Note: Contains some spoilers, though nothing too big.
When The Force Awakens ended two years ago, our characters were on divergent paths: Rey (Daisy Ridley) had just found legendary Jedi Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill). The Resistance is now a legitimate resistance after the destruction of the Republic fleets; under the leadership of Leia Organa (Carrie Fisher), they are on the run from the forces of the First Order, while Finn (John Boyega) remains unconscious after the events of the film. It seemed back then as if we were going to a certain place with the Star Wars epic, with Director JJ Abrams having laid a framework many fans have been accustomed to since 1977.
But thanks to the creative freedom given to Rian Johnson and his team for the next installment of the series, The Last Jedi, the story shifts in strange and radical ways, effectively turning the franchise into the largest and most epic intergalactic game of Telephone ever. There are things that work and things that don't work, but in something like this that's to be expected. Johnson just gave Star Wars the greatest gift that it never knew it needed.
At first, the story seems to follow the structure of the second act of the original trilogy, The Empire Strikes Back: both films divide the story into two narratives, where one protagonist seeks the wisdom of a teacher, and another group of protagonists are on the run from enemy forces, leading them to deal with a shady individual on an exotic planet. But even there, the details of the Ahch-To and Canto Bight arcs are wildly different from the Dagobah and Bespin arcs. The Last Jedi seems to deconstruct the clear lines between good and evil established in Empire Strikes Back. Luke is no Yoda, and the situation at Canto Bight serves a dual purpose as social commentary, something that the original trilogy didn't touch upon that much.
The film also explores the different dimensions of heroism in the context of the hero's journey. In a way it serves as a companion piece to last year's Rogue One: while Rogue One demonstrated how sacrificing everything can lead to hope, The Last Jedi shows how that isn't always the case; in framing the story as a retreat, it shows how surviving and savoring the important things in life can lead to that same sense of hope. It also explores the hubris and inherent folly of being a legend through the character of Luke Skywalker: here he stands, broken by his past and the things he perceives to be his biggest failures. It replaces the youthful vigor of the original trilogy with the sense of growing old, in much the same way as Captain Kirk realized the price of his recklessness and the reality of his own mortality in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, or how Paul Atreides realized the folly of being a legendary messiah figure in Dune Messiah and Children of Dune.
Johnson is probably one of the most capable directors ever to helm a Star Wars film, and it shows in full force here: the tone is light yet strikingly different from the rest of the movies. He makes use of the cinematic language in interesting ways, following George Lucas' tradition of taking cues from classic films: a shot in Canto Bight pays homage to a legendary tracking shot in William Wellman's Wings (1927), while the film's tone reminds one of 1960's spy movies, old Samurai movies like Masaki Kobayashi's Harakiri (1962) and even contemporary films such as Junji Sakamoto's Zatoichi the Last (2010).
The film takes risks that don't always pay off: the chase sequence doesn't have the same sense of immediacy that, for example, the chase through the asteroid field had. In radically altering the story, characters are disregarded, their development left in limbo (ever wonder about what happened to the Knights of Ren? Me too.) But that's to be expected in a film like this. This is a film that many fans will love, but some fans may leave the theater deeply conflicted, precisely because it feels so different.
The Star Wars franchise has always served as the science fantasy equivalent of comfort food; a soap opera in space that viewers come back to every so often. Johnson's greatest contribution to the franchise is its sense of uncertainty: this film is a statement that we are treading new and unexpected ground here, perhaps towards a story that, in Luke's words, "won't end the way you think." The intergalactic game of telephone continues, this time with Abrams back in the chair. Whether Abrams will extend Johnson's risky game, or whether he will go back to safer narrative territory remains to be seen.
When The Force Awakens ended two years ago, our characters were on divergent paths: Rey (Daisy Ridley) had just found legendary Jedi Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill). The Resistance is now a legitimate resistance after the destruction of the Republic fleets; under the leadership of Leia Organa (Carrie Fisher), they are on the run from the forces of the First Order, while Finn (John Boyega) remains unconscious after the events of the film. It seemed back then as if we were going to a certain place with the Star Wars epic, with Director JJ Abrams having laid a framework many fans have been accustomed to since 1977.
But thanks to the creative freedom given to Rian Johnson and his team for the next installment of the series, The Last Jedi, the story shifts in strange and radical ways, effectively turning the franchise into the largest and most epic intergalactic game of Telephone ever. There are things that work and things that don't work, but in something like this that's to be expected. Johnson just gave Star Wars the greatest gift that it never knew it needed.
At first, the story seems to follow the structure of the second act of the original trilogy, The Empire Strikes Back: both films divide the story into two narratives, where one protagonist seeks the wisdom of a teacher, and another group of protagonists are on the run from enemy forces, leading them to deal with a shady individual on an exotic planet. But even there, the details of the Ahch-To and Canto Bight arcs are wildly different from the Dagobah and Bespin arcs. The Last Jedi seems to deconstruct the clear lines between good and evil established in Empire Strikes Back. Luke is no Yoda, and the situation at Canto Bight serves a dual purpose as social commentary, something that the original trilogy didn't touch upon that much.
The film also explores the different dimensions of heroism in the context of the hero's journey. In a way it serves as a companion piece to last year's Rogue One: while Rogue One demonstrated how sacrificing everything can lead to hope, The Last Jedi shows how that isn't always the case; in framing the story as a retreat, it shows how surviving and savoring the important things in life can lead to that same sense of hope. It also explores the hubris and inherent folly of being a legend through the character of Luke Skywalker: here he stands, broken by his past and the things he perceives to be his biggest failures. It replaces the youthful vigor of the original trilogy with the sense of growing old, in much the same way as Captain Kirk realized the price of his recklessness and the reality of his own mortality in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, or how Paul Atreides realized the folly of being a legendary messiah figure in Dune Messiah and Children of Dune.
Johnson is probably one of the most capable directors ever to helm a Star Wars film, and it shows in full force here: the tone is light yet strikingly different from the rest of the movies. He makes use of the cinematic language in interesting ways, following George Lucas' tradition of taking cues from classic films: a shot in Canto Bight pays homage to a legendary tracking shot in William Wellman's Wings (1927), while the film's tone reminds one of 1960's spy movies, old Samurai movies like Masaki Kobayashi's Harakiri (1962) and even contemporary films such as Junji Sakamoto's Zatoichi the Last (2010).
The film takes risks that don't always pay off: the chase sequence doesn't have the same sense of immediacy that, for example, the chase through the asteroid field had. In radically altering the story, characters are disregarded, their development left in limbo (ever wonder about what happened to the Knights of Ren? Me too.) But that's to be expected in a film like this. This is a film that many fans will love, but some fans may leave the theater deeply conflicted, precisely because it feels so different.
The Star Wars franchise has always served as the science fantasy equivalent of comfort food; a soap opera in space that viewers come back to every so often. Johnson's greatest contribution to the franchise is its sense of uncertainty: this film is a statement that we are treading new and unexpected ground here, perhaps towards a story that, in Luke's words, "won't end the way you think." The intergalactic game of telephone continues, this time with Abrams back in the chair. Whether Abrams will extend Johnson's risky game, or whether he will go back to safer narrative territory remains to be seen.
1 comment:
I loved it! However, I felt it was missing something to make it epic. For example the new walkers didn't inspire awe in me the way the original AT-ATs did. Maybe I'm just used to awesome things? The best scene was when the Resistance cruiser kamikaze'd into the First Order fleet. I think that the scene would have worked better if someone like Admiral Ackbar (killed! Huhu) was the one piloting instead of a character we've only seen in this movie. It still paled in comparison to the scene in Rogue One where they used the Star Destroyer to kill the shield gate. Maybe this is just me being an OT and Prequel trilogy purist and being defensive on the Star Wars I grew up with. Nevertheless, I think need to watch this a few more times
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