Wednesday, January 3, 2018

The Last Jedi


So, I saw Star Wars: The Last Jedi on New Years Day. I picked the first performance I could find, which meant I got the screen to myself. And due to a cock-up by the cinema, I didn't have to watch any stupid ads before it started either. It was trailers and then film. As it should be.

I loved it. Genuinely loved it. Enjoyed it more than any Star Wars film since...Return of the Jedi. I'd almost go as far as to say it was my favourite Star Wars film of the entire lot so far but that might be pushing it.

And yet I see an internet full of complaints. Now, I'm not a Star Wars 'geek'. I'm a Doctor Who 'geek'. That's where my fandom pound gets spent. I like Star Wars. I'd put it in with a handful of other SF related things that I have an interest in but don't know every detail about. You can make a judgement of the value of my opinion based on that. A lot of Star Wars fans seem to be very angry about this film.

I'm going to ignore the SJW angle because if this series has been about a bunch of good guys trying to take down the fascists with a dash of mysticism attached from the very beginning. Or alternatively, it's just supposed to have been a series of adventure movies to which we have all become slightly over-attached to. And that's not a bad thing. Doctor Who is just a family TV series designed to keep everyone watching BBC One between the football results and Juke Box Jury to which I have become ridiculously and expensively attached.

I'll start with Luke's character as this seems to be the big issue people have with the film, including to some degree Mark Hamill himself. Yes, Luke in the earlier films was always the least cynical and most optimistic character of the main characters. Yes, it is hard to see what Luke has become. But I don't believe it is 'out of character'. This is Luke after he's lost his nephew to the Dark Side. This is Luke after he's utterly failed. This is Luke after another series of killings. Is there any wonder he's become cynical and cut-off from the force and the galaxy. There isn't anything 'out of character' here. This is Luke after an emotional battering, which most of us would struggle to recover from. And Hamill - whatever his personal doubts - is brilliant. And yet, however much he wants to stop being a legend, in the end, he saves the day at the cost of his own life. His legendary status is cemented. He does the right thing.

Everyone talks about the Jedi as if they're great but in the prequel trilogy, they were basically a bunch of politicians quibbling over midichlorians whilst a Sith Lord out-manoeuvred them. Like any number of mediaeval religious orders in this world, they found that their temporal power meant they lost sight of their spiritual goals. The Jedi that the original trilogy remembered were the legends, not the politicians. It seems that Luke saw that too (and so did Yoda). All the organisation needed to be pulled down and something new should take its place, which learned the lessons from their previous failures.

Which is where Kylo Ren's call to Rey to 'let go of the past' echoes with Luke's story. Kylo Ren is still conflicted. He's asking the same questions as Rey about his place in the universe. Luke couldn't show it too him. Snoke can't. He's hoping perhaps Rey can.

The other key thing in this film I think is that it is about failure and learning lessons from failure: Poe, learns to go from bull in a china shop to leader; Rey fails to convert Kylo Ren back to the light, but she learns that she can find her own way; Finn learns - and that's why the sequence on Canto Bite matters - that there is something worth fighting for. In defeat, he finds his place.

I felt that the film was aiming to say something about balance and that Leia was the person who would bring balance to the Force, perhaps through Kylo Ren. Perhaps herself. I wonder whether the next film will be about balance.

This is the Rebellion's Dunkirk. Now it has to rebuild.

People seemed disappointed that Rey's family were 'nobodies'. Why? Does every major force wielding character in Star Wars have to be related? What else could she be? Luke's daughter? Obi-Wan Kenobi's? Isn't that all a little incestuous. And the scene when she's standing to look at the (almost) infinite line of herself is just her learning that she's who she is because of herself. She hasn't needed to be part of the bloodline of some Force Nobility. And that makes her a stronger and better character.*

A similar thing applies to Snoke. I think because fans love theories it is disappointing when we aren't given one of them as the answer to who is what. All those guesses about who Snoke is or was are never going to get answered because his own hubris gets him killed. And I'm all right with that. Again why do we want to make the Star Wars Universe so incestuous? Snoke has to be someone connected to somewhere else in the films. Why? We fans love our theories, but it is funny when we're all wrong. Snoke is just Snoke. And now he's dead.

It seems to me that people dislike this film because it has tried to do something new. You can't freeze something like this in carbonite. It needs to stretch out and develop.

O and on a couple of the little things:

Porgs: they're hardly in it and they're mostly comic relief. Get over it.
Leia's Space Flight: this we're supposed to disapprove of because why? Is it any weirder than being able to move rocks with your mind. Or lifting R2-D2 up? Or...etc. Who knows what sneaky practice Leia has been doing on her Force control when no one is looking.

And finally, after all this waffling on, I like this film because it was entertaining. Perhaps, having seen Abel Gance's 5 and 1/2 hour Napoleon a couple of days earlier, my tolerance for film length was at an all-time high but it flew by. I was never bored. I was moved to tears when Leia and Luke talk towards the end of the film. I enjoyed Kelly Marie Tran as Rose.

Plus Adrian Edmondson.

Sorry if this isn't to your liking but frankly I don't give a damn. 


*This might all turn out to be a double-bluff and the final film reveal she's really the daughter of Qui-Gon Jinn or something equally tedious.