Review and Analysis of Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi

“No one’s ever really gone.”

- Luke Skywaker

I will start out by saying, I liked The Last Jedi. I gave it ten stars on most movie review aggregator websites, but that was mostly due to my excitement from having seen another Star Wars movie in the theaters. Now that my initial excitement has subsided, I would probably give it an 8 or 9 out of ten stars. I’ll shoot the gap and give it an 8.5/10. It’s not a perfect movie, but it is an excellent film.

SPOILER ALERT: There will be many spoilers to follow, so if you haven’t seen the film yet and you care about it not being spoiled, stop reading right now.

The plot of the film is available on just about every fan site, Wikipedia, Wookiepedia, and others, so I’m not going to rehash the entire plot, but I am going to dig deep into some of the plot points, the themes, and analyze to an extent why this film is the way it is. So, let me skip to the theme. The overarching theme of the film is “The Past” and what importance does it play in our lives, if any. The past determines who we are, but not who we will become. How we react to the past does.

Rey has been dwelling on her past and letting it hold her back. Like Annie who rejected being adopted by Daddy Warbucks, Rey turned down every opportunity to get off Jakku. Even after she left, she was trying to get back. For Star Wars fans, we assume that her parents must have been somebody because of how powerful she is with the Force. For those who complained that Episode VII was too much like Episode IV, they were hoping for a big reveal that Rey’s parents were some big deal and that she was hidden on Jakku for her protection. Sound familiar? The same fans who complained about Force Awakens’ similarity to A New Hope were hoping that The Last Jedi would reuse the same plot point from the original trilogy. I was not one of the people who complained about the similarities between Episodes IV and VII because it actually kind of made sense in light of George Lucas’ feeling that the films rhyme. I was one of the fans that hoped for Rey’s parents to be somebody.

Unfortunately for the fanboys who all feel they should be in charge, Rey is actually a nobody from nowhere. She’s more of an everyman character than many characters in most franchises of late have been. She’s not the orphaned child of parents who were important people in their world and were betrayed by a close friend, she’s not the child of a great warrior who was raised by an aunt and uncle, and she’s not the child of a great Jedi-turned-Sith who was being hidden for her own safety. No. Rey is the child of alcoholic junk traders who sold her for drinking money. Just like Annie, Rey actually has long known they were dead, but she was letting the possibility that they may return hold her back.

Even though I was disappointed that Rey doesn’t have some major pedigree like Luke, it actually liberates her as a character in the franchise. Accepting that her parents are dead allows her to take up her mantle as The Last Jedi which is passed to her by Luke Skywalker. Her realization frees her up to live her life and move into a greater future than any she could have envisioned on Jakku. She can move on and people who were disappointed that Rey doesn’t have some amazing pedigree should move on too.

The theme of The Past holding one back is also part of Luke Skywalker’s story. After his failure with Ben Solo/Kylo Ren, he went into hiding in “the most unfindable place in the galaxy” and shut himself off from the Force. Luke focuses on failure—the failure of Jedi to prevent the rise of the Empire under Darth Sidious as well as his own failure to train the next generation of Jedi. He ascribes the failure of the Jedi and his own failure to hubris. Luke felt that the power of the Jedi led to their being mythologized and deified and that, in turn, led to the pride of the Jedi order that caused their own downfall. This is why he feels the Jedi must come to an end.

Luke still has a lesson to learn, so he is given a student that must be taught the ways of the Force, and he is also given a teacher in Yoda, who returns to remind him of the training that he received. Yoda’s last words to Luke before he transformed into the Force were, “Pass on what you have learned.” Yoda returns from the Force to remind Luke that passing on what you have learned includes the lessons that failure can teach. Every successful person in history has only become successful through failure. Yoda’s lesson to Luke is perseverance.

Then there is Ben Solo/Kylo Ren. For Kylo Ren, the past is something that must be escaped. He fights with it through both movies. He wants to take up his grandfather’s mantle, but he also has to come to terms with the fact that his father, Han Solo and his uncle, Luke Skywalker were both enemies of the Empire and Luke was a Jedi and user of the light side of the Force. He also has to come to grips with the fact that Darth Vader turned to the light and once again became Anakin Skywalker before dying. He wants to rule the galaxy with Supreme Leader Snoke and to do so, he must reject all of his connections to the light side and yet the conflict tears him apart. He tells Snoke that he killed Han Solo without hesitation and yet those of us who watched The Force Awakens know that he not only hesitated, he had a whole conversation where he admitted to the conflict he was dealing with.

The problem with Kylo Ren is that his method of dealing with the past is to destroy it. He tells Rey, regarding her past, “Kill it if you have to.” Rather than learn from his past, Kylo Ren sees his failures as weakness and that weakness holds him back. He thinks that by destroying or killing all of his connections to the past, he will also destroy memories of his failures which he sees as signs of weakness. In fact, his overarching desire to destroy the past is his weakness and it causes him to fail.

Personality problems aside, Kylo Ren is still an interesting character. After The Force Awakens came out, there were many people who had a problem with how easily he was defeated by Rey and this same criticism is leveled against him by Snoke in The Last Jedi. Something that I think too many fans failed to notice is that Kylo Ren faced Rey after getting shot by Chewbacca’s bowcaster. When anyone else gets hit by Chewbacca’s bow caster they are sent flying. Kylo Ren, on the other hand simply takes a knee. He had to be in the most extreme pain. Proving this point was the fact that he didn’t simply put Finn into a Force hold and Finn was able to hold his own against Kylo Ren, though eventually he was almost killed. Kylo Ren also said that Rey was just becoming aware of her Force abilities and she was growing stronger by the minute. A severely weakened Kylo Ren had to fight against Rey whose power in the Force had strengthened to the point that she could Jedi mind trick Storm Trooper James Bond to let her go and leave his F-11D blaster rifle and she could Force pull Anakin Skywalker’s lightsaber to fight with Kylo Ren.

The same fans who wondered how Kylo Ren who was so easily defeated by Rey now wonder how Kylo Ren was able to so easily kill Snoke. Just like the fans who seemingly didn’t notice Kylo Ren’s injury prevented his defeat of Rey in The Force Awakens, Snoke also seems to miss or ignore the same fact. He berates Kylo Ren who has shown nothing but loyalty. While Snoke is monologuing about what a great guy he is and how well he knows his apprentice, his pride causes him to show his hand, that he was able to connect Kylo and Rey’s minds through the Force. During the following shots, we can see Kylo’s anger, but also his concentration. He has partitioned his mind to prevent Snoke from seeing his true intentions. Snoke represents everything wrong with the men in Kylo Ren’s life. He was left with Luke Skywalker to be trained, but he felt betrayed when he thought Luke was going to kill him. His sense of betrayal extended to both of his parents, especially his father.

With the death of Snoke, the Star Wars universe is left with a truly terrifying villain in Kylo Ren. Kylo Ren has demonstrated how powerful with the Force he has become, but he is also struggling with his father issues and hasn’t quite grown up. He already had anger issues and turned them against his subordinates who are terrified to even be in his presence. Rather than learning from the mistake of Snoke whose leadership style of abuse and rule by fear led to his assassination at the hands of his apprentice, Kylo Ren chooses to lead in the same way, but without experience or the cold calculation that helped Snoke rise to power. He immediately builds resentment in General Hux who we can see is mentally plotting how he will betray Kylo Ren.

Another theme in the film is failure. Rey fails to turn Kylo Ren to the light side, Luke fails to teach a new generation of Jedi, and Kylo Ren fails to crush the resistance because of his obsession with killing Luke Skywalker, which he also fails to do.

Three other characters that learn the lessons of failure are Poe Dameron, Finn, and new character Rose Tico, played by actress Kellie Marie Tran.

When the Resistance fleet attempts to escape the First Order by jumping to hyperspace, the First Order appears right on their heels. The Resistance leaders realize that they are being tracked through hyperspace, something that was impossible until then. Sharp viewers will note that this is technology that the Empire/First Order has been working on since before the Battle of Yavin as Jyn Erso discovers a data disc with research regarding “hyperspace tracking” in the data bank on Scarif in Rogue One.

To combat the new tracking technology, Rey, Finn, and Rose hatch a plan to sneak aboard the lead star destroyer, The Supremacy, to disarm the tracking device. Once on board, Finn knows how to get to the tracking device and Rose has the technical expertise to shut it down. In order to get aboard, they will need a code breaker to get through the First Order’s security shields. They contact Maz Kanata who tells them to go to the Casino on Canto Bight and find the Master Codebreaker who is also a high stakes gambler. Poe stays behind while Finn and Rose go to Canto Bight.

Finn and Rose get to Canto Bight and find the Master Codebreaker, but before they can make contact, they are thrown in prison for illegal parking. They failed at securing the Master Codebreaker, but their odd cell mate, DJ, played Benicio Del Toro, tells them he is also a codebreaker and can help them get aboard the Supremacy. The sequence on Canto Bight was one of my first major disappointments in the movie. I wished they had spent more time there exploring more of that world, its denizens and morally grey patrons. I also wished they had developed the relationship between Rose and Finn more as well.

Upon reaching the Supremacy, DJ helps Rose and Finn get aboard and Finn gets them to the tracking system, but they are caught by stormtroopers and sentenced to death. One of the main criticisms of the Rose/Finn subplot is that it doesn’t serve the larger story. If their whole story was cut out entirely, the movie would have ended exactly the same way. That is true, but many good stories are the same way. A good example is Raiders of the Lost Ark. If Indiana Jones had stayed home instead of going off looking for the Ark of the Covenant, the Nazis would still have had their faces melted off and the Ark would probably still be collecting dust on the island. Either way, the bad guys die. So, what is the purpose of the Rose/Finn subplot? Growth for Finn as a character before the final act in Episode IX.

Rey has to learn about the Force, deal with her family issues, and take up the mantle of the Last Jedi. Poe has to learn the hard lessons of leadership which I’ll discuss in a bit. Finn, one third of the new Star Wars trio has to have a story to show how he grows. Remember, Finn was on the run and wanted to still be on the run. He only helped the resistance in The Force Awakens because he wanted to help his friend, Rey. He fought Kylo Ren out of necessity. He probably thought he was going to die anyway, so he might as well have gone down fighting.

After recovering from his wounds, he packs his bags and is getting ready to run again when he’s discovered by Rose Tico who has already stunned three people attempting desertion and Finn turns out to be her fourth victim that day. Rose begins by idolizing Finn. She doesn’t even notice that Finn is attempting to desert the fleet because she is too busy fangirling about meeting Finn in person. She put him up on a pedestal, but once she realizes that he is attempting to desert, her disappointment is palpable, but she is still willing to trust that Finn may be the hero she wants him to be. She’s willing to give him another chance. She has to learn the hard lesson that our heroes are humans too. They have weakness as well as strength, they make mistakes, and they fail us.

While we get to learn about a new character, the point of the Finn/Rose subplot is Finn’s growth. During the course of his adventure with Rose, Finn finds out that the galaxy isn’t a clear-cut black and white place. There are people who are attempting to profit off the war between the Resistance and the First Order, he learns that there are people who are being oppressed not only by the First Order, but the profiteers as well, he learns that people who come from ordinary environments can rise up to become great leaders, even those who lived under that kind of oppression, and he learns that fighting for the weak as part of the Resistance is a worthy endeavor, even when all seems hopeless. Finn goes from fighting for selfish reasons and fighting out of necessity to being willing to sacrifice his life to save the Resistance.

It is at the point that Finn is about to sacrifice himself that he is prevented by Rose Tico and we find out that she has fallen in love with him. She tells him that the war won’t be won by “fighting what we hate, but by saving what we love.” At that point, the failures of the protagonists end. But first, let’s talk about Poe.

Poe Dameron was nothing more than a hotshot pilot in The Force Awakens. He’s a wise-cracking rogue, much like Han Solo. Other than that, unless you read the extended universe novels and comic books, you won’t find out much about him. So, for those who won’t dig into the extended universe, Poe needs to have a story where he grows as well. His story is about leadership and growth as a leader. Having been in the military, his story really resonates with me. I’ve been in some hairy situations where I didn’t know exactly what we were doing and why. Just because you are part of a military unit in a combat situation doesn’t mean you have access to all the intelligence, and plans related to the operation. You can ask and ask and ask, but unless you have the need to know, you will probably never find out the reason why a mission is being carried out the way it is. That is the situation with Poe and it frustrates him to no end.

As a commander in the Resistance, he had access to all kinds of information and had a close relationship with General Leia Organa who kept him in the loop. Unfortunately, Poe disobeys Leia’s orders at the very beginning of the film and it results in the deaths of dozens of Resistance fighters and all their bombers. Leia demotes Poe as soon as he returns to the ship. Leia tells Poe that the sacrifice of Resistance bombers and their pilots served no purpose because they need all the help they can get to fight another day. That’s Poe’s first lesson.

Minutes after coming out of hyperspace, General Organa is incapacitated during a battle with the First Order and a new leader, Vice Admiral Amilyn Holdo, played by Laura Dern is put in charge of the fleet. She tells Poe nothing, she refuses to share her plan with the crew or even tell the crew that there is a plan. Because of her apparent inaction, the Resistance fleet is slowly whittled away by the First Order. Poe suspects her of being a traitor, has her arrested, and assumes command of the only remaining ship, the Raddus, which Rogue One fans will recognize as the name of the Mon Calamari admiral who led the Rebel forces against the Empire at the Battle of Scarif. After Poe and his fellow mutineers take the bridge, General Organa breaks in and stuns Poe. He wakes up in a transport heading for an uncharted planet called Crait which was an old Rebel base. Leia tells him that as soon as they realized they were being tracked, this had been the Resistance plan all along.

While the death of Admiral Ackbar was disturbing to some fans and Leia being incapacitated for half the film was also annoying, they could not have been in charge for Poe to learn the lessons that he needed to learn. Because Holdo was completely unknown to most film goers, it was easier to see her as a possible traitor and even those of us who know her background could easily suspect that she might turn to the First Order. That added tension would not have worked with Leia or Ackbar in charge. We would automatically give them the benefit of the doubt. From a storytelling perspective, Vice Admiral Holdo’s character makes perfect sense, but only if you realize that she is a supporting character in Poe’s story arc.

Even though it is Poe’s story arc, Vice Admiral Holdo and General Organa have a touching moment together that was actually written by Carrie Fisher and Laura Dern. Fisher and Dern found out that Amilyn Holdo and Leia Organa had been friends since they were girls, so when Holdo decides to remain aboard the Raddus as the other survivors escape, there is a touching and bitter-sweet moment between friends.

We see that Poe has learned his lessons during the Battle of Crait. When he realizes that the attack on the First Order is hopeless and sacrificing his remaining pilots would serve no purpose, he calls off the attack and orders a general retreat. With his lesson learned, he is able to retake his mantle of leadership and leads the Resistance to safety. Even Leia says, “What are you looking at me for? Follow him.”

When all the protagonists have grown by learning the lessons of their story arc, the failures end. Poe recognizes the folly of needless sacrifice, Finn learns the value of individual sacrifice and serving something bigger than yourself, Rose realizes the importance of saving what we love, and Rey takes up the mantle of the Jedi. At that moment, Luke arrives on Crait to face Kylo Ren. Deus ex machina? Yes, but not in the normally contrived way. In fact, Luke’s arrival demonstrates just how powerful a Jedi he has become, but also that he has learned the lesson that he needed to learn. The Jedi must go on and Rey is the Last Jedi. A fact that he relates to Kylo Ren when Luke faces off with him. Luke’s arrival distracts Kylo and the First Order long enough for the remnants of the Resistance to escape aboard the Millennium Falcon. Luke has also learned that the success of the resistance won’t come from fighting what we hate, but saving what we love, and he loves his nephew, Ben Solo. So, Luke does not physically come to Crait, he manifests as a Force projection strong enough to appear real and allows Kylo Ren to waste time and energy attacking him. Once the remaining Resistance fighters have gotten to safety, Luke tells Kylo Ren that Rey is the Last Jedi and his Force projection fades away.

Carrie Fisher was also responsible for some of the dialogue between Luke and Leia when she sees his Force projection, "I know what you're going to say," she says. "I changed my hair." Rian Johnson also provides my favorite line of the film. Luke hands Han Solo’s dice from the Millennium Falcon to Leia (which we later find out are also part of the Force projection) and tells Leia, “No one’s ever really gone.” When Rian wrote that line, Carrie Fisher was still alive and of course Luke’s line was both referring to the death of Han and possibly hinting at Luke transforming into the Force, but with Carrie Fisher’s death last December (which I heard about in the middle of my first screening of Rogue One), Luke’s line carries an extra sentiment that I am sure most fans of Carrie Fisher share.

We also find out that Rey has taken the Jedi texts aboard the Millennium Falcon and Yoda says she has everything she needs to become a Jedi which is why Luke is able to fully pass the mantle to Rey and transforms into the Force.

I have heard lots of complaints about the writing in this film. I have heard it called lazy and cliché. I frankly don’t understand the accusation of cliché because I literally could not have predicted any of it. The twists in the film, especially the surprise death of Snoke, were worthy of Alfred Hitchcock. Finn and Rose’s story seemed rushed and I am sure that some of the material that ended up on the editing room floor would have helped their story along, but probably would have mired the film’s fast-moving pace. The tone of the film was very dark and without the humor balancing it out, the film could have been downright depressing. The humor was not slapstick and most of it was in line with what we have come to expect from the characters. The only unexpected humor came from Luke who most of us probably expected to be more serious after thirty years as a Jedi, which I am sure disappointed many Star Wars fans. However, the humor from his character made sense for the character that Luke has become in this story.

I have also seen some criticisms of the acting in The Last Jedi. Again, I don’t really understand that. I don’t think anybody went into this film expecting to see a great performance worthy of a Shakespearean actor or high drama. We did get a lot of high drama, but I don’t think that anybody is going to get any Oscar nominations. That being said, the acting was better than anything from the prequels and pretty much in line with the original trilogy, but maybe not as good as Empire Strikes Back.

The special effects are mostly impeccable. Unlike George Lucas in the prequels who seemed more concerned about what he could do with special effects, often to the point of distraction, Rian Johnson effectively uses CGI and other effects as a tool to tell a great story. The only place where the special effects were kind of lacking were in Rose and Finn’s escape from Canto Bight. The scene has Finn and Rose wrecking Canto Bight on the back of animals called Fathiers. The animals were computer animated and Boyega and Tran were not well integrated into the effects shots. On the other hand, Admiral Holdo sacrifices herself by aiming the Raddus at the Supremacy and then jumping to hyperspace destroying most of the First Order fleet at Crait. The design of that scene and its execution were simply breathtaking. In both screenings that I attended, the audience reaction reflected just how amazing it was. It was art.

As for the music. John Williams is amazing. He weaves the themes of the old characters with the new characters. Yoda’s theme is back, the Luke and Leia theme from Return of the Jedi is back. We also get some new cantina music from the Canto Bight sequence. Frankly, this is my favorite part of the Canto Bight sequence. It retains that sort of Tin Pan Alley feel of the original Cantina music with a little Gershwin glitz and glamor thrown in to remind us that this isn’t a wretched hive of scum and villainy, but rather the Monaco of the galaxy far, far away—the playground of the rich and successful, the haven of the galactic one percent. The main theme has steel drums and kazoos and a samba section that feels like Aquarelo do Brasil then shifts into that 1920s swing Tin Pan Alley style with sliding clarinets and wa-wa muted brass that made the original Cantina music so much fun.

There’s probably a lot more I could say and I definitely will say eventually, but I ought to tie this up and summarize for the too-long-didn’t-read crowd. This is a great entry into the Star Wars cannon. It makes a mostly clean break from the original characters and sets up the new characters quite nicely. It has its foibles, but it is, overall, a great film that I was happy to see twice in the theaters. It’s definitely worth full price and I’m looking forward to owning it on BluRay. The critics don’t always get it right, but this time, I believe they did. As far as the poor audience ratings on Rotten Tomatoes and other review aggregators, don’t worry about them. It turns out that those results are not the actual sentiments of most audiences. Rather, there is a concerted effort by a few fans whose theories didn’t come true who have created fake accounts to give multiple bad ratings to the film. By contrast, in-person theater polls conducted by Cinemascore.com resulted in an A rating for The Last Jedi. Both of the screenings I attended confirmed this. Most people liked the film.