Review: Star Wars - The Last Jedi (eleventh-pass)

Star Wars: The Last Jedi (eleventh-pass / 2D)
Cert: 12A / 149 mins / Dir. Rian Johnson / Trailer


Previous reviews: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10


Ah, what more can be said about the Star Wars movie on which everybody has An Opinion? Taking as read the fact that I obviously love it (hence the above string of links) and you, dear reader, probably don't detest it all that much since you're reading a review of the movie two years after its debut, it's worth nothing that The Last Jedi is still an oddity coming as it does in the middle of a trilogy.

NORMAL

There are elements of Rian Johnson's movie which would, under the normal run of things, be introduced in the first of three films. This features slow-motion sequences, both in the battle above D'Qar and later in Skoke's throne room. Lucas' approach was closer to documentary-style filmmaking, so that stylistic emphasis wasn't employed. And then the flashbacks. Not the wavy-Force-vision of Anakin Skywalker's nightmares, or even the Force-assisted hallucination of Rey touching the lightsaber under Maz's castle. We get actual flashbacks here from both Luke and Kylo, as they recount their differing versions of Luke's downfall (and what's best is that since these differ so crucially, we know we still haven't seen a definitive, impersonal rendition of that night).

Speaking of The Force, Yoda is solid now. The Force is developing. Or rather, characters' ability to use it. Yoda still has the blue glow around him, but he blocks out the fire as he's silhouetted against it, something that visible Force spirits haven't done until now. This is indicative that the little green fella has not been idle in his downtime, and has advance 'coming back' to the point where the user has physical agency, presumably a technique he goes on to teach Luke after Rey has left to join her friends, enabling his Force-projection for the finale.

Speaking of the finale, Luke dies in this movie. No problem with that at all, obviously, but in the past the wizard/mentor archetype meets the protagonist in the first chapter, introduces them to the Force, then dies by the end. It's Ben Kenobi in A New Hope, Qui-Gon Jinn in The Phantom Menace. It's that step in The Hero's Journey where they're on their own, the teacher having passed on all they can. It's that first step into a larger world, as somebody once said. All of these concepts usually occur in the first part of a Star Wars trilogy, here they turn up in the second.

HOOVER

But then...

Not only does Supreme Leader Snoke not survive until the end of the trilogy, he doesn't even make it to the end of this part. We know now that's because his place is taken by Palpatine for the closer, of course, but it's a bold narrative move to take him out so early in the game, yet still have that sequence mean something. This is usually the kind of fight which would occur at the final crescendo, intercut with ground and space battles.

The film's title, 'The Last Jedi' has an air of confrontation, a level of finality which seems more fitting for the conclusion of a three-act story. That's carried over into the film's marketing; whereas the The Force Awakens resurrected the classic yellow-on-black for the logo and publicity material, here it's rendered in a stark, urgent red. While it makes sense to switch up the colours when releasing chapters of the same story in such a close timespan, the usual method would be to use blue for Episode VIII (as they ended up doing for The Rise Of Skywalker), and saving the red for last. Alas not.

And then there's the sign-off. The group-shot on the Falcon is the natural ending point for a Star Wars film. Instead we jump back to the stables on Canto Bight, a callback to the youngsters we met there earlier. And while that final shot brings a tear to my eye every damned time, the whole thing feels like a post-credits stinger that had to be incorporated into the movie because Star Wars Doesn't Do Those. The scene's motif of hope for the future, so evocative of Luke Skywalker watching the binary sunset as a young man, is the kind of Easter egg you'd drop at the close of a trilogy. Or even the close of three trilogies. Instead it appears here. We'll almost certainly see those kids again, but will it be in The Rise Of Skywalker? Well, I'll be able to answer that in a few hours...

I'm a big, big fan of The Last Jedi. Not in spite of its differences from the rest of the Star Wars cinematic saga, but because of them.

This is both the salt-flat and promontory rock-seat that I will die on.

The Star Warses
Or not The Star Warses, depending on who you talk to.



If you can, yes.



It is.



For a few of them, it just may be.



That's possible.
Already happened once this month.



There is.



Level 0: This is Star Wars







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