Debuting at an unsurprising Number One in the second week of
December 2017 is Star Wars: The Last
Jedi. The movie title loomed with good portents. The trailers looked oh-so-promising.
The hype was simply galactic.
But a week in, the biggest story is not whether the movie is
good or bad (we’ll get to that in a minute), but the Death-Star-sized gap
between the praise of industry critics and the surprisingly widespread dislike by
the fans, many of whom are ranking this episode below the notoriously unbeloved
Phantom Menace with its meesa-noying Jar Jar Binks. This raises
the question as to whether there’s ever been a more divisive Star Wars movie. Haters
are being labeled as whining children who “can’t let go.” Fans are being asked what
they slipped into their popcorn. The social media dog fighting has been brutal.
Certainly, for those who enjoyed The Last Jedi, there' definitely plenty in this movie to entertain. One critic moaned, in
fact, that the film does an outstanding job touching all the numerically-driven
focus-group metrics. For instance, we get lots of critters for full-on cute and
comic effect, not to mention the all-important merch angle, which has
admittedly always been a part of the Star Wars charm, only in this film we may
have more new critters per capita than all the rest of the franchise put together.
Toys aside, The Last
Jedi introduced a crop of new, sympathetic characters, “nobodies” as one
reviewer called them, basically treating us to the Samwise Gamgee effect. It’s
important that Star Wars has finally gotten on board with elevating obscure
nobodies to important roles. Because it really needed to, didn’t it? The series
was terrible, up to this point, in giving us characters with whom the average
person could relate. That needed to be fixed. Right? Uhhhh. Right.
Finally, when it comes to spectacular, visually interesting
action, which everybody loves, The Last
Jedi demonstrated from the first scenes that the throttle was fully engaged—throughout.
In fact, Rian Johnson and company turned it up to 11. Most of us like a
rollercoaster ride, and this film definitely delivered on that score. That made
the movie fun, if nothing else.
So why are all the dyed-in-the-wool Star Wars fans, whose
power in the Force has been seriously underestimated, so upset with this movie?
I am one of those fans and what you are about to hear is a screen rant.
To begin with, one need only put interviews with the young George
Lucas and today’s Rian Johnson side by side to get at the root of the problem. Lucas
was a creator with a grand vision. He had spent years world-building, had
written hundreds of pages of back story, had deployed elements of Joseph
Campbell’s mythic narrative structure to anchor his stories within archetypes
that could resonate with anyone. Johnson, by comparison, glowed about having a
blank slate, expressed relief that Disney execs greenlighted his daring script
and felt it was important to move all the old elements off the stage so he
could position the newer elements more securely. And he hoped viewers would
feel affirmed by his creative choices.
To the decades-long fan, the Star Wars universe is more vast
and complex than Tolkien’s Middle Earth or Martin’s Westeros. The stories of
what became of Luke, Han and Leia after Episode VI were written long ago, with
Lucas’ blessing. The stories of what became of their kids and grandkids are
also written. Histories of hundreds of other characters, both the extras from
the original movies and major players in the canonical history of the Jedi, the
Sith and other galactic entities—all of that lore is miles thick by now. The
high-quality award winning animated series The
Clone Wars not only added texture but pretty much redeemed the flaws in the
prequels. And the people who care about that all stuff are not a small minority
of sulky basement dwelling geeks—they are millions of people around the world
who have been willing to pay top dollar for anything and everything Star Wars
related. So, before we get too mystified by the wrath of these fans, understand
that for them Rian Johnson is like Ferris Bueller joy-riding in the beloved vintage
Ferrari. And no, you can’t put the odometer back.
Let’s look at a few issues in this film. And yes, there be
spoilers ahead. Rancor-size ones. So, feel free to stop here if you haven’t
seen the film and come back later.
Films in general, are judged along the lines of the Big
Three: story structure, characters, and production values.
Production: We’ve
come to expect terrific production values in any Star Wars offering. George
Lucas created studios just to meet his high standards, and the solid work of those
studios, with a considerable assist from Disney, does not disappoint in this
film. For people who are popular culture fans of the Star Wars movies, and maybe
the games, a wonderfully produced crowd-pleaser might well be all they might
have asked for.
Now, the critic in me was not entirely happy with the musical
score, which was one of the things I really liked about The Force Awakens. Was I the only one who recognized Harry Potter-esque
themes in The Last Jedi? Also, unlike
other Star Wars movies, it seemed the music was a little heavy-handed in
forcing viewer response for any given scene. While nudging the viewer is one of
the whole points of a film score, this one seemed a little more like a cattle
prod, especially in otherwise unremarkable scenes. Yes, I have committed
sacrilege here. Saint John Williams, at 85, is untouchable.
Story Structure:
Hidden beneath the pew pew pew of the
blasters, the whine of the light sabers, and the Michael Bay-worthy explosions
is what amounts to the most unexceptional plotline in the history of the
franchise. The movie, from start to finish, is about the Resistance (replacing
the old Rebels) trying to outrun the First Order (the new Empire). Yawn. While that was the premise of an
entire series called Battlestar Galactica,
it gets old fast in this movie. Also, even for fans of just the movies, the new
trilogy introduced a dreadnaught-sized” plot hole. What happened to the
victorious Republic at the end of Episode VI? The scrolling exposition in the front
of Episode VII sort of lets on that the galaxy has fallen on hard times, but
just how did we get here, to this dire situation far worse than the worst of
times with Darth Sidious and Darth Vader and the Empire? Is it just because
Luke Skywalker went AWOL? When J.J. Abrams decided to launch into the Void and all
but ignore any previously written canon, he was playing with Endor swamp gas. Many
were hoping Johnson’s sequel would come back to ground rather than takes us
further into that Void, but, no. Over the ledge we go.
Additional plot holes and improbabilities abound. For the
entire film, the clock is ticking as dramatically as it possibly can, but we
have time for a jaunt to a casino planet where we can pack in not-so-subtle cultural
sermonettes about weapons dealing and cruelty to animals, as well as time for
an imprisonment, a prison break, a raucous chase scene out of one of Peter
Jackson’s Hobbit travesties, not to
mention obligatory screen time for BB8 –and the introduction of an otherwise
utterly expendable Lando Calrissian character clone in the form of Benicio Del
Toro—yet more of allegedly “fresh” but oh-this-again approach of the last two
films. In the meantime, resistance ships that are – get this – running out of
gas, get set up for what would become monotonously sadistic skeet shooting by
the First Order.
Characters: Bad
story-building can sometimes be hidden behind pyro-technics and cute creatures.
But one thing that’s hard to hide or to excuse is bad character development.
And that forms the nuclear reactor core meltdown for this film.
·
General Hux - Let’s start with the low-hanging
fruit on the Dark Side of the Force. General Hux, in the movie’s opening
minutes, changes from a reasonably menacing Nazi obersturmfuhrer to a
comic-relief buffoon who gets tossed around like Raggedy Andy by the Force.
·
Captain Phasma – Phasma ended up being nothing
more than s convenient shiny bop bag for Finn to punch across two films. Shiny.
·
Snoke - Snoke, the great, the powerful, the
mysterious Sith lord whose identity caused so many excited fan theories—all of
which played into the build-up hype for this movie, thank you very much (hint
to marketers, for whom any hope of hype for the next film has been summarily
erased, duh!). The all-important Snoke is allowed a few lines we’ve never heard
before from a Star Wars villain; oh wait, no he doesn’t, then gets discarded
with an absolutely absurd gimmick that made Darth Maul’s demise seem like
poetry by comparison. Rian Johnson said in a recent interview that once he
figured out what needed to happen with Kylo Ren, Snoke was in the way. “He wasn’t
really a big deal. He was always an expendable character like the Emperor.”
That explains it. Thanks.
·
Kylo Ren - Kylo Ren’s internal conflict is the
only decent Dark Side character arc and may be the only thing that keeps this
film from a lonely dust bin somewhere on the outer rim of the Star Wars galaxy.
·
Chewbacca - There are so many problems with the
Light Side characters, it’s hard to know where to begin. The solitary exception
to this treatment is Chew Bacca. Good ol’ Chewie. Thank goodness, he’s still
around to provide the familiar innocent, off-beat humor from the original. Some
things one doesn’t want to change, and Chewie is one of those.
·
Maz Kanata - The contrived cameo by goggle-eyed Maz
Kanata was only meant to move action figures lingering from The Force Awakens. Nothing to see here.
Moving along...
·
Master Codebreaker DJ - The Master Codebreaker
could actually be a great addition ... but he wasn’t in this film. The subplot
to bring him in was tiresome and his actual contribution seemed tacked on.
·
Rose Tico – New crew addition Rose Tico is such
a transparent demographic insert along the lines of Star Trek’s Pavel Chekov,
it hurts. Nothing against diverse new characters, seriously, but in an already
wonderfully diverse universe, this particular creation is a transparent composite
of similar characters from other familiar genres.
·
Rear Admiral Holdo - New (and expendable) Rear
Admiral Holdo was as cardboard an insertion as one could ever hope for from a series
famous for cardboard cutout guest stars. The attempt to make us care by casting
Jurassic Park’s Laura Dern was a nice
try. But it didn’t work. We didn’t care.
·
Finn and Poe - Now for the “big” ones. Finn and
Poe get short shrift in this film. Yes, they get screen time, but little of it
is quality. Breaking rules and snooping around behind the backs of the adults,
they play more like Harry and Ron to Leia’s Dumbledore.
·
Leia - Leia’s role is one of the saddest failures
of the new films. The sassy, fire-eating, go-getter from earlier movies is converted
into a shuffling sardonic martyr. Carrie Fisher was ill, we know, but in her
interviews and other projects right up to the last, she demonstrated that she
could easily have played Leia with the old, irascible spirit.
·
Rey - Rey’s treatment is unfortunate. She is a
terrific character and the best thing about the new movies, without a doubt. She
deserves far more than just rehashing Luke’s most impulsive moments from the
earlier films. Given her back story of a life fending for herself, I wanted her
to demonstrate more street-smarts. And it would not have hurt anything to give
her a lineage—in fact, it would have played very nicely into the
larger-than-life operatic elements of the original material. The resolution of
the cave scene was a crushing disappointment for this viewer—the depth and
texture to the Force that was clearly promised turned out to be nothing more
than a horribly shallow “Believe in yourself” moment that is the false religion
of our culture—and directly contradicts Luke’s experience in which the dark dangers
lurking within the self were so graphically revealed. The scene in the storage
room in The Force Awakens us
expecting something much bigger, more menacing, more ... dark and revealing,
maybe even a Ben Kenobi cameo, which would have been awesome.
·
Luke – Some are surprised that Mark Hamill disagreed
with Rian Johnson’s choices for the character of Luke. “It’s not my Luke,” he
said recently. It’s safe to say that Hamill expected something closer to the lore
about Skywalker’s life after the triumph of the Republic. It must have hurt to find
his character had not progressed beyond the whining kid who wanted to run to Tosche
Station to pick up some power converters. The film wasted an opportunity to use
Luke to advance any sort of nuanced development of the Force concept, something
that’s very important in the background lore.
Johnson decided to dispense not merely with the Jedi in this
film, but with a great deal more of what mattered in the Star Wars universe.
Neither he nor the film’s fans should be surprised by the reaction from the historic
fan base. In recent defense of his choices, Johnson has made it evident he
doesn’t really “get” Star Wars. But to the loyal opposition, The Last Jedi is just another anomaly
that will have to be redeemed in some way by more faithful creators in other media
formats.
