Star Wars: The Last Jedi

Let’s talk about Star Wars.

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For a sandbox a galaxy wide, there has been little in the way of actual world building since Empire Strikes Back. For six films in a row, the Star Wars universe has been content to replay its greatest hits of Jedi, Death Stars and ultimate evils. From Return of the Jedi to Rouge One, despite what you think of the films themselves, they have traded on and amped up the icons of the first two. Any new addition (from Ewoks to Jar Jar) have been met with either scorn or derision. Common wisdom would dictate that a new Star Wars franchise would be wise to look back, enlarge the icons and play it safe.

This worked for Force Awakens. Disney and JJ Abrams held your hand, soothingly patted your head and gave you Han in the Falcon, a Jedi prodigy on a desert planet, X Wings on a Death Star, stormtroopers in the snow, a baddy in a mask and a bigger baddy behind him. You know this, they said as they produced a very good film, you like this.

Look. you like three things in this already! This is a film you'd like a lot!

This didn’t work (at least for me) in Rogue One. Dreary and loud, they gave you Peter Cushing’s CGI face, Tie Fighters, Death Stars and a very creakily voiced Darth Vader. My own views (too long, too dour, too reliant on your affection for the above) were not shared by the masses who enjoyed it. Doubling down on the glory days of A New Hope and Empire prove still to the be the key to box office gold. By all wisdom, The Last Jedi should have deified Luke, brought back Lando Calrissian, made Snoke that Sith Lord mentioned in the prequels and leaned into the iconography, hard.

Thank God Rian Johnson isn’t very wise.

We still get X Wings and Jedi and lightsabers and the Falcon, but let’s be crystal fox clear about this; this is not a rerun of Empire. Or Hope, Return, or the prequels. This is a breath of fresh air in a stuffy room. This is a glass of champagne in a desert. This is a bloody good film that tells you, calmly but firmly, to kill your heroes and make your own.

Rose is a maintenance worker, Finn a caretaker. Already, these aren’t the cool guys in the X Wings, they’re the background players brought forward by chance and luck. Ray is, literally, no one from nowhere. Kylo Ren is less a Vader, more a lost child wounded by his mentor’s distrust. Admiral Holdo is a beautiful, seemingly aloof leader who doesn’t take kindly to hot-headed flyboys. Poe himself is the handsome fighter pilot we’ve seen many times before, but his early heroics do not result in a gold star from Leia, but a prompt demotion and a scathing exchange about the value of dead heroes. General Hux is an easily and delightfully mocked lackey. Snoke doesn’t matter. Leia grows from snipping at Han in Force Awakens into a leader who inspires the women behind her (which in turn leads to the greatest twenty seconds of screen time in a blockbuster… ever? Ever, yeah, that fits).

I need three more films starring Laura Dern getting it done, five minutes ago

And Luke? Luke is a broken man. From his very first action (angrily tossing aside the icon of Star Wars) to his admittance of his greatest failure, he is snarky, sarcastic, belligerent and closed. He quickly loses the flowing white and grey robes from Force Awakens (Luke has always had style) for the much more practical Hermit Man Ensemble #3. He doesn’t show Ray how to swing a lightsaber or lift rocks, but about the actual nature of the Force; mostly that the Jedi choked on their own hubris and tried to control what does not belong to them. There should be no more gatekeepers to the magic of this world, and, one flash of Force power later, there aren’t. Mark Hamill is a tour de force in this, bringing his all to an unforgiving and harsh character shift. There is a moment when the wide eyed, happy-to-part-of-the-team-guys Luke is on show, and the transformation is astonishing. He is not Kenobi, or Yoda, or (God forbid) Qui Gon Jinn; Luke is a disappointment. It’s utterly intentional and astonishing to see something quite so daring.

My boy Skywalker is calling shenanigans on new Death Stars

The Last Jedi is a very daring film overall. It dares you to look closer at the antics of it’s characters and the world it perceives. It dares you to question its heroes again and again, Poe and Luke in particular. On the fun side quest to Kanto Byte, we see the rich get richer, the poor more destitute and yet hope remain in the fight for justice. The film dares you to resist the pull of nostalgia and dares you to look beyond the small parameters of what a Star Wars film can be. For a company and brand reliant on the very nostalgia it’s asking you to question, it’s one hell of a power move.

It’s still a Star Wars film; the delightful swipe edits, soaring John Williams score, cute critters and corny sense of humour are all present and correct. But where Force Awakens carefully held up a beautifully rose tinted mirror to what you love about Star Wars, The Last Jedi gleefully smashes it to bits.

But oh, do the pieces glitter brightly in the moonlight.