Despite the critical acclaim of Rian Johnson’s Star Wars: The Last Jedi, certain corners of the internet would have you believe that the film was “divisive.” While there were certainly some unhappy fans – they’ve been screaming from their parents’ basements since 2017 – the evidence of audience gathering surveys like CinemaScore would indicate that the majority of viewers at least liked it reasonably well. I suspect this sentiment will only ring truer over the coming years. The Last Jedi is not just a great Star Wars film – it rivals the daring, innovation and thematic richness of even the original trilogy.
Following the events of The Force Awakens, young force wielder Rey (Daisy Ridley) has located Jedi Master Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill). Owing to his legendary status throughout the galaxy, Rey hopes to bring him into the fight against the growing might of the First Order. However, Luke is not the hero of myth, but a tired, defeated curmudgeon. He believes that his actions, and those of the Jedi, have caused more harm than good. Although he recognises Rey’s strength in the Force, and thus reluctantly agrees to train her, he makes it clear: he intends to die as the last Jedi.
Meanwhile, Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) and the First Order have tracked down the Resistance, having developed a means of tracking through light speed. No matter where the Resistance goes, the First Order will be hot on their trail. As Leia (Carrie Fisher) attempts to shake the First Order, Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac), whose recklessness in the film’s opening battle sees him demoted, concocts a risky plan. He teams up with Finn (John Boyega) and a maintenance worker named Rose (Kelly Marie Tran) to disable the First Order’s tracker and help the Resistance escape. These intertwining stories navigate their own twists and turns, culminating in a climax that sees them all on a collision course.
In my review of The Force Awakens, I argued that the question and weight of legacy was the core thesis of the Star Wars sequel trilogy. This theme is particularly potent in The Last Jedi, as the trilogy’s young protagonists – Rey, Finn and Poe – look to their higher ups in Luke, Leia and other Resistance leaders, while attempting to cement their own agency in this conflict. They are forging their futures as the older generation wrestle with the consequences of their pasts. Even Kylo Ren, the main antagonist, subscribes to this. He looks to abandon his fascination with Darth Vader and, through his own mettle, become what Vader never could. He wants to, in his words, “let the past die“, while Rey wants to confront and emulate it for herself, lending credence to the ideas of legacy that the film explores.
Luke’s story is where this theme proves especially captivating. Detractors of The Last Jedi love to claim that the film somehow “butchered” Luke’s character; I would argue that Luke has never been more compelling. Due to his heroics in the original trilogy, the galaxy has put Luke on a pedestal, a burden he has felt for decades. His mistakes surrounding the creation of Kylo Ren directly tie into the impossible standards others like Rey and even Leia hold him to, rendering him unable to live up to the galaxy’s image of him, whether due to fear or hubris. As he says, “I failed because I was Luke Skywalker“.
Luke’s arc begins with him disillusioned at his own image, and the Jedi as a whole, seeing his mistakes as another link in a long chain of failure dating all the way back to the prequel trilogy. Yet through passing on his knowledge onto Rey, and subsequently the next generation, he grows to learn the value of failure, returning stronger than ever to become the legend that the galaxy sees him as. That it culminates in the most jaw-dropping use of the Force in any of these films is just the cinematic cherry on top. Mark Hamill initially had his doubts about this arc, but ultimately came to understand and champion Johnson’s vision. In doing so, Hamill delicately balances a vast spectrum of emotions from jadedness to humour, from shame to titanic, spine-chilling power. It is Hamill’s greatest performance.
Enriching this is the way Johnson and team juggle Luke’s story with numerous other character arcs, all of which are equally interesting as Luke’s. Finn has rejected the First Order but has not officially joined the Resistance yet; a journey he ends up taking as his and Rose’s expedition to the planet Canto Bight brings him in contact with the greediest people in the galaxy. Poe’s arc sees him overcome his need to be seen as heroic. He becomes a true leader once he learns that there is more value in the saving of others than the execution of his enemies. The Rey and Kylo Ren narrative strands are interwoven together, as the two become spiritually connected through the Force. This is a narrative device that allows Ridley and Driver to capitalise on their stellar chemistry together, the two interacting despite being in separate locations. While Kylo Ren seeks to rid himself of his inner conflict by doubling down, Rey seeks to find her placement within the story through uncovering her missing parents’ identities.
The answer is the one that Rey wants to hear least – that she isn’t a descendent of Luke or Obi-Wan or any other prevalent hero in the Star Wars franchise. Her parents were, in her words, “nobody”. It’s an incredibly unorthodox choice, yet Rey’s story, and the bravery of those in the Resistance, harken back to the freshness of the very first Star Wars. What made Luke so engaging as the original protagonist wasn’t his connection to some Chosen One prophecy or due to his Skywalker bloodline. Those weren’t introduced until the prequels. It was that he was an ordinary farm boy looking to the horizon dreaming of a greater life. Through his characters, Johnson is proclaiming that anyone, regardless of background or status, can be special or make a difference. That his film additionally explores how failure can be a springboard for growth and not the end all be all only adds further power to his philosophy. It becomes that much more exhilarating when one observes how each of the protagonists from Rey to Poe to Luke himself learn from the past where Kylo Ren, the antagonist, refuses to do so, a factor that undoubtedly determines the outcome of the final battle.
Johnson’s love for Star Wars radiates throughout the filmmaking. His movies have regularly been described as throwback in quality as he takes influence from movies and literature of old – his 2019 movie Knives Out is cut from the same cloth as Agatha Christie’s Poirot for example. With The Last Jedi, Johnson not only recalls the strengths of both the original and prequel trilogies, but looks to the classics of cinema itself. The casino world of Canto Bight features setpieces and costumes that wouldn’t look out of place in a sci-fi version of Hitchcock’s To Catch a Thief. The establishing shot of the avarice on display utilises a tracking shot across various casino tables reminiscent of Wings, the first film ever to win the Best Picture Oscar. Akira Kurosawa’s touch continues to dominate this saga, with the final duel between Luke and Kylo Ren recalling the nail-biting suspense and emotionally-charged choreography seen in Seven Samurai. Even the Resistance’s desperate bid to outrun the First Order recalls the World War Two epic Sahara, which saw a group of Allied soldiers trying to evade advancing Nazis.
By hybridising these cosmopolitan influences, and adding his own imaginative twists to the traditional craft and storytelling seen in Star Wars, Johnson gives us some of the coolest moments ever to grace this saga. There’s the sacrifice of Vice Admiral Holdo (Laura Dern), which results in a stunning visual born from the creativity surrounding light speed. There’s Luke teaching Rey about the Force, the visual metaphors on the cycle of life giving us the most comprehensive explanation of the Force yet. The visual language of the film is so immaculate that certain landscapes are burned into our minds as soon as they appear on screen, the best example being the use of the colours white and red on the planet Crait. A barren world covered in salt, its white plains become scorched with red as the action commences, the landscape bleeding just as the film bleeds with suspense. Then there is the iconic throne room sequence between Rey, Kylo Ren and Kylo’s master, Supreme Leader Snoke (Andy Serkis), which ends with one of the most visceral, breath-taking fight scenes of any Star Wars film. All of this is brought to life with top notch production design, awe-inspiring cinematography from frequent Johnson collaborator Steve Yeldin, and the always riveting music from John Williams. His track The Battle of Crait is particularly memorable in how it incorporates music from all three trilogies to heighten the excitement of the action.
Johnson even celebrates the outright weirdness of Star Wars. The film is littered with bizarre alien designs, from the disgusting elites of Canto Bight to the Princess Mononoke-esque crystal foxes of Crait, to the various animals of the planet Ahch-To. Most prominent among these are the adorable Porgs, which were inspired by the wild puffins of Skellig Michael, an island off the coast of Ireland where the Ahch-To scenes were filmed. There’s a fair amount of comedy that plays into the character personalities, from Luke’s grumpiness to the currish antics of First Order General Hux (Domnhall Gleeson). The comedy is tonally light, like the original films, yet it never supersedes the drama or dampens the intensity of the film’s most adrenaline-charged sequences. Even if a particular joke doesn’t land, it’s substituted so quickly for picturesque imagery and imaginative filmmaking – right down to the film going silent during Holdo’s sacrifice – that you’re instantly re-immersed.
The term’ subverting expectations‘ has been used both earnestly and cynically when describing the film, depending on who’s discussing it. The term was never actually uttered by Johnson himself, but assigned by multiple critics at the time of the film’s release. Yet subversion is partially what makes the film so engrossing. Through its analysis of character and the deceptive value of failure, the film serves as something of a deconstruction of the Star Wars franchise. It breaks down the pedestal we have placed the franchise on, just like the galaxy did with Luke, examining how viewing people and events – in the film’s case the past and in our’s the original trilogy – through rose-tinted glasses can be harmful. However, by staying true to the tone, quirks and themes that have made the saga so magical for so long, The Last Jedi deconstructs and then reassembles the franchise together so that its power is reaffirmed rather than dismissed. That it happens to mirror Luke’s arc in the process is just the latest in a long line of reasons why this picture is so mesmerising.
Although there are good faith criticisms that can and have been made about the film, the loudest voices of dissent are sadly the ones that, ironically, demonstrate romanticised views of the original trilogy. It’s a pity that this is the case since The Last Jedi is both a thrilling continuation of The Force Awakens and an outright celebration of why Star Wars is so special. A euphoric epic that combines excitement, resonance and visual magic seamlessly, it’s a remarkable film that just gets better with every viewing. The toxic side of the fanbase will continue to shout into the void – such is freedom of speech. But there will come a time where exhaustion at their cynicism and entitlement will settle in and nobody will listen anymore. Star Wars: The Last Jedi occupies the same space in my mind as the original trilogy; in that I cannot bear the thought of never seeing it again. It is science-fiction cinema at its very best.
5 stars
Star Wars: The Last Jedi is playing on Disney+.
Learn more about the film, including how to watch, on the Disney+ site.
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