Since Kylo Ren impaled Han Solo on his laser sword in The Force Awakens (2015), the new Star Wars franchise overlords at Disney have been slowly sweeping away the old to make room for the new characters. It's understandable: we're forty years removed from the original trilogy, the iconic actors from those films are all on social security and, sadly Carrie Fisher passed away unexpectedly a year ago this week. Jumping from galaxy to galaxy, battling villainy and destroying star systems is a young person's game, so the time had come for fresh blood to rejuvenate the series. There is one big caveat here: the producers knew that they had to replace the old guard carefully so as not to alienate the notoriously nostalgia obsessed Star Wars fan base, who were still stinging over the perceived failure of the prequels (I never saw them, so I'm keeping my mouth shut about it). The Force Awakens played it safe in many ways by featuring Harrison Ford, reprising his career making role as Solo, along with healthy doses of call backs to the earlier films (you could argue that Force was practically a "soft" remake of 1977's A New Hope). Yet Solo's character is allowed to die off, and Mark Hamill's Luke Skywalker remains unseen until the very end of the movie. In The Last Jedi both Leia Organa (Carrie Fisher) and Luke play major rolls, but by the end it is clear that the new guard, led by Rey (Daisy Ridley), Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) and Finn (John Boyega) are in command of both the resistance and the evil First Order. The fate of the galaxy is now firmly in the hands of the young generation.
The Last Jedi takes up where Force ended, sort of. Before we get to Rey and Luke on the cliff, where we saw them last, the rest of the Rebel outfit are forced to escape from their base by the regrouped First Order baddies. I got a sinking feeling at this point, because this was exactly the same way The Empire Strikes Back (1980) began. My new hope was that The Force Awakens represented the end of the fan service, and the series would find its own way this time around. Eventually the new film does go in it's own direction, splitting time between Rey's training under Luke Skywalker, the Rebels trying to out run the First Order Fleet and Finn, along with a new character named Rose, trying to find a code breaker on a Monte Carlo-esque planet, so they can hack the First Order's new tracking mechanism, thus ensuring the decimated Rebel fleet's escape. Underpinning all this action is the relationship between Rey and Kylo Ren. Both are strong in the force, both are drawn to each other, struggling between the Dark Side and the Light, and on which side they should ally themselves together on. Both Luke and Leia are vitally important to the story, but by the end it's clear that the saga now belongs to the new players.
The results of this continued passing of the baton are somewhat mixed. There is no arguing with the actors, or their characters' development, for the most part. Ridley continues her strong work as the scavenger turned apprentice Jedi trying to find her way in life. Driver is a real actor, not just a guy in a mask, who brings depth to Kylo Ren. Last time around he was a Darth Vader fanboy, here he descends to levels of deceit that would make his grandfather proud. Oscar Isaac's Poe Dameron, who did relatively little last time out, is brash and impulsive, breaking rules, defying orders, but always with the cause in mind - and an obvious filial devotion to Leia. The only one who still seems like a blank slate in Boyega's Finn. Again, the British actor is fine, but in spite of his ample screen time it's difficult to know who he is or why he's sticking around. It's clear that Finn is now a true believer in the resistance, but I'm still not sure why.
Laura Dern makes what ends up being an extended cameo as an admiral who has to make some controversial moves in Leia's absence. Benicio del Toro makes an equally brief appearance as a shady, cynical mercenary who's loyalties are ambiguous. We are introduced to Rose (Kelly Marie Tran), a Resistance member who lost a sister during battle, and has a soft spot for Finn. Gwendoline Christie makes a second appearance as Captain Phasma, though much like the first go around I'm not sure why - she's on screen so little.
Some will complain, I'm sure, about a slow moving second act, but it was necessary to ease up a bit on the action to give the characters room to grow, developing their own voice. If there was a weakness in the pacing, it's that the film has about three different endings, going on for at least 20 minutes too many. As I hint at above, there are also too many characters that I'm expected to care about. On the positive side, the performances are uniformly strong, the set pieces are exciting, cutting the difference between slickly choreographed martial arts displays (which the Prequels were sometimes criticized for) and spontaneous, emotionally charged action, a hallmark of the originals. Another positive is that you don't have to have seen The Force Awakens to enjoy this, though it certainly wouldn't hurt. The down side is that the movie lacks a true cliff hanger ending. Other than figuring out how they'll deal with Carrie Fisher's absence next time around, the movie ends on a positive note, which left me not terribly anxious about what happens next.
If you're like me, you're going to see this movie, and the next installment in the ongoing series, the still untitled Episode IX in 2019, just because - forget the critics. We grew up with Star Wars, and we want to see it through. I liked The Force Awakens, and like the Rey and Kylo characters. I see potential there for some interesting twists and turns. There is a certain deconstructing of the Star Wars mythology here that can open the series up to new possibilities, though such a move is not necessarily positive, which I'll get into later in my spoilers review.
There is obviously an emotional pall that hangs over The Last Jedi, in spite of the action and general good feeling. The film makers couldn't have know that Carrie Fisher was going to die, and even though filming wrapped well before her death in December, 2016, the producers decided to go with the original cut. The one spoiler I'll include here is that the character of Leia Organa survives this adventure, but we all know that this is Fisher's last appearance, outside of possible flashbacks, that she will make in these, or any films. There are two instances when what were meant to be emotionally affective scenes involving Leia and Luke are amplified by the added knowledge of real life events. It made for a melancholy ride, with more than a tear or two, to say the least.
I am left saddened primarily but not only because of the specter of Fisher's death. With The Last Jedi we have come to the end of the original cycle. Han Solo is dead, Luke's future is left somewhat uncertain, and we know that Leia will not return, even if this news hasn't reached the Star Wars "universe" yet. The past was literally burned down, and in many of the themes pursued, it was spiritually set ablaze as well. Star Wars was created by Baby Boomers for a Gen X audience (though in 1977 Generation X was the name of a punk band, not a sociological cohort). With The Last Jedi Star Wars now belongs to the Millennials, lock stock and barrel. This isn't a bad thing, per say. But in forging a new path, which the series must, I'm afraid that, as with this postmodern age we live in, the baby is being thrown out with the blue milk. To explore this idea I'll need to get into spoilers, which I'm not ready to do right now. In a few weeks I'll be back with a deeper analysis of The Force Awakens, spoilers and all.
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