There are few cinematic experiences that can recreate the
feeling of being a kid. There is a rare
thrill to be had when the Jurassic Park
soundtrack for the first time in years, or when you hear the Indiana Jones theme swell (whatever the
quality of the film…). One of the few
film series able to summon both nostalgia and cultural currency is Star Wars. Once thought dead and buried under three
prequels worth of George Lucas’ self indulgence, it has awoken thanks (whatever
you may think of their influence) to Disney’s desire to build a new franchise.
Now this emotional connection is a huge part of the
enjoyment of Star Wars; the ability
to conjure childhood memories while showing you exciting new things, occurs
almost nowhere else in popular culture.
It is also a huge problem, for example when filmmakers have the audacity
to try new things. George Lucas, who in
fairness is free to do whatever the hell he wants with Star Wars, was guilty of
introducing ‘midichlorians’, offering a physical explanation for the
force. Swing and a miss in trying to
demystify the mysterious. New is not
always welcome when you’re messing with somebody’s childhood love.
JJ Abrams’ The Force Awakens nailed everything you
would want from a Star Wars film: the
light tone, the overwhelming enemy and underdog resistance, dogfights and lightsabre
battles, the hint at something grander and more mysterious at work. However, the main criticism levelled at the
2015 film (aside from pube-less misogynist keyboard warriors complaining about
an all-powerful female character, and using their mother’s Wi-Fi to do so) was
that it was, beat-for-beat, a cover version of A New Hope, even down to the tragic character death. It also managed a tricky feat, which remakes,
reboots, and retcons (the recent Alien
films, Indiana Jones 4, any remake of
a Paul Verhoeven film) tend to get horribly wrong: adding engaging new
characters that you actually cared about.
Filmmakers now find themselves in a bind, tightened by
competing factions of nerds, whose complaints are directly contradictory: don’t
change anything about the thing I love, but make each one different to what we’ve
seen before. Rogue One, whose function was to plug a gap between episodes and
not further the main story, is excused from criticism by virtue of being
totally awesome.
And so we come to The
Last Jedi. After a largely positive
reaction to TFA, the anticipation
levels were higher than Anakin’s midichlorian count. Speculation mounted that it would be ‘the
dark middle film’ like Empire Strikes
Back, that villain Snoke would be [insert ludicrous theory here], and that
Rey’s family would definitely, without question, be powerful Jedi knights that
we’d seen before (despite them all being dead and the 30-year time difference
making no sense).
As done with the original trilogy, directorial duties had
been handed off, this time to Rian Johnson; a man whose films tend not to
feature much levity and have genre boundaries greyer than Skywalker’s
beard. Surprisingly, Johnson has made a
very light film: from the priceless moment where Poe Dameron throws some shade
the way of General Hux by pretending to be on hold and not hear his monologue
of threats, to General Leia’s “what are you looking at me for? Follow him!” there
are just enough funny beats. This is
important: if you don’t add levity like this, you run the risk of lengthy
conversations about senates and trade embargoes. Films about telekinetic space monks,
intergalactic war, and a yeti with a crossbow, which borrow heavily from Hamlet and Kurusawa need a dose of humour. Po-faced doesn’t gel with porgs, wookies,
and a goblin with poor syntax, so the humorous tone is just what is
needed. My favourite part: Chewie
cooking a porg in front of horrified on looking porgs.
Plot-wise, this is a very different beast to what we’ve seen
before. A thoroughly pissed-off First
Order are closing in on the remnants of the Rebellion and despite an early
victory, the rebels find themselves pursued by Snoke’s ship, with dwindling
fuel and an against-the-orders scheme the only way for them to get away. It annoyed me that despite seeing several
Rebel ships escape at the start of the film, we are told that there are only
three remaining. This adds an element of
peril but feels cheap. The Rebel escape
plan is the film’s weakest part: John Boyega’s Finn finds himself on an opulent
casino planet with an irritating sidekick, looking for a codebreaker who can
facilitate the Rebel escape. This whose
sequence suffers from an abundance of needless CGI animals and a class-war
subtext which just doesn’t fit.
Subsequent plot developments also render it pointless.
The film opens and closes really well but suffers from a
huge lull in the middle, including the above casino planet sequence. Part of this lull is the anticipated
Rey-and-Luke part, in which Luke refuses and then agrees to train Rey as a
Jedi, and his recluse status is explained.
An underrated actor – Luke had the biggest character arc of the original
trilogy – Mark Hamill does his best work here as a traumatised, conflicted
Luke. Following the path taken by both
Yoda and Obi Wan Kenobi, his failures and fears have driven him to seclusion
and forced him to turn his back on The Force.
With hints that Rey could follow Kylo Ren’s route to the Dark Side, and
Luke’s fear of that exact thing, this makes for a fascinating deepening of Rey’s
story but is very dialogue
heavy. The rumoured attack by the
Knights of Ren doesn’t happen but this part of the film desperately needed
something like that. Luke’s nonchalant dismissal
of his own lightsabre, however, is priceless.
As Rebel plans come to a head, we see a failed mutiny, a failed
stealth mission, and a semi-failed escape, all of which add to the increasing
sense of peril. The identity of Supreme Leader
Snoke was the source of much rumour-mongering and those same nerds will be
disappointed that he isn’t given more of a backstory. What he is
given, however, is a huge amount of power and a strange vulnerability. His desire to recruit blank-slate Rey as his new
apprentice leads to him shunning Kylo and ultimately his death. A sucker for a great villain, I would have
liked to see more from him, but his death will lead to the conflicted Klyo’s ascension
to Big Bad. His death leads to the
coolest lightsabre battle seen in a good while but he feels kind of underused,
in that Kylo doesn’t seem any more powerful for it.
Changes to Luke’s character have been one of the more
complained-about subjects, however these make perfect sense when the full
picture is revealed. Both Yoda and
Kenobi ran and hid from their fears and failures. Luke and Kylo give slightly differing
accounts of what happened (another Kurusawa reference, samurai fans), and Luke’s
arc reaches a satisfying conclusion when he embraces his position and returns
to the fray. His ruse makes for a
wonderful moment where he faces down Kylo with faint echoes of Kenobi taking on
Vader. Yes, Luke’s character is
different and Johnson’s choices for him are iconoclastic, but that’s what makes
it so good.
The best thing about The
Last Jedi is its bravery in ignoring the expectations and doing new things
with the characters. There are no set
rules for what The Force can or cannot do, or where this universe can or cannot
go, and Kudos for Johnson for making what feels like a complete film and not
just filler material between episodes 7 and 9.
The final episode can be approached with a blank slate and two opposing
forces whose allegiances to Light and Dark are not 100% clear. What he doesn’t do so well is keep the pace
for the duration. There is also the
strange treatment of Carrie Fisher in what turned out to be her final
role. The decision not to kill Leia when
the chance was presented remains one of the film’s weakest moments: it’s silly,
confusing, has very limited foregrounding in the previous films (although it’s
hinted that Leia is force-sensitive),
and given Fisher’s tragic passing, now impossible to follow up.
Like Skywalker himself, it isn’t perfect, but it’s good
enough to sit alongside the greats, even if there are moments of madness. Where we go from here is, again,
tantalisingly far, far away from being known.
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