"Star Wars: The Last Jedi" (2017)

In the two years since “The Force Awakens” came out, rewatches have proven a challenge. That first night in the theater I didn’t notice how it dragged in the middle. It is still not enough to knock it down much or influence my ranking of it. Although at the time I debated whether I liked it more or less than “Return.” It is clearly number four for me now that I have seen it two or three times.

“The Last Jedi” on the other hand, dragged a lot in the middle upon first viewing. That makes me sad because I like the franchise and I like Ryan Johnsons other films. It could have been much worse. I had fears about the direction of this trilogy after “Force Awakens” that were not realized.

What they did end up doing was not worse than what I feared, but might be just as bad. In the story, the pouty, whinny, less-than-half-as scary-then-Vader, villain tells our heroine, “Let the past die. Kill it if you have to. It is the only way to become what you were meant to be.” This message is coming from the bad guy, and in the plot of the film it is wrong. Rey’s way forward is to honor the past. However, for the film it is more of a mission statement.

“Last Jedi” continues the Disney mission of killing off everything associated with the past films. Beyond that, it also sets out to destroy all the questions and mystery set up in “The Force Awakens.” Who was Rey? Nobody. (If Kylo is to be believed.) Who is Snoke? It doesn’t matter? What is the First Order? MacGuffin-y plot stuff. Where are the Knights of Ren? What knights?

You start to complain that the whole middle portion of the film goes nowhere and means nothing to the plot, and then you realize that the whole film is a middle chapter in a three act story that goes nowhere and means nothing other than taking a group of resistance fighters from a bad place (yes, apparently that victory in “Force Awakens” amounted to a bad place) to a worse one.

But, the most disturbing thing about “The Last Jedi” is its philosophical position as compared to the rest of Star Wars. No, it is not that it is too snarky and self-aware in its parody. No, it is not that it is derivative of Guardians and Harry Potter. It is the wat that it abandons the “good vs. evil” dynamic of the franchise.

Classic Star Wars is downright old fashioned, black and white, good against evil story-telling. “The Last Jedi” is not. There is a scene where a theif shows Finn and Rose that the corporate weapon manufacturers sell weapons to both the First Order and the Resistance. The implication is that both sides deal with the same soulless scum. There is no principled divide in the conflict. It is simply a struggle for power. And, while we hope that the Resistance would use said power in a better way, they are simply another party fighting for control of the universe.

All we are left with at the end is a rag-tag handful of fighters and Hope. We can hope for better things from corporate Disney’s Star Wars films, but that hope is shrinking.

Ranking all 12 Star Wars films so far:

1. Empire
2. Star Wars
3. Return
4. Force
5. Phantom
6. Revenge
7. Clones
8. Last Jedi
9. Rogue
10. Ewoks
11. Caravan
12. Clone Wars
13. Christmas Special 😉