I watched A New Hope last night, mostly because I wanted to
remember what it was that made me fall in love with the Star Wars Universe. I wanted
to know if I was crazy for feeling like The Last Jedi just really didn’t
belong.
The original film starts out pretty slow, but it takes
nothing for granted. The story is well-structured and detail-oriented, even if
the acting is (as usual) sub-par. But you don’t fall for the main trio because
of their acting, you fall for them because they are likable, relatable, and quirky.
Luke, Han, and Leia are the center around which the rest of the universe revolves.
In some ways, that’s how I almost felt about Rey and Finn in The Force
Awakens. Story aside, they were likable to watch. In short, it’s a ragtag team
with different goals and backgrounds forced to work together to save themselves
and, in the end, the universe. That’s what makes Han’s just-in-time return at
the end of A New Hope so inspiring. Because you knew (hoped!) he had it in him
all along. It’s gratifying to see them each turn from their own interests and
decide to help one another for better or worse (and for Han, it does get worse).
An unlikely friendship that created unlikely heroes.
That’s Star Wars.
At least the good side.
The dark side of the force was solidified the moment Darth
Vader stalked into view and calmly oversaw the massacre on Leia’s ship which was
supposed to be on “a diplomatic mission to Alderaan” (props to Rogue One for managing
to make the beginning of A New Hope have even more depth– the continuity is
almost flawless and Vader’s obsession with finding the death star structural designs
is more comprehensible). With the first sight of Vader, no one imagines a sulky,
tantrum-throwing Anakin behind that mask. Instead, you’re imagining something
of a terror, large and massive and deadly.
The first scene where Vader uses the force choke is also striking
– because the universe is set up as one where the Jedi “religion” has been relegated
to that of an old, dying fantasy which only Vader himself adheres to (of course
that is before they learn of Obi-Wan’s return). And yet in one single scene,
you are almost afraid of the force. It becomes this mystifying power that you
yearn to understand as much as Luke does. And you get to learn it with him! Even if Han pokes fun at you in the
background.
In short, it’s a world you feel a part of because you are
learning about it with the
characters. You watch in horror as Grand Moff Tarkin orders the annihilation of
an entire planet, despite Leia pretending to cooperate about the location of
the secret rebel base. It’s horrifying because the idea of an entire planet
being destroyed in one second isn’t taken for granted at this point in the
series. No one dying is taken for granted, but it is quickly understood that
everyone in the universe might die if they can’t destroy the death star. The stakes
are clear. The time is short. And no one can understate the seriousness of the crisis.
This all means that despite problems the film might have,
you still end up taking it seriously. It means that the character-driven humor
acts as a realistic comic relief, as if the characters themselves are hoping to
escape the gravity of their own, potentially doomed existence. Humor is not
just a director’s add-on in case the audience might be bored. There isn’t any
sense of pleasing the fan-base or even defying it – because there was none.
Because it had nothing to do with the audience at all. A New Hope doesn’t care
about your expectations because it takes place in a galaxy far, far away where
the force is reality and the Empire is about to annihilate the last remnants of
the rebellion. In other words, the story forces you to suspend disbelief because
it has nothing to do with our world and everything to do with its own. Are
there film critics out there? We wouldn’t know because the Death Star is going
to be in range in 3 minutes and everything will be gone anyway. Unless we can
hit the reactor core in time.
So, where am I going with this? (Other than an overly-wordy
eulogy to the first star wars film)?
The Last Jedi’s real problem is that it forgets what universe
it came from, and therefore doesn’t know what it is. It looks at itself too
often and then looks at the audience for approval or rebuke. It thinks too much
about what Star Wars should or should not be, what the force can or can’t do,
and less about the fact that the Republic has somehow been overthrown (again!)
and we need some unlikely heroes to help save the day.
The stakes are confusing at best and the villains not
entirely credible. Rather than force us
to suspend disbelief, it asks us to think about whether or not we want to. It
spends a good deal of its time trying to convince us that Kylo Ren’s inner
conflict is important, rather than showing us how he’s capable of defeating the
resistance. It teases Rey’s parentage, except no one really cares, since we
didn’t know Luke’s parentage until the end of The Empire Strikes Back, but he was
still a hero. And that reveal was less about lineage than about the magnetism
of a story where father and son are on opposite sides of a brutal battle for
control of the universe. Again, the stakes are clear.
What are the stakes with Kylo, Rey, and Snoke? I have no
idea because I’m still trying to figure out who Snoke was. I’m still wondering
why Rey was blessed with Force magic that requires no discipline or training in
a world where the Force is seen as part of a religion and requires intense
practice and study to master. I mean we had to suffer through Dagobah for goodness
sake, so it has to matter.
And is it a small band of friends against the world? Not
really, because the three main characters (or were we deceived that Poe and
Finn mattered?) are hardly ever in any scenes together. There is no sense of
unity, cohesiveness, or even danger. We’re not sure what we’re afraid of except
that maybe Leia and Luke might die prematurely… (wait a minute, are there only
10 members of the resistance left? Did it literally only take 16 hours to
destroy the entire resistance? Because they ran out of gas?) We’re not sure
what to root for because we’re not sure of anything, and the unusual sub-plots
suggest the main characters aren’t ether. Who are we really fighting??
It’s also hard to take a movie seriously that doesn’t take
itself seriously. Luke tosses his prized light-saber over his shoulder as if to
say, “You’re right, we’re in a movie now and nothing that happened before
matters anymore.” You get the feel that Luke never was hanging for his life
about cloud-city, getting dragged unconscious through the snow on Hoth, or
battling with Vader while trying to hide the truth about Leia. That was all a
just a fun story. Here’s another one. Luke can now project himself light-years across
the universe looking younger and hip, except boy, does it take a lot out of
him, so it’s probably time to die. And he does.
So, is the Star Wars universe a real place far, far away or
does it change with the times (and the director)? The very fact that the movie blatantly
addresses what it assumes to be audience assumptions (like Rey’s parentage) already
disrupts the energy and intrigue of Star Wars. Because the beauty of the original
films was that you never asked those questions. The characters believed in what
they were doing, and so did you. But in Last Jedi, you’re not so sure.
I take, as my example, the obviously confusing sub-plot. To
summarize simply: The resistance ships are running out of fuel because the
first order is tracking them through hyperspace. A resistance leader refuses to
tell Poe that she is planning for the resistance to escape on transports to a
secret nearby planet while she distracts the enemy and goes down with the ship.
Why doesn’t she tell him? No idea. When does she tell him? Never. What does he
do? Send Finn and new character Rose on a fool’s errand to find a “master
decoder” so they can infiltrate the first order ship and deactivate the
hyperspace tracking device so that the Resistance ships can make the jump to
light-speed and escape (that’s a mouthful). Except, NONE. OF. IT. MATTERS.
Because Finn and Rose illegally park their shuttle on a gambling planet and
therefore get thrown in prison for it (yes, that’s an actual thing). And they never
find the master decoder. Instead, they are rescued by their shockingly capable droid
who is working with a shady character that also claims he is a decoder, but
then he turns on them and they get captured by Stormtroopers. How do they get away? Oh yeah, remember the resistance leader’s actual plan that she doesn’t
tell because she was “embarrassed?” She flies her ship into the enemy at
light-speed while the resistance gets away (well, we thought, but there is
still 40 minutes or whatever left of this movie).
So, the point of the sub-plot?
You get the idea it was to give Finn and Poe some time on
screen. What you don’t feel is that any of it was necessary for the survival of
the universe. It’s never convincing from beginning to end as a sub-plot, and
you’re left wondering how someone so incompetent could become a high-ranking leader
of the rebellion. You’re left thinking to yourself, like my sister said, “If Ackbar
hadn’t randomly died off-screen, this probably wouldn’t have happened. Because
he’d have said quite clearly – ‘It’s a trap!’” Okay, it’s not a trap, but it
was a deux ex machina that made Star Wars seem more like a movie than a galaxy
far, far away.
Furthermore, there is no sense of a comprehensible, but
mystical force power that takes discipline and training to master. There is no
rag-tag team of unlikely heroes going on adventures together. There is no
clear-cut setting or comprehensible world-building. The villains aren’t terrifying.
The stakes aren’t high… (wait, what are the stakes, exactly?)
It’s hard to feel like a part of a universe that’s unsure of
the parameters of its own existence. The force goes from being mystical to magical
(yes, there is a difference). The audience is left thinking about whether or
not Leia should be capable of surviving that blast into deep space (and flying
back to the ship) rather than about how the resistance is going to win its next
battle. The main villain chasing them (General Hux) is reduced to more of a laughing-stock
or “punching bag,” as one reviewer put it, where it’s hard to believe he ever
had the competency to lead even one garrison of storm troopers. Kylo is just
another Anakin, even if one with better acting. Snoke is more of a nobody than
Rey at this point, but somehow he’s supposed to be taken seriously. The film
takes audience believability for granted and makes no effort to encourage it.
The point of the rant? If the beauty and magnetism of Star
Wars is its ability to make you believe the unbelievable by becoming a part of
its universe and characters, then the problem with the Last Jedi is that it
doesn’t provide either of those. Instead you get lost in a scattered
conglomeration of sci-fi action and partially-purposed heroes that force you to
question, rather than embrace, your suspension of disbelief. And intentional or
not, that’s the moment the magic dies.
Star Wars: The Last Jedi makes for an entertaining movie,
but a part of the galaxy, it is not.
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