Here. Be. Spoilers.
I watched The Last Jedi on Saturday.
So here be spoilers. You have been warned. Proceed at your own discretion.
This is gonna be mighty unconnected and full of hot takes and not thought out at all. I'll have to watch it again for that plus read a ton of in-depth articles discussing various aspects of the movie and their impact on the grander picture and you know, all the other stuff academics who have an unhealthy fixation on popular culture like to do so bear with me.
All in all, I really liked it. I definitely liked it more than The Force Awakens but less than Rogue One (which in itself doesn't say much because Rogue One was the Star Wars movie I was waiting for for ten years, and it delivered a hell of a movie, so I still consider it the best Star Wars movie ever made). It had a couple weaknesses - it was a little long, and it could have done with less plot arcs - but it had a couple really good plot twists and it veered away from a few common narratives.
Kayti Burt discusses the most important one of those diversions on Den of Geek (yes, the article is full of spoilers, too), that one being the narrative of the (misunderstood, usually male) junior officer disobeying their superior officer in a lonely bout of insubordinate heroism and saving the day by it. Poe failing and failing and failing was really hard to watch but it made for an original and kind of satisfying story arc, when, in the end, he actually learns something from it (Matthew Gault of War is Boring wrote a lovely (YES AND FULL OF SPOILERS) piece on (military) failings as the movie's central point that is worth reading, especially for any of you who love to combine military studies and pop culture). And it was awesome watching him getting taught his lessons by two middle-aged women who've been in this fight since before he was even born. I kind of love Holdo, and after being forced to read Claudia Gray's Leia book by my sister, watching her last scene will be so much more terrible than it already was (also, they fucking killed Admiral Ackbar without so much as a blink! WTH???).
Watching Carrie Fisher on screen was both wonderful and terrible. I nearly tore up every time she appeared on screen, and I just really, really hope she was aware of the impact she had on millions of girls and women all over the world (I remember seeing all those "A woman's place is in the resistance" pickets at the Women's March in January and starting to cry when realizing that Carrie never got to see him. She would have loved it). I knew people are miffed by Leia surviving getting blasted into hard vacuum but Kanaan actually did that in Rebels (more than once, actually, didn't he?) and people, Leia is a Jedi. They seem to forget that part of her heritage so easily but she's Anakin Skywalker's daughter. If anyone can survive hard vacuum, it's her. I loved her performance as a leader of a dwindling resistance, nearly but never thoroughly breaking under the weight of losing and losing and losing people and as mother conflicted about her son and all the complicated layers between her and Poe and her exchange with Holdo and that heartbreaking conversation with Luke. That was one heck of a final curtain for Carrie Fisher.
I also loved how they gave Billie Lourd's character a bigger role, making her one of Poe's co-conspirators in his little revolt of young and reckless vs. old and experienced and I'm really glad that she's one of the very lucky very few who made it to the end of the movie, which hopefully means we'll see her again in Episode IX. I am also, in general, overjoyed at seeing so many women in supporting roles or as extras. It's awesome to have many women leads but having women in roles all over the damn movie, too, to see them sitting in cockpits and bridge pits and see them running to their stations or manning their posts makes it so much more real, so much more natural. I'm still a little miffed that they remade the Original Trilogy Empire into some weird kind of equal opportunity organisation (when it makes so much more sense to keep it human male only, as it is a fucking fascist war machine, and racism and misogynie actually make sense in that constellation) but yeah, I can accept it for the First Order as some kind of having learned from the Empire's mistakes kind of thing.
Luke, then. Ugh, Luke. Tormented, cynical, wallowing in self-pity Luke. And Mark Hamill nailing it. The reluctance to teach Rey, the belief that he failed (he did, that's the saddest thing about it), his Moment of Awesome on Crait (and the heartbreaking reveal that he was never actually there), his death scene... that was all brilliant. The death scene especially felt like a sucker punch because I honestly did not see it coming. In hindsight, it made sense - he was at peace with himself and he realized that the past really had to die, only not in the way Kylo Ren thought it did - but I kept hoping right until he died that he'd get his act together and somehow find a way off Ach-To. But yeah, this is a tale about the torch being handed to the next generation, and for that, teachers and leaders have to die (it's the same reason why Obi-Wan had to die in A New Hope and Yoda had to die in Return of the Jedi. But then again, both had an uncanny tendency to not stay dead, so I'm kinda confident that we might not have seen the end of Luke yet, either). I'm just glad that Luke found a way to die on his own terms. No Big Damn Heroics but in peace and in his own time, and not giving Kylo Ren the satisfaction that it had been him. Actually, Luke dying the way he did is kind of a pretty big fuck you to Kylo, and that's why I like it so much.
Because I really, really, really hate Kylo Ren. I refuse to call him Ben Solo because he's not a Solo. He is, however, very much a Skywalker. He's like Anakin in his self-centredness, his arrogance, his entitlement and his whiny brattiness (if you couldn't tell until now, I also hated Anakin. With a vengeance). In short, Kylo Ren is the embodiment of toxic masculinity and every goddamn nerd boy out there whining that Disney "destroyed" Star Wars by making it into "a movie for SJWs" (holy fucking shit, it's always been about social justice. That's what the Rebels fought for, and we are supposed to root for them, not the Empire! I really think those nerd boys keep forgetting that because practically all merch is about a fascist war machine and its fascist psychopathic mass murderer villains, and there are really no words for how much I hate seeing Kylo Ren masks being marketed to kids and the Empire's symbol all over the merch stands in every goddamn supermarket. They're the bad guys. They're fascists, they're mass murderers. Why in God's name would anyone want to promote them?), thinking it somehow "belonged" to them and that Disney has to "listen" to them because they make up the most important demographic (I'm pretty sure they don't, actually). His stupid tantrums make me want to slap him and send him off to bed without dinner. Honestly, being a junior officer on a vessel he's on must be terrible.
The scene with Luke in his bedroom was heartbreaking, when Luke finally told Rey what really happened, yes, but I refuse to see Kylo Ren as a cute little woobie who only needs a bit of TLC. He doesn't. He really does need a lightsaber. Through his whiny psychopathic mass murderer heart. He goddamn was party to the murder of an entire system of planets, among other things. He tortured people, he killed people, he maimed people. All because he thought he was not getting enough "respect", and because he was convinced that people owed him anything just because of who he was. He's past all redemption, and I really do not want to see him getting form of it by the end of Episode IX.
I'm still not sure what I think about this whole telepathic conversation thing with Rey. I loved how the plot managed to keep me on the edge of my seat about whether he'd turn to the light (I kept hoping he wouldn't, because I really didn't want him to be led of the hook as easily as that) and I did not see him murdering Snoke. I mean, okay, I did - Sith do have that stupid thing about the student killing the master once he has learned enough or thinks he has learned enough - but for just a short moment, I almost believed that Kylo Ren actually did that because he did turn to the light. Imagine my satisfaction when learning that he didn't and imagine my glee at seeing him turning out to be a terrible commander (worse than Poe. Way, way worse than Poe. I actually felt sorry for Hux at some point, which is something I didn't even think was possible. I mean, really, Hux is an idiot and not that much of a military genius but Kylo puts even him to shame. Come to think of it, the only people making sound military decisions in this movie were women. God, now I love it even more). I really hope that was the set-up for a lot of friction in the inner circles of the First Order, and that we're seeing so, so many more terrible military decisions made by those two absolute morons.
I'm also not sure what to think about Rose/Finn. I loved their arc (as it was the only arc that didn't involve the Force, just old-fashioned blasters, alien horse races and a woman wise beyond her years. Oh, Rose) and I kept hoping they'd make it but yeah, now in hindsight... of course I should have known that they wouldn't, because apparently Rian Johnson hates nothing more than a conventional story arc (and I'm perfectly okay with that) but yeah. I'm just kind of happy that they didn't let Rose die, after her awesome stunt of keeping Finn from performing needless Big Damn Heroics. Again, a thing I did not see coming but for once a subversion of a common trope that I welcomed. After so many people dead, I was convinced they'd let Finn die, and I wasn't ready for it and then it looked like Rose would die and I was even less ready for that, so thank God neither of that happened. Benecio Del Toro was kind of "eh" for me. I was really glad, though, that his cynicism didn't really reverberate with Finn. He did kind of have a point but walking away and pretending that everyone is the same you can just make deals with all of them doesn't make you smart. It just makes you an asshole who doesn't know how to differentiate between a bad cause and a good cause. Or who actually wilfully chooses to ignore that not all causes are the same and that some causes are more worthy than others. Someone who equates a fascist empire with a resistance fighting for freedom and equality, for example.
Last but not least, the porgs. Apparently, people hate them and see them as a sign of "Disneyfication" of their beloved fandom which never had any cute creatures that could be easily monetized... oh, wait. Remember the ewoks? They were around long before Disney came into play. Remember R2-D2? Remember how he was around long before Disney, too? Yeah, thought so. I loved the porgs, and yes, I loved every cheap, stupid joke that involved them (I also loved all the other cheap, stupid jokes, too. Sue me). I will probably go out and get myself a porg plushy as soon as I have the money. I might even buy this stupid porg mug because I love porgs and mugs and I love stupid mugs, especially. Because honestly, people who hate cute, funny creatures (come on, that scene when Chewie tried to eat one of them and just couldn't get away from their sad little faces? That was come comedy gold!) have no joy in their lives and are boring and can go stuff it.
So, all in all: yep, it was a good movie and I don't care if "real" fans are supposed to hate it. "Real" fans can go suck on a porg egg and keep their gatekeeper shit for themselves. The Last Jedi is 21st Century Star Wars in the best sense, handing the torch over to a new generation by teaching them a few really hard lessons and giving its old heroes the farewells they deserve. I just really hope they find a way to write Leia out in a dignified and meaningful way in Episode IX and that JJ Abrams doesn't mess it up all over again. The Last Jedi is one of those movies we don't deserve but desperately need, like Rey is that hero that we don't deserve but desperately need. The Last Jedi is full of insecure men who fail and full of powerful, wise women who have to clean up after all those insecure men, and who are the real heroes of the story. The Last Jedi is the Star Wars twelve-year-old me would have loved because of all the women and all the space battles. The Last Jedi teaches us that no matter how much they shoot at you, how thorough they are in hunting you down, how much they try to extinguish you, there's always hope. The Last Jedi teaches us about failure and sacrifice and responsibility, and it does so brilliantly.
So yeah, haters can go and suck it. I loved it.
So here be spoilers. You have been warned. Proceed at your own discretion.
This is gonna be mighty unconnected and full of hot takes and not thought out at all. I'll have to watch it again for that plus read a ton of in-depth articles discussing various aspects of the movie and their impact on the grander picture and you know, all the other stuff academics who have an unhealthy fixation on popular culture like to do so bear with me.
All in all, I really liked it. I definitely liked it more than The Force Awakens but less than Rogue One (which in itself doesn't say much because Rogue One was the Star Wars movie I was waiting for for ten years, and it delivered a hell of a movie, so I still consider it the best Star Wars movie ever made). It had a couple weaknesses - it was a little long, and it could have done with less plot arcs - but it had a couple really good plot twists and it veered away from a few common narratives.
Kayti Burt discusses the most important one of those diversions on Den of Geek (yes, the article is full of spoilers, too), that one being the narrative of the (misunderstood, usually male) junior officer disobeying their superior officer in a lonely bout of insubordinate heroism and saving the day by it. Poe failing and failing and failing was really hard to watch but it made for an original and kind of satisfying story arc, when, in the end, he actually learns something from it (Matthew Gault of War is Boring wrote a lovely (YES AND FULL OF SPOILERS) piece on (military) failings as the movie's central point that is worth reading, especially for any of you who love to combine military studies and pop culture). And it was awesome watching him getting taught his lessons by two middle-aged women who've been in this fight since before he was even born. I kind of love Holdo, and after being forced to read Claudia Gray's Leia book by my sister, watching her last scene will be so much more terrible than it already was (also, they fucking killed Admiral Ackbar without so much as a blink! WTH???).
Watching Carrie Fisher on screen was both wonderful and terrible. I nearly tore up every time she appeared on screen, and I just really, really hope she was aware of the impact she had on millions of girls and women all over the world (I remember seeing all those "A woman's place is in the resistance" pickets at the Women's March in January and starting to cry when realizing that Carrie never got to see him. She would have loved it). I knew people are miffed by Leia surviving getting blasted into hard vacuum but Kanaan actually did that in Rebels (more than once, actually, didn't he?) and people, Leia is a Jedi. They seem to forget that part of her heritage so easily but she's Anakin Skywalker's daughter. If anyone can survive hard vacuum, it's her. I loved her performance as a leader of a dwindling resistance, nearly but never thoroughly breaking under the weight of losing and losing and losing people and as mother conflicted about her son and all the complicated layers between her and Poe and her exchange with Holdo and that heartbreaking conversation with Luke. That was one heck of a final curtain for Carrie Fisher.
I also loved how they gave Billie Lourd's character a bigger role, making her one of Poe's co-conspirators in his little revolt of young and reckless vs. old and experienced and I'm really glad that she's one of the very lucky very few who made it to the end of the movie, which hopefully means we'll see her again in Episode IX. I am also, in general, overjoyed at seeing so many women in supporting roles or as extras. It's awesome to have many women leads but having women in roles all over the damn movie, too, to see them sitting in cockpits and bridge pits and see them running to their stations or manning their posts makes it so much more real, so much more natural. I'm still a little miffed that they remade the Original Trilogy Empire into some weird kind of equal opportunity organisation (when it makes so much more sense to keep it human male only, as it is a fucking fascist war machine, and racism and misogynie actually make sense in that constellation) but yeah, I can accept it for the First Order as some kind of having learned from the Empire's mistakes kind of thing.
Luke, then. Ugh, Luke. Tormented, cynical, wallowing in self-pity Luke. And Mark Hamill nailing it. The reluctance to teach Rey, the belief that he failed (he did, that's the saddest thing about it), his Moment of Awesome on Crait (and the heartbreaking reveal that he was never actually there), his death scene... that was all brilliant. The death scene especially felt like a sucker punch because I honestly did not see it coming. In hindsight, it made sense - he was at peace with himself and he realized that the past really had to die, only not in the way Kylo Ren thought it did - but I kept hoping right until he died that he'd get his act together and somehow find a way off Ach-To. But yeah, this is a tale about the torch being handed to the next generation, and for that, teachers and leaders have to die (it's the same reason why Obi-Wan had to die in A New Hope and Yoda had to die in Return of the Jedi. But then again, both had an uncanny tendency to not stay dead, so I'm kinda confident that we might not have seen the end of Luke yet, either). I'm just glad that Luke found a way to die on his own terms. No Big Damn Heroics but in peace and in his own time, and not giving Kylo Ren the satisfaction that it had been him. Actually, Luke dying the way he did is kind of a pretty big fuck you to Kylo, and that's why I like it so much.
Because I really, really, really hate Kylo Ren. I refuse to call him Ben Solo because he's not a Solo. He is, however, very much a Skywalker. He's like Anakin in his self-centredness, his arrogance, his entitlement and his whiny brattiness (if you couldn't tell until now, I also hated Anakin. With a vengeance). In short, Kylo Ren is the embodiment of toxic masculinity and every goddamn nerd boy out there whining that Disney "destroyed" Star Wars by making it into "a movie for SJWs" (holy fucking shit, it's always been about social justice. That's what the Rebels fought for, and we are supposed to root for them, not the Empire! I really think those nerd boys keep forgetting that because practically all merch is about a fascist war machine and its fascist psychopathic mass murderer villains, and there are really no words for how much I hate seeing Kylo Ren masks being marketed to kids and the Empire's symbol all over the merch stands in every goddamn supermarket. They're the bad guys. They're fascists, they're mass murderers. Why in God's name would anyone want to promote them?), thinking it somehow "belonged" to them and that Disney has to "listen" to them because they make up the most important demographic (I'm pretty sure they don't, actually). His stupid tantrums make me want to slap him and send him off to bed without dinner. Honestly, being a junior officer on a vessel he's on must be terrible.
The scene with Luke in his bedroom was heartbreaking, when Luke finally told Rey what really happened, yes, but I refuse to see Kylo Ren as a cute little woobie who only needs a bit of TLC. He doesn't. He really does need a lightsaber. Through his whiny psychopathic mass murderer heart. He goddamn was party to the murder of an entire system of planets, among other things. He tortured people, he killed people, he maimed people. All because he thought he was not getting enough "respect", and because he was convinced that people owed him anything just because of who he was. He's past all redemption, and I really do not want to see him getting form of it by the end of Episode IX.
I'm still not sure what I think about this whole telepathic conversation thing with Rey. I loved how the plot managed to keep me on the edge of my seat about whether he'd turn to the light (I kept hoping he wouldn't, because I really didn't want him to be led of the hook as easily as that) and I did not see him murdering Snoke. I mean, okay, I did - Sith do have that stupid thing about the student killing the master once he has learned enough or thinks he has learned enough - but for just a short moment, I almost believed that Kylo Ren actually did that because he did turn to the light. Imagine my satisfaction when learning that he didn't and imagine my glee at seeing him turning out to be a terrible commander (worse than Poe. Way, way worse than Poe. I actually felt sorry for Hux at some point, which is something I didn't even think was possible. I mean, really, Hux is an idiot and not that much of a military genius but Kylo puts even him to shame. Come to think of it, the only people making sound military decisions in this movie were women. God, now I love it even more). I really hope that was the set-up for a lot of friction in the inner circles of the First Order, and that we're seeing so, so many more terrible military decisions made by those two absolute morons.
I'm also not sure what to think about Rose/Finn. I loved their arc (as it was the only arc that didn't involve the Force, just old-fashioned blasters, alien horse races and a woman wise beyond her years. Oh, Rose) and I kept hoping they'd make it but yeah, now in hindsight... of course I should have known that they wouldn't, because apparently Rian Johnson hates nothing more than a conventional story arc (and I'm perfectly okay with that) but yeah. I'm just kind of happy that they didn't let Rose die, after her awesome stunt of keeping Finn from performing needless Big Damn Heroics. Again, a thing I did not see coming but for once a subversion of a common trope that I welcomed. After so many people dead, I was convinced they'd let Finn die, and I wasn't ready for it and then it looked like Rose would die and I was even less ready for that, so thank God neither of that happened. Benecio Del Toro was kind of "eh" for me. I was really glad, though, that his cynicism didn't really reverberate with Finn. He did kind of have a point but walking away and pretending that everyone is the same you can just make deals with all of them doesn't make you smart. It just makes you an asshole who doesn't know how to differentiate between a bad cause and a good cause. Or who actually wilfully chooses to ignore that not all causes are the same and that some causes are more worthy than others. Someone who equates a fascist empire with a resistance fighting for freedom and equality, for example.
Last but not least, the porgs. Apparently, people hate them and see them as a sign of "Disneyfication" of their beloved fandom which never had any cute creatures that could be easily monetized... oh, wait. Remember the ewoks? They were around long before Disney came into play. Remember R2-D2? Remember how he was around long before Disney, too? Yeah, thought so. I loved the porgs, and yes, I loved every cheap, stupid joke that involved them (I also loved all the other cheap, stupid jokes, too. Sue me). I will probably go out and get myself a porg plushy as soon as I have the money. I might even buy this stupid porg mug because I love porgs and mugs and I love stupid mugs, especially. Because honestly, people who hate cute, funny creatures (come on, that scene when Chewie tried to eat one of them and just couldn't get away from their sad little faces? That was come comedy gold!) have no joy in their lives and are boring and can go stuff it.
So, all in all: yep, it was a good movie and I don't care if "real" fans are supposed to hate it. "Real" fans can go suck on a porg egg and keep their gatekeeper shit for themselves. The Last Jedi is 21st Century Star Wars in the best sense, handing the torch over to a new generation by teaching them a few really hard lessons and giving its old heroes the farewells they deserve. I just really hope they find a way to write Leia out in a dignified and meaningful way in Episode IX and that JJ Abrams doesn't mess it up all over again. The Last Jedi is one of those movies we don't deserve but desperately need, like Rey is that hero that we don't deserve but desperately need. The Last Jedi is full of insecure men who fail and full of powerful, wise women who have to clean up after all those insecure men, and who are the real heroes of the story. The Last Jedi is the Star Wars twelve-year-old me would have loved because of all the women and all the space battles. The Last Jedi teaches us that no matter how much they shoot at you, how thorough they are in hunting you down, how much they try to extinguish you, there's always hope. The Last Jedi teaches us about failure and sacrifice and responsibility, and it does so brilliantly.
So yeah, haters can go and suck it. I loved it.