Last week, I finally got around to seeing The Last Jedi.
I’ll admit, I had some trepidation. I’d seen the Rotten
Tomatoes debacle, heard about fan reactions. Low expectations were a part of
why I took so long to see the film. The spoiler-free reviews I read seemed
pretty promising, but that was almost even more discouraging. Was The Last Jedi just going to be another
example of why critical opinions need to be taken with a grain of salt?
As it turned out, The
Last Jedi reminded me why I tend to take fan reactions with a grain of
salt.
To avoid spoilers, it’s only the last week I’m letting
myself read commentary and the fan reactions. But after watching the movie and
reading the articles that have slowly accumulated in a folder on my desktop, it
seems the main justification for the vitriol is that the movie “absolutely
ruins 30 years of cinema lore.”
While there is a kernel of truth in this statement, I have
to admit, I find this thinking somewhat reductive.
In responding to that particular Tweet and the countless
fans who agree with its sentiment, I’ll start by acknowledging that, yes, The Last Jedi disappointed me. It was a
disappointment for the little boy who’s still somewhere in there, that
continues to drive my fandom. In many ways, The
Last Jedi spit in the face of the little boy who watched the originals as
long ago as he can remember before getting his own generation of Star Wars.
This newest movie disappointed the part of me that drives my
belief that Return of the Jedi is the
best of the series. In many ways, The
Last Jedi is the sequel to Episode VI
we never saw with The Force Awakens. Like all good sequels, The Last Jedi addresses the legacy of its predecessor. Luke’s bleak
monologues cut to the romantic heart of Return
of the Jedi’s neat fantasy ending: the comradery, the optimism, the
mythologizing. The kid inside who continues to idolize Luke’s hero’s journey
felt pretty hurt and even offended by the writers’ cynical manipulation of the
mythology.
I get why people dislike this movie.
But I’m no longer just that kid. I’m also an adult who
attempts to engage at least somewhat critically with the cultural artifacts I
am exposed to.
My adult reaction to any offense taken after seeing The Last Jedi is basically this… the
existence of a third Star Wars
trilogy in a universe where George Lucas sold his baby to Disney is fucking offensive.
Most of the problems with both The Force Awakens and The
Last Jedi can be directly tied to the fact that the series should not even
exist. Any manipulation of fan-favoured franchise lore isn’t the fault of a
single writer or his film. His directing is not the reason Luke seems like an entirely
different character in this movie. It would have been inevitable. Luke’s
story ended with Return of the Jedi.
Any problems arising with his character can be traced back
to the increasing commodification of franchises like Star Wars by entertainment giants (remember, Disney also owns Marvel
Entertainment). Rian Johnson seems to understand this, and I wonder if this
knowledge played a part in his choice to characterize Luke this way. Is it,
perhaps, a statement? At the very least, he’s given an alternative to the
predictably Yoda imitator we might have ended up with under a different
director.
Whatever people say about the prequel trilogy fit, it
directly into the creative vision Lucas created. The first follow up trilogy
enhanced the franchises core themes and deepened the universe (providing space
to revive a dying expanded universe) while mostly acknowledging the original
trilogy as its foundation piece. This new trilogy was unplanned, clearly a
product of corporate machinations. Our Twitter friend succinctly summarizes
what many of us have been thinking since 2012: “cash cow only and goodbye to
all that made #StarWars great.”
I’m almost tempted to say the world did end in 2012, because
the world where Star Wars fandom is
untainted by the postmodern malaise is no more. Hence, I return to my reaction The Last Jedi: I loved it. It’s up there
with the best of the canon, precisely because it understands the place Star Wars is at in the 21st
century.
One of Star Wars’
many values is its reflection of the culture that produces it. The original
trilogy reflected Reagan-era anti-communist rhetoric, centered on a hero’s
journey to join the collective fight against the evil Empire. Concerned with
diversifying the series mythology, the prequel trilogy is perennially well
suited for the post-9/11 world, dissecting empires, republics, and religions.
In the prequel trilogy, we witness an outdated order being torn down in a
manner that seems both reflective and eerily prophetic. The prequel trilogy
remains relevant when we look back from sixteen plus years into the War in Afghanistan.
Rian Johnson asks hard questions that have always existed in
the Star Wars franchise but have
never been tackled in the film’s main line. He exposes some of the problematic thinking
promoted by the original Star Wars
series, and the way that dogged faith in organizations and religions can
exacerbate these problems. Despite Return
of the Jedi’s optimistic ending, I’ve always wondered if the Jedi need to return. It was, after all, (as
Luke notes at one point in the new film) the overconfident and bureaucratic
Jedi order that allowed Darth Sidious to organize the Empire and order the
Jedi’s destruction.
Perhaps, The Last Jedi
asks, it is time to stop looking for the past for answers. This, of course,
brings the film into conversation with contemporary political debates.
The Republic and the Empire both function as analogies for
the American state. Though fans debate over how those analogies map onto the real
world, look around the world today. Does any other political entity represent
the First Order better than the United Sates and the late capitalist west more
generally? Specifically, who better represents the First Order’s incompetent
and extremist leadership than those politicians currently sitting in the White
House?
It’s no longer enough to joke about “the only other woman in
the galaxy” as some form of empty lip service. It’s time to actively dismantle
and deconstruct the institutions that reproduce social ills. On the fandom
level, that means criticizing franchises like Star Wars and
others when they fail to promote socially diverse narratives. It means questioning
elements of fandom that are unwilling to compromise their views about the
social ramifications that fiction has.
In terms of the franchise’s creative direction, it means
little humanization for the villains and even less romanticism in dealing with
them. The Last Jedi excellently
deconstructs the naiveté of believing in the good inside. In real life, the good guy doesn’t turn, the eleventh hour
plan fails, and a petulant man child is in charge of the most dangerous and
powerful military in the galaxy. In real life, a villain’s backstory is second
to the threat he poses threat. In the real world, actions define a person.
The Last Jedi is
the first truly adult Star Wars film
not just because it strays heavily into PG territory but because it is aware of
itself and the franchise as a set of cultural artifacts with social
ramifications. While the child in me will always love the original trilogy the
best, The Last Jedi seems to point
towards a future where nine films form a unified progressive update to the
six-episode saga my heart still considers the core of Star Wars.
Mishandled, though, J.J. Abrams and Episode IX’s creative team risk dismissing some of the thematic
depths reached in The Last Jedi.
Though The Last Jedi is certainly one
of Star Wars’ best moments, this
seems largely due to Rian Johnson’s update to George Lucas’s creative vision.
Two years on from The Force Awakens,
I’m still unsure how I feel about this new trilogy.
