Review of Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017) by Piso — 27 Dec 2017

I didn't like The Last Jedi because it is a deeply cynical and nihilistic post-modern deconstruction of the Campbell hero myth.

A lot of criticism of TLJ has focused on its gaping plot holes. I’’m not going to do that here because most people don’t really care about gaping plot holes if a movie delivers a good time and a solid message. The other criticisms you hear are about “”poorly written characters””, “”bad sense of humor””, or ““pointless side plots””. In fact, all three of those are symptoms of the underlying nihilism of the film.

REVIEW CONTAINS SOME SPOILERS.

It’s not that the humor in the film isn’t funny. Often, it does make us laugh in the moment, but almost invariably serves to undermine the authority and gravitas of a character, rendering him impotent, which instinctively rubs some people the wrong way. In the first scene, Poe makes an absolute mockery of General Hux. How can we take Hux seriously after that? Finn runs around naked in a leaking bacta suit. Chewbacca’s power is drained by porgs. Snoke’s a joke. Luke’’s lightsaber is treated like garbage. And, of course, Luke Skywalker is ruthlessly and vulgarly humiliated at every opportunity. Vulnerability in characters can humanize, making them sympathetic (think about how your felt when Snoke mocked Ren’s mask), but it’’s hard to look silly and intimidating at the same time. In contrast, the humor in the original trilogy was almost always either romantic banter or a repair to defuse a tense situation.

Characters seem thin because nothing they do matters and nothing about them matters. Family doesn’t matter. Rank doesn’t matter. Relationships don’t matter. Heros don’t matter. The most sympathetic character in TLJ is Kylo Ren as he sinks into the deep, abiding nihilism the film celebrates. Let the past die. Kill it if you have to.

The only thing the good guys have going for them is the Force, which is a stand-in for deus-ex machina. The Force provides. Rey doesn’t need a family nor a backstory nor training nor wasted time with self-improvement because the Force does all the work for her. There is no true struggle for the good. Rather, the film posits that there is no good. No evil for that matter. It’s all subjective. We are all in a galactic hamster wheel in which nothing ultimately matters. THAT’S the lesson Canto Bight teaches us through Rose and Finn. Can’t find the expert you’re looking for? Who cares, there are no experts, anyone will do, any random thief. The Force provides! Obviously, Rose and Finn’s mission is an abject failure and they learn nothing. They congratulate themselves that at least they saved the space ponies, but it’s not like the animals won’t immediately be recaptured, and they did nothing at all for the slave children. It’s no coincidence that Benicio Del Toro’s nihilist “DJ” (“Don’t Join”) saunters away rich without a scratch on him. That guy really gets it!

Look at how the film plays with the notion of self-sacrifice for the greater good, one of the classic hallmarks of a hero myth:

Paige Tico’s self-sacrifice is meaningless. The dreadnought is easily replaced. Many rebels die. Poe is dressed down and demoted (but not so you’d notice-- his demotion is also meaningless. What’s rank?).

Holdo’s self-sacrifice is meaningless. The rebel hiding spot is immediately discovered.

Fin’s attempt at self-sacrifice would have been meaningless, if not for Rose interrupting his effort and explaining how pointless it all is.

The lesson for Kylo Ren was that he should not have allowed himself to be distracted by Luke. Luke was only an illusion, a relic with no substance, no real power. Apparently, he was all but dead already. If Ren had only followed his own advice and “Let the Past Die”, he would have triumphed and crushed the rebels.

I learned that since Disney's purchase of Lucasfilm and rejection of Lucas, there has been no master plan for the new trilogy nor its ancillary projects. Rather, Disney's Kathleen Kennedy has been constructing a multi-billion dollar write-around, with each successive writer/director told to do as they liked, with no regard for continuity, only to be fired mid-stride if she didn't like what they were up to. Abrams did what he does and constructed a mystery box out of "The Force Awakens", questions without answers à la "Lost". Now, Rian Johnson, using Kylo Ren as his personal stand-in, has deconstructed and demolished that box and has built nothing at all to replace it.

"The Last Jedi" takes a treasure chest with seven movies' worth of content in it, dumps it in the dirt, shows us the empty bottom, and jokes about it. We're supposed to admire how clever that is, while not questioning what we are to do with these empty boxes. Kylo Ren's mission to kill the past is complete. I didn't like it.