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| Definitely the most badass poster since ROTJ |
The answer, at least in this film, is “both”. Like a divided-down-the-psyche Kylo Ren, The Last Jedi is two movies in one, smashed together with a bit of stitching at the seams to make them appear like they belong together. In reality, they simply don’t – and only one of them is actually good. Heck, I’d even say it’s great... if it weren't for that other half.
Rian Johnson’s indie art-film sci-fi inclinations come through loud and clear in the bold (if a bit overdone) red/white/black color palette in a story focusing on Rey, Ren and Luke. He tells of a master whose self-doubt is so infectious he believes that no one else can overcome it if he cannot. As two young Jedi novices try to figure out their place in a world where they see pieces of their true selves only in each other, even if they aren’t the pieces they’d most like to come to terms with. These sequences are deeply affecting and involve masterful filmmaking with true character development and consistently involving interactions.
The second storyline feels more in line with the Lucas-helmed prequels (a notion my wife aptly pointed out on the ride home – they even *look* like prequel scenes and characters), and takes the two heroes less fleshed out in the prior film and gives them a series of Really Important Errands for which the outcomes seem inevitable. Let’s face it, franchise producer Kathleen Kennedy did fans no favors when announcing that Rian Johnson’s next trilogy – already greenlighted – would feature the continuing adventures of Rey, Finn, and Poe. However, even without that epic spoiler slip of the tongue, one doesn’t feel in any of the sequences in which Finn and Poe are involved that their characters really have something at risk.
Instead, the plot uses some cloying dialogue tied to arbitrarily forced exposition to make sure that these thinly sketched out archetypes learn Valuable Life Lessons while a whole bunch of redshirts die nameless deaths, flinging their arms up over their face and screaming in defiance or despair (seriously, it’s like Rian Johnson’s equivalent of lens flare). Oh, and having learned no lessons from the Boba Fett debacle, the new trilogy’s best henchman (henchwoman?), Captain Phasma, is dispatched with seemingly expeditious efficiency after what seems to be an afterthought appearance in the film’s latter third of bloated running time. If anything should have been given more time here, it is Phasma.
Beyond that, there is one maxim that I have always lived by: if you leave a movie talking about it, that’s a good thing - except if you are talking about the plot holes. And The Last Jedi has more than a few that you could ride a Bantha through.
How did the Codebreaker know what the Resistance fleet’s plan was when none of the rebels did? How did Rey get from the Star Destroyer back to the Millennium Falcon after her fateful duel? If launching a ship at hyperspeed into a Star Destroyer will cripple it, why didn’t one of the other failing fleet ships attempt this in lieu of an inevitable fiery death by cannon? How could Rose’s speeder possibly circle back and catch Finn’s? Alas, like last year’s problematic and unsatisfying Rogue One, The Last Jedi forges ahead with a misguided confidence that you’ll look past these quibbles and qualms, despite how they accumulate.
Nor can one look past some truly awful casting decisions that result in performances that make Jake Lloyd look darn-near Shakespearean. Rose starts out as an ancillary character that is passably tolerable in a limited context. As her importance to the plot steadily grows, she is provided with many of the film’s worst moments, and her delivery in them only takes them down another notch. Laura Dern certainly looks regal in her attire (why do only some rebel officers wear uniforms?), but her monologuing in close-up inelegantly throws the brake on the fast-moving sequences in the story. And Domnhall Gleeson’s role, once offering some potential and promise, now seems to have relegated him to a mere supercilious toadie, which just doesn’t work. The exception on casting choices is Benicio Del Toro’s sly and sinister Codebreaker, who cynically points out that the military-industrial complex cares not whose side it takes in the name of blood-soaked profits, before demonstrating his own personal commitment to such… neutrality?
The film is also woefully short of the iconic moments that have defined Star Wars films for generations. JJ Abrams definitely delivered on that front in The Force Awakens with the death of Han Solo and the brilliantly filmed sequence in the woods where an undeserving Kylo Ren reaches for his uncle’s lightsaber, only to have it fly into the hands of another. The mirror sequence in The Last Jedi is the only one that comes close, and it still doesn’t have the resonance of The Tree in Empire Strikes Back.
While one also has to acknowledge these moments were hard to come by in the prequels as well (Episode II literally has none), the best of the films contain at least one. Ben is struck down by Vader. Han dispatches Vader’s tie fighter in the trenches. Yoda raises the X-wing from the swamp. Luke denies his true lineage with a scream and a sacrifice. Vader hoists the Emperor over his head. Han and Leia exchange the greatest “I love you” in film history.
Accompanying all of these moments were the equally iconic compositions of John Williams, whose contributions seems almost negligible here. The themes of prior films are revisited perfunctorily (though I will never complain about hearing Yoda’s Theme one more time), but I could not remember one newly introduced musical touchpoint for filmgoers, and the main theme itself doesn’t seem to make it back into the film at all. After having just read a well-done piece on Williams’s extensive range as a composer, this was a disappointing entry in his catalog for a lifelong fan.
In the end though, it is the compelling story of Rey, Ren, and Luke and the devastatingly honest portrayals those actors deliver that make this a worthwhile film. The Last Jedi’s best moments are not the action sequences, saber duels, or fighter battles, but the sincere negotiations these Jedi have between one another as to whether past transgressions can ever be forgiven, and whether their respective futures are inextricably linked, or hopelessly doomed.
The scene of Ren asking Rey to join him to rule the galaxy of course parallels that of Vader and young Luke in Empire Strikes Back, but the approach is different than of a power-hungry dark lord seeking to bring his disenfranchised son into the fold. Here it is a tortured, conflicted soul that sees the potential for the acceptance he has always craved in the eyes of another, and lashes out at the prospect of being rejected – a consistent theme for the former Ben Solo, who has now killed both his father and his mentor for having done just that (as well as destroying a pretty cool helmet), and falls short when trying to kill his teacher and his paramour for the same.
This is the story to which we all want to see the inevitable conclusion now, and on that front Episode VIII succeeds immeasurably. The fact that this plotline only makes up one-half of the film’s running time would suggest that there is something of merit to be found in the other half. Sadly, it is just empty and unaffecting, and some healthy trimming – both to runtime and tangential and inconsequential plot threads – would have been of real value.
Where Empire offered a burgeoning love story for the ages to complement Luke’s ascent as a Jedi Knight, The Last Jedi throws two other main characters against the wall to see what sticks, while dropping awkward one-liners along the way. At the film’s conclusion these stunted young men seem in no different of a place than when it started.
Thankfully, there is enough good material here, in character arcs and performances, to make the final entry in this trilogy worth anticipating. More than ever, I am grateful that both Josh Trank and Colin Trevorrow were given their walking papers for Episode IX. Hopefully JJ Abrams can work the same magic he did two years ago and give us the finale we need, and that these characters deserve.
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