The Last Jedi

So this is my initial reaction to seeing Star Wars The Last Jedi on Friday night.  I'm sure that my impressions of the film will change over time and as I see it over again. I know that's true because I've already expreinced a shifting of my responses even during the few days since watching it, and I suspect that process to continue for at least several weeks.

Initiall, as I left the theater, I had a positive reaction to the movie.  If someone were to ask me my opinion as I left the theater I would have said that, while I had some specific concerns, overall I enjoyed the movie.  But only two days later, I'm feeling very dissatisfied.

I want to get the major concerns out into the open first.

1. No Golden Narrative Thread.
One of my greatest concerns is with the way that this trilogy is being handled.  No one seems to be exerting narrative control over the trilogy.  It is as if the two directors were at war with one another over the direction of the trilogy, and indeed, of the direction of the new Star Wars franchise. Even if we didn't appreciate all the directorial blunders of George Lucas' prequels, at least George had an artistic focus that was consistent about the Force, and about the nature of good and evil in the universe.

I say this because JJ Abrams laid out very specific narrative elements in the first movie, The Force Awakens, that weren't simply ignored in the second of the series, but were actively dismissed.  It is as if Rian Johnson went out of his way to take the plot points that Abrams laid out as important and to dismiss them arbitrarily, or even to mock the audiences expectations of an answer.

A classic example of this was the character of Snoke, the arch bad guy behind Kylo Ren in Force Awakens (FA).  He was effectively presented as an evil and power-hungry leader of the First Order, with a mysterious origin and a shadowy influence over Kylo's turn to the Dark Side.  There was a wealth of potential story to be mined there and it encouraged fan speculation in the intervening two years between installments.  Instead, however, Rian Johnson ignored it all and summarily killed Snoke in the middle act of Last Jedi (LJ) without any explanation whatsoever.

Similarly, Abrams carefully introduced the mystery of Rey's parents: who they were, and why she was left on Jakkuu.  In fact, it was one of the defining beats in Rey's character arc; she spent the entire first episode searching for her place in the galaxy.  In LJ, Rian decides to deal with this question by saying that it wasn't important.  Rey's parents were nobodies, and she was basically alone in the universe.

The problem here is not that Ray's parents weren't notable, or that Snoke was a minor Sith.  It is that the first of the trilogy insisted that these were important narrative questions that the story would answer, in much the same way that Luke's parents and Palpatine's rise to power were important in the first trilogy.  As with all narrative seeds, they were promises to the listener that there would be a payoff in the end that will complete the narrative arc and reward the audience.  The cycle of promise and payoff is the ultimate contract that the storyteller makes with the audience, and in this case all it led to was broken promises.

2. Contempt for Traditional Star Wars Themes
It was as if Rian Johnson treated with disdain many of the elements that he inherited when he agreed to direct the second film.  And this is the second major problem that I had with Last Jedi.  The quintessential elements that define the Star Wars universe were treated with almost violent contempt.

Luke Skywalker, the hero of A New Hope, was now a washed up old drunk living under a bridge, drunk on his failure and living out his life as an anti-social hermit.  Rather than retreating from the struggles of the Rebel Alliance to discern some greater enlightenment, Luke was cowardly and self-loathing, having abandoned the Force and his responsibility as a Jedi.

I felt as though Rian took delight in taking this noble-hearted paladin of the Jedi Order, the defenders of goodness, a guardian of peace and justice in the Old Republic, and seeing how far down into depravity he could crush him.  It seems common in Hollywood to treat with contempt struggles between good and evil.  They are derided as being trite and simplistic.  Luke's fall from grace makes him more complicated, more interesting in Rian's eyes.

It seems that Johnson is not alone in that, because Han is also transformed from a fearless and inventive smuggler living life on the edge, into a deadbeat dad, someone who can't handle married life and runs out on his son.  This vision of Han as a cheat and swindler is far different from the character we left as General of the Endor assault.  All the ground that the character had gained during his arc in the original trilogy had been squandered and abandoned by the time of Force Awakens.  Similarly, Leia here is a tired old soul, struggling to hold the rebellion together as her allies slip between her fingers.

3.  The Failed Transfer of Leadership
While the first of the trilogy had to re-work some old ground to reclaim the disillusioned Star Wars fans, this second installment needed to be all about the transition to the new heroes, to Rey, Finn, and Poe.  Relegated, somewhat, to the background in Force Awakens behind the larger-than-life presence of Han Solo and Chewbacca, this was the moment for Poe and Finn to shine.

Instead, Rian Johnson purposefully went out of his way to diminish the impact that these characters had on the plot of Last Jedi.  Poe spent the entire time trapped on board the Resistance command ship, being an uncharacteristic jerk to Leia and Holdo.  For his part, Finn got to leave the ship on a spectacularly unsuccessful mission that he botched almost from the jump, and that had zero impact on any major plot development.

The problem with Canto Bight is that it didn't allow Finn to develop any core competency, something that the ace pilot Poe Dameron already possessed in abundance. Action/adventure stories are about character's competencies, while Dramas are about character's weaknesses.  Part of what the audience is struggling with is that we were expecting an action-adventure film, when the directors actually intended to give us a drama/soap opera.

I felt that Finn and Rose were a great pairing, its just that neither of the two were particularly competent at anything, and both together were singularly unsuccessful in completing their mission.  I didn't dislike the sortie to Canto Bight, but it was so pointless that it's hard to argue that it led to any particular character development in Finn.

Ultimately, this prevented these characters from taking center stage during this key transition.  I would like to say that Poe developed as a character from the overly aggressive cockpit jockey to a commander more worthy of leadership.  And that Finn moved from having a tendency to run from trouble, to someone who was willing to go out on a limb to help his side.  The truth, however, was that Finn had already covered this ground in Force Awakens, and to find him running away again in this movie was an unjustified move backward.  Finn had already learned this lesson.

Similarly, Poe was already a good leader, and we needed to introduce this flaw in his character in order for us to have something to fix.

Continue to Part II