that the movie makes the mistake of forgoing the famous “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”  However, it seems that in fact BB8 “says” the line, to have Poe Dameron retort, “Come on, Buddy; happy beeps.”  Those are my hangups, but now let’s get to a lot of what works for me.

The plot is mature, well paced, and complex.  It may be a little inaccessible to some who aren’t expecting, or wanting, that, but it worked for me.  There are plotlines I have seen dismissed as going nowhere, but I think all of them do the only thing more important that moving along story: Developing character.

The biggest thing about these characters that made an impression on me is how they are allowed to make mistakes.  We have to start that discussion with Luke Skywalker, who is almost Jonah in this film.  It would have been easy just to leave him as a bombad Jedi, ready to come back and save the day, but the years have gotten to Luke, old mistakes have taken their toll, and he’s quite broken and pretty much waiting to die when we come upon him.  His quest for the first Jedi temple has not been one for spiritual awakening after the fall of his new Jedi Academy, but rather simply looking for escape.  The same flicker of Darkness that he had to keep in check when he defeated Darth Vader leads to him standing over young Ben Solo with a lightsaber, wondering if he will have to stop that rising darkness in Ben in the worst way possible.  He discards the though almost as quickly as it rose, but the damage is done, and Ben destroys the temple.  Luke hides, unable to face Leia after losing her son in that way.  It’s not the Luke we’re expecting, but it is a powerful character development, and reminds us that he was once just a talented farmboy.  As Rey slowly begins to bring him out, his redemption comes in fits and starts, and there is a major confrontation between the two characters, with her convinced she can save Ben Solo, and him, with some guidance from Yoda (who is a puppet again, yay!) realizing that there is a way he can still help, a way he can set the next generation off on the right path.  One of the big spoilers for this movie is “Luke dies at the end.”  I disagree.  We’ve only seen three Jedi “ascend” to join the Force in the saga: Obi-Wan, Yoda, and Anakin.  In each case, they physically die first before they fade; not Luke Skywalker.  Luke chooses to ascend, sitting up watching a double sunset before his body fades away.  It’s a beautiful moment demonstrating the master Luke is, despite what has happened before.  He leaves behind one Jedi to take his place.

Rey.  Rey is headsure, conflicted, and thinks there may be a way to save Kylo Ren from Snoke.  She also spends this movie going through her own “trial” to become a Jedi, she touches the dark side, sees what it holds for her, but does not give in to its temptation.  Her experiences on Ahch-To have a profound effect on her, as she not only has her own “cave” experience (like Luke in Empire) but begins to touch on the oldest of the Jedi concepts, visualizing the “Prime Jedi,” shown in art on the island, written of in books (which she squirrels away), and a concept that is one with the Force, understanding that light and dark are what you bring to it, while the Force simply is.  She breaks away from perhaps thousands of years of Jedi tradition to understand that- the Force is not light, she is.  And she hopes to shine that light on Kylo Ren.

That goes poorly.   Kylo in this film teases us with redemption, and his killing Snoke is a plot twist I never saw coming until he was turning the lightsaber.  In the true tradition of the Sith, Kylo Ren surpasses his master and kills him.  It is only when he stops trying to be like Darth Vader that he truly becomes a Sith, turning to Rey as a new apprentice, and revealing something that shoots holes in a million theories, and makes the Force far more powerful than we knew: Rey has no special lineage, she is neither Skywalker nor Kenobi, and her parents died drunk on Jakku.  He tells her he is her only path to greatness.  Luckily, she doesn’t buy it.  All of this does make Ren a truly evil character.  Indeed, his belittling of Rey reminds me of the guy who will flirt with a girl, and when she rejects him, tell her how ugly she was anyway, that she has no intrinsic value outside of what he can bestow on her.  It’s ugly, and it ends forever the idea that he will find redemption.  We were never seeing a new Vader in Ren; we were seeing a new Palpatine (though, he’s going to have to up his subterfuge game).  

A quick word about Snoke and Rey’s parentage before I move on.  The Lovely Jennifer pointed out that the scenes in Snoke’s throneroom, his Praetorians, and the resulting, stunning battle, all felt very “Old Republic” to her, and on a second viewing, I could not help but agree.  Though Snoke is dead, it does not necessarily mean his origin won’t be important to future events, and some of the ways he describes the Jedi/Sith conflict point back to thousands of years of experience. Don’t throw out all of your crazy Snoke theories just yet, there may be more to come.  Don’t throw out all your crazy Rey theories either. Though I admire the idea the movie may be saying that you don’t have to be a Skywalker to be significant in the Force, look back at the allegory I used describing Ren and the Revelation.  When a d-bag tells a woman whom he just propositioned that she’s worthless and no one wants her, its a lie.  He is preying on her insecurities.  Perhaps indeed Rey’s parents sold her for drinking money, but perhaps, just perhaps, it’s a lie to keep her from a greater truth.  Keep some of those Rey theories in an old tree in case you need them too.

Meanwhile, in the Resistance: Carrie Fisher is fantastic here and it just underlines how much we will miss her when she can’t be in Episode 9.  We see that you don’t have to be a Jedi to be strong with the Force as she survives in open vacuum and pulls herself to safety like Yondu or Mary Poppins. Her tough love of Poe Dameron plays off beautifully, and I love how the story let’s him make mistakes and then come to his senses later to understand what type of leader he must be.  

Poe’s interaction with Laura Dern’s Admiral Holdo is one of the skewered tropes in this movie as we see her as the new leader who simply can’t stand up to the task at first, but along with Poe get our expectations ripped out from under us as we find out she and Leia had a plan all along.  I could argue that had she shared that plan with Poe, some bad things wouldn’t have happened, but also, had Poe listened to what Leia told him and followed her damn orders those bad things wouldn’t have happened either.  (And Holdo’s sacrifice of the Raddus into the First Order ship brought more than a few stunned gasps to both of my viewings.)

 And that brings us to Finn.  It’s his first time conscious since we saw him in The Force Awakens, and he has the same thought that led him to tell the Resistance he could take down Starkiller base’s shields when all he really wanted to do is save Rey.  He is mistaken here for a deserter, but it’s not his own butt he is trying to save, it’s Rey’s.  As the film progresses for him, he comes to understand that doing good for the universe may be his best chance of saving Rey, and he eventually does exactly what he never thought he would do; he walks back into the First Order.  His final battle with Phasma is a delight, though I will certainly miss her character as a villain, she helps him accept what he is: Rebel Scum.

(Though, we see her fall into fire in her full armor which just deflected laser bolts right off the chest.  Maybe we see her again, the exposed part of her face scarred by flames, and still ready to end Finn…Darth Maul got cut in half and dropped down a mile deep shaft, hard to keep a good hater down!)

 But then we have to look at who helps both these guys get better, and in the process learns to be a hero herself: my favorite character in the film, Rose Tico.  In a movie that is painted in shades of grey, there is no moral ambiguity to her.  She practices a little hero worship certainly, and I will allow you to judge what her worship and subsequent judgement of Finn means to the overall message of the film regarding how heroes can be flawed and still be heroes.  She also is willing to dive right into  plan to help save the Resistance fleet, and when it comes to a last stand, jumps right into a speeder to join the fight.  It is her character who delivers the true message of the film: We don’t win by fighting what we hate, but my saving what we love.  I don’t know that I can live up to Rose Tico’s example, but I will certainly aspire to it.  

And that brings us to what this movie tells us all along: Herosim is democratic.  You don’t have to be a Skywalker to be a hero.  Rey doesn’t have to have famous parents.  Rose Tico doesn’t have to be one of the “great heroes of the Resistance” to make a difference.

 We also see that every era will fade into another era.  It’s doesn’t diminish the heroism of the previous generations: Despite what would eventually happen to Anakin, he saved a lot of worlds in the Clone Wars.  Evil rose again.  The Rebels in the Original Trilogy saved the Galaxy, but evil rose again.  It’s not that those things didn’t matter; quite the contrary, the good that DOES get to exist is because people stood up to save that good.  But it is a never ending battle.  Star Wars has always shown us that, from its earliest time.  Destroying the Death Star in “Star Wars” did not destroy the Empire, which soon after struck back.  Winning the Clone Wars did not keep the Sith from rising.  In the EU for years, we still had Imperial remnants rise (The Zahn Trilogy) or new a new Sith Order destroy the Jedi Academy Luke built and reestablish the Empire (Star Wars Legacy, Jedi Academy, the whole Jaina/Jacen Solo story).  Story group editor Pablo Hidalgo recently said something to the effect of the difference between a happy ending and a tragic ending is where you stop the story.  We can stop the story with just episode I and II and claim victory if we want (Yeah, there’s a Clone War, but we have an Army to defeat it, and look!  Anakin and Padme are married!).  We can stop the story at the end of Star Wars, we can stop it at the end of Return of the Jedi.

But in various forms the story has always kept going, and in the end “Star Wars” is going to be about Wars, internal to our heroes and external to the Galaxy.  “The Last Jedi” acknowledges that in ways I didn’t expect, but also shows the struggle to save good is worth it’s own existence.  Never surrender to that.  Be Rebel scum.  And somewhere while you are fighting to save good, there’s a kid with a broom telling your story, and when that kid grows up, they will pick up the baton.

And that, that is hope. Rebellions are built on hope.

Some other small observations:

Billie Lourd (Carrie Fisher’s daughter) gets some great screen time as Connix, Resistance member.

Nien Numb!

Rest in peace, Admiral Ackbar.  Caught in his last trap.

BB8 is a beast; the little round guy feels like R2 and Chopper from Rebels bastard child…hmmm.

The flashbacks to Kylo Ren turning on Luke provide two points of view (Obi-Wan would be proud), but also show a dry night, and Kylo defending himself with his own blue lightsaber.  In “The Force Awakens,” in Rey’s vision we see what I had assumed were Kylo and the Knights of Ren descending on the temple.  But there, he’s in full mask and black robes and already has his distinctive hilted red saber.  We don’t hear about the Knights of Ren in this movie at all, and this really now seems like a different event.  An event Rey had a vision of, tied to her ending up with Unkar Platt.  Now, maybe I am wrong, and this is just a discontinuity between JJ Abrams and Rian Johnson (which would be sad, and certainly burn a lot of my goodwill), but it’s part of why I am not yet ready to dispose of my Rey theories; this is the second movie in a Star Wars trilogy.  Remember, Empire left us wondering if Vader was really Luke’s father and who Yoda meant when he said “there is another.”  We don’t find out about Leia until RotJ.  I am willing to bet as much as “The Last Jedi” subverts our expectations, there are still some mysteries floating around to be dealt with in Episode IX.

At least, that’s my hope.  See you in two years.