The Dark Year: Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi

2017, Rian Johnson (Knives Out) -- Disney

Because we never have enough projects in this Blog, I am creating one of my own, wherein I indulge my desire to rewatch a movie (because sometimes a rewatch is easier than absorbing a new movie) but also fill in a blank left by the Great Hiatus of 2018, i.e. The Dark Year. It will be more interesting to me to see what I will be willing to rewatch, than see what I missed writing about.

OK, I admit, I don't remember if I saw this in the cinema. I know I didn't see Episode VII in theatre, and I know the original post for this one would have been eaten by the Great Hiatus. But at least I wrote about Episode IX, which I did see in the cinema. I recently did a "click click click fuck it" rewatch of the entire trilogy, so I might as well use that as an opportunity to fill in another gap.

This is the contentious movie that I absolutely, unabashedly loved, primarily to spite the haters. I loved that Johnson decided to dispense with fan expectations and do something that was ... different. Luke (Mark Hamill, The Fall of the House of Usher) begins as a cranky old man yelling at clouds, and definitely not the hero the previous movies set him up to be. Despite their Big Win against the New First Order the Bad Guys are not gone, and pretty much destroy what is left of this rebellion. We also follow pseudo-cowardly Finn on a side quest where we see war profiting is alive & well, even with the old Empire gone; the one percent is always gonna one percent. And we also see Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac, X-Men: Apocalypse), hero of hero tropes, get dressed down for ignoring the cost of his melodramatic heroic actions. These are all things that pissed so so SO many fans off, and that's not even taking into account the toxic whingers.

Of note, I finally understood why there was still a Resistance if the Empire was long gone. Since there was now a New Republic, I guess it didn't take too long for them to become once again mired in politics and red tape, which then allowed for the rise of the First Order. So, the Resistance rises as a privately funded army to stand against its return, because, well the New Republic isn't helping deal with them. There must have been an "Andor" style raising of sympathy and funds going on, though more likely out in public view. 

And then they all died.

Now, a handful of rewatches later, I am less sure of my love. I still love the emotional reaction the movie gives me, the "let me see something different" craving satisfied to the n-th degree. I guess I am now seeing the movies as a trilogy and the abrupt turn of face between the second and the third kind of bothers me. If you take The Force Awakens on its own, ignoring the critical panning of it as a "remake of Ep4" and consider a longer story was going to be at play, then Johnson derailed that. I personally think he did so, so that his Star Wars would definitely not be about retreading previously covered ground, but be entirely something new and unexpected. And it was that; you already said that. The problem is that he pretty much torpedoed everything Abrams had set up, and the subsequent fallout led to another torpedoing for the third.

I am not sure I support how it ended up.

Meh. You are just parroting Kent's concerns, because before he brought them up, you didn't consider them.

But, the things I still love, independently, without letting myself be bothered about "wholes".

That Rey (Daisy Ridley, The Marsh King's Daughter) is the children of nobody. If just that had been let to play out, that they had let the derailing of her setup in the first movie, that they had let her become a spontaneous emergence in The Force. Wasn't Anakin supposed to have been such a thing? Or was Shmi also connected to some distant force wielder from the distant past, instead of pseudo Mary Mother of Christ figure. If they had just let that play out...

That there is a good reason the First Order was "allowed" to rise. The New Republic, like all republics of past, is ruled by money and those who control the money. And there is good money in selling weapons to both sides, as long as there are sides to contend with.

Poe's actions, and his final self revelation that maybe he shouldn't always be running off half-cocked to "save the day" caring only if he survives. Maybe sometimes escaping intact is worth more than making some grand action, like taking down a dreadnought star destroyer. 

The battle on Crait. That is, for me, the most Star Wars this trilogy got. Sure, despite what I said earlier, it does smack of The Empire Strikes Back but Johnson obviously liked the scene and it just looks good. The arrival of Luke, and one of the best light sabre duels ever depicted, is incredible. And the wee little details of this battle that should give it away immediately that Luke Ain't There, but doesn't diminish what is going on, at all.

Rose Tico (Kelly Marie Tran, Monsterland). I loved her character, that she saw things as they were, for real. I wanted to see her rise in the ranks, to become the face of the New Resistance, one that would stand up to even what the New Republic had become, to be a real force of change, that came from nothing. Instead, well we know what the toxic fanbase did.

In the end, I still love this movie, but I also would like to be able to peek into the other timeline, where JJ Abrams original trilogy intent was played out, where we didn't get the massive backlash, and subsequently a "righting of the ship" for the third movie. It all just seems so discordant now, and I can only enjoy as individual flicks.

So sayeth Kent.