Movie of the Week: Star Wars – The Last Jedi

[jacey]

The Force Awakens gave us all what we needed, a retelling (almost) of Episode IV in which the girl from nowhere made good and began to discover the Force for herself. It introduced us to a host of new characters: Rey, Finn, BB8 and the unfortunately named Poe* Dameron.

In the Last Jedi our expectations are acknowledged and then thoroughly subverted. Dameron is not a Han Solo for a new age. His hot-headed alpha-masculinity leads to actions that are (at best) misguided. He’s not infallible. He sometimes gets the job done, but at what price. Characters make mistakes—even Luke—but though it’s a dark time for the rebels not all is lost. There is redemption for Luke and Mark Hamill is utterly convincing as the conflicted ‘last’ Jedi.

Rey thinks she can turn Kylo Ren (Ben Solo) back to the light, but can she? Snoke thinks he can turn Rey to the dark, but does he?

We meet a new character, Rose Tico (Kelly Marie Tran), an unlikely heroine, but all the better for that.

The women in this movie have it, from Leia to Admiral Holdo. They subvert the idea of the alpha male as the logical choice for the leadership. “Not every problem can be solved by jumping into an X-Wing and blowing stuff up,” says Leia. Yeah! Hopefully Dameron learned a few valuable lessons.

And then right at the end one of the small seeds planted in this movie begins to sprout as an unnamed stable boy reaches out for his broom and it comes to his hand courtesy of the Force.

Loved it.

*(I’m sorry but I can’t take anyone seriously whose name is Poe. Disney, you should really have checked out the names against common slang. In the UK a ‘po’ is a chamber pot! Even Wikipedia could have told you that.)

Comments

[cmcmck]

I'm hearing very mixed reactions on here to this one.

A bit marmite, it seems.

[jacey]

I've only seen good reactions so far, mostly from writer-friends on Facebook. It certainly subverts expectations - but I think that's a good thing. There may be some fans who didn't want their expectations subverted, but then it would only be 'more of the same' - which it manages to avoid while still being Star Wars. I think it would bear watching again to pick up all the nuances.(And that's good, too. It's actually got nuances. It's more than just simplistic.) Hey, go and see it and judge for yourself.:-)

[maeve_the_red]

I didn't like The Last Jedi as much as I expected to. I'm going to see it again, because I want to check if I'm being too harsh - then go into detail on my website. And then duck.

[jacey]

I think there are thimgs that happen that almost burst your fannish bubble, but that's not always a bad thing. Also it is the middle episode of a trilogy, so it has that 'darkness before the dawn' vibe. I'd like to see it again because I think it has onion-like layers. Some of the things it tried to do were brave in the sense that they were subverting fan-expectations. For instance, Poe Dameron being the headstrong flyboy proved to be pretty disastrous, and the admiral who he was trying to circumvent proved to be a heroine. He's no Han Solo. I loved Rose - a very unlikely heroine. And Luke's weakness was surprising, but there was redemption in the end. Storywise, I think it works, but some of it was a bit unsettling.

[maeve_the_red]

Some of the subversions of my expectations I found brave and even pleasing, and Star Wars gets a fair few free passes on idiot plotting, but there were just too many points where I thought 'Really?' or 'Why the f*£k didn't they do/say/think of that earlier?'

Also, a little light humour, especially given the Disney connection, is to be expected, but 'funny' moments got crow-bared into way too many scenes, often at inappropriate moments. And do not get me started on those f*£king puffins.

[jacey]

True, the puffinthings were purely a merchandising opportunity.