Analysis, images, meta & more, celebrating the surreal horror classic, currently streaming on Shudder
“Daddy … whose child am I?” That gutting question cuts to the existential heart of The Bad Seed, a 1956 dramatic black-and-white thriller starring Nancy Kelly and Patty McCormack known to many now for its camp quality. An adaptation of a book by the same title, the film is one of the earliest to shape […]
via [McKenna] The Bad Seed and the Doom of Our Lineage — Grindhouse Theology
When discussing the Star Wars prequels, comedian Patton Oswalt said: “I was thinking the other day about a time machine…and the first thing I thought of doing if I actually had a time machine, is that I would go back in time to about 1993 or ’94, and kill George Lucas with a shovel.” So you […]
Skip it. 5/10 “I’m Han Solo. Yeah nobody cares” Less of a Star Wars movie and more of a B-grade action film that’s set in the distant future. Solo: A Star Wars Story appears to be one of the largest signals that the Star Wars cow has officially begun to stop producing quality milk. What […]
Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017)
[This article also published on SciFi4Me; Featured image courtesy StarWars.com/Paul Shipper]
Since its release on December 15 2017, Star Wars: The Last Jedi (SW TLJ) has garnered both enormous sums of box office revenue (over 1 Billion worldwide as of December 31, 2017) – and a bit of controversy. Disney may be too busy swimming in a sea of revenue to hear (or care), but segments of fandom are not happy. Where critics see director Rian Johnson taking familiar SW tropes and beloved characters in bold new directions, some fans see character assassination, even going so far as to create an online petition asking Disney to wipe TLJ from the SW canon (official history).
Johnson and a cast and crew of (if the credits are any indicator) thousands have made that rarest of movie creatures; a critically acclaimed, controversial, four quadrant money machine. In these days of inoffensive, mass-produced CGI blockbusters designed for the broadest possible appeal, that is noteworthy.
I’m a “first generation” SW fan. Nine year old me waited months to see A New Hope in 1977; I believe my brother and I had to wait for our report card results. My happiness with subsequent SW movies, books, and comics has varied, but my love for the SW universe remains constant.
So how did I like The Last Jedi?
Let’s go over what didn’t work for me first.
A Long, (Long, Long, Long, LONG) Time Ago … I Watched the Opening Crawl
One macro issue is TLJ’s running time. At two hours and 32 minutes, TLJ joins my “I loved it but … it’s 20 minutes too long” list. Weirdly enough, a long running time doesn’t automatically earn a spot on that list. A movie can be several hours long, but so vivid and immersive that time flies (Seven Samurai, 1954, three hours, 27 minutes), while a movie with an average run time (Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, 1999, two hours, 16 minutes) makes me regret every moment spent watching it without RiffTrax.
TLJ had a rather unique take on this pet peeve of mine. All of the storylines were important, either as practical goals characters needed to accomplish, or Life Lessons They Must Learn. As a viewer, I found the story lines listed below overly convoluted and unnecessarily drawn out. I liked the destination they arrived at, just not the particular route taken. Instead of simply getting from Point A to Point B, the following bits sat down next to me, propped up their feet, and helped themselves to some popcorn.
Scenes From the Class Struggle on Canto Bight
The Rose Tico (Kelly Marie Tran)/Finn (John Boyega) mission find a genius hacker on the casino planet/war profiteer haven Canto Bight is a character building McGuffin. Its success or failure has less to do with helping the Resistance than helping Finn Grow Up and Learn Something Important (mainly, “don’t cut and run”). The Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) Idiotic Space Mutiny storyline has a similar aim, but the joy I experienced calling Poe while watching it unfold earned it a pass.
There are some highlights to the casino scenes. The Dickensian children working in the casino stables, the cruel treatment of the animals kept in them (officially, they’re named fathiers but to me, they are Jackalopes), and Rose’s anger at the cruelty and class divisions propping up Canto Bight’s economy are aspects of the SW universe we’ve never seen before.
But by time Finn and Rose get to the Jackalope stalls I was looking for points where the storyline might wrap up. Instead of Rose and Finn getting out while the getting is good, we watch Jackalopes breaking out of captivity, crashing through the War Profiteer Casino, complete a circuit around the racetrack, then race to freedom through the pampas before Rose and Finn are recaptured. Rose and Finn make a great pair, but would’ve shone brighter in a more tightly written and edited story.
If You Liked the Many, Many, Endings of Return of the King ….
If you’ve ever had to endure a particularly long graduation ceremony or holiday religious service, you know this routine. You hear the music develop and build to what seems to be an ending. But no! The music suddenly skips back to the very beginning, or the maybe the middle, but most certainly not to the end. Eventually, when the last graduate crosses stage or the appropriate amount of spiritual reflection time has passed, the music transitions to what – you hope – is the conclusion.
Before TLJ, my most vivid experience of this phenomenon in a movie was Return of the King. This piece at The One Ring.Net describes how the multiple endings in ROTK take a viewer “out of the movie” because they think an ending is near.
“But then the next scene comes up and they are forced back into the story. Once that is over and the scene fades too, they are certain that this is the end, it is time to leave and to think about where the car was parked and how long it will take to get out of this crowded place, but – it is not over yet. Another scene, and with it the realization that this could go on forever. ”
The final section of TLJ gave me that same feeling. Like the Rose and Finn Jackalope Adventure on Canto Bight, with each new scene I found myself hoping that THIS scene – maybe – might be the end.
The basic story is pretty simple. After escaping the First Order fleet that’s been pursuing them through the entire movie, the Resistance escapes to an abandoned base on the planet Crait. However depleted and demoralized, they live to fight another day.
Here’s how those events played out for me. I’ve put in brackets what felt like essential story bits wedged in between the superfluous.
(Resistance flees to the surface of the planet Crait, escapes into hidden base.)
*Resistance mistakenly thinks there’s only one way in or out, braces for showdown based on that mistaken belief.
*Resistance and First Order engage in battle.
*First Order sloooowly brings up Big Space Canon to blast open the Only Way In/Out Door
(Luke Skywalker-Kylo Ren Showdown)
*Resistance survivors notice digi-dogs have fled the cave, follow said digi-dogs and,
*Find Big Pile of Rocks blocking only escape route.
*Rey miraculously lifts Big Pile of rocks using the Force, followed by a series of melancholy reunions.
(Rey and Kylo Ren reenact one of my favorite scenes from Jane Eyre with Meaningful Gazes)
THEN
(A wonderful coda of stable boy using the Force to lift a broom, sweep a stable, and gaze at the stars)
AND FINALLY, WE REACH
(Or is it?)
Dare I have one more complaint about TLJ?
Yes, I do.
Alongside the noodling route taken by Rose/Finn and the finale, another moment combined circuitous story telling with too much improbability for a Space Opera. Even Star Wars movies, with their very tenuous connection to science, can have such a moment.
During the First Order fleet’s pursuit of the Resistance fleet, Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) leads an attack on the Resistance command ship. Connected to his mother, Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher) through the Force, Ren senses his mother’s presence his target. He cannot fire, but a wingman lands a direct hit on the command center. We see a bloom of fire consume the command deck, and Leia is sucked towards a gaping hole in the ship into the void of space.
At that moment, I was on tenderhooks; how could Leia survive this? Instead, I watched Popsicle Princess Leia float slowly from the ship, then somehow use Force abilities we’ve never seen her display to propel her unconscious body back to the ship. Even watching a Space Opera, I can only suspend my disbelief so far; that moment snapped it as I wondered how Princess Leia could survive that long in the heartless vacuum of space.
Horror movie fans (like me) can appreciate a movie filled with moments that don’t add up to a satisfactory whole. Even a disappointing movie can have some amazing images or interesting ideas. A complete mess of a movie (which TLJ most assuredly is not) isn’t a waste of time – as long as it’s an interesting mess. I recommending listening to Episode 445 of the Bloody Good Horror podcast (discussing Cult of Chucky) for a great example of this approach to evaluating movies.
I don’t know if other genre fans or professional critics at large look at a movie in through the same lens. When I watch a horror movie, I can appreciate and enjoy a striking image, a unique setting, an interesting idea that works on its own. Even if the finished product doesn’t coalesce into a “good movie,” you can still recommend a movie to other fans.
Am I more lenient towards TLJ because as a horror fan I can appreciate some parts of it, ADORE other parts, but still find plenty of things I don’t like? I love a genre devoted to characters who face extreme situations and must deal with the disastrous consequences of poor choices. That may explain why I loved moments other fans loathed. Namely, the Luke Skywalker and Reylo (Kylo Ren + Rey) storylines.
The Last Temptation of Luke Skywalker The best moment of The Force Awakens (TFA) was the most shocking; Kylo Ren’s murder of his (or Ben Solo’s) father Han. But overriding my shock and sadness at that moment was an overwhelming sense of puzzlement. I immediately wanted to know: What had led up to this? What happened beforehand that was so awful so destructive, that Kylo Ren committed patricide? TLJ gives us that answer. It both illuminates the backstory, and paints a heroic iconic character in a light that many fans find hard to reconcile with their memories of a plucky, heroic Jedi who never gave up.
We learn more about the destruction of the Jedi Academy hinted at in TFA. Training his sister’s son, Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) saw the darkness taking a hold of young Ben Solo. The Hero of the Rebellion felt helpless to counteract the malign influence of Snoke. Luke finally considered, if only for a brief moment, murdering Ben as the young man slept.
For me, this moment, this shameful memory that drove Luke to cut himself off from his family and the Force, brought a level of depth and development to the onscreen Luke that surprised and delighted me. I loved the character’s struggle. Given the magnitude of the consequences of his momentary weakness, it made sense that Luke’s sense of shame that would lead him isolate himself.
But for many fans of the original SW trilogy, the connective tissue between the Luke of ROTJ and TLJ is not there. I don’t agree with that feeling, but can see where it comes from. The last image we had of Luke in Return of the Jedi was of a young man who’d been through the fire and still retained a fundamental goodness. The Luke Skywalker at the very end of TFA was a silent image, offering no information on what had led him to Porg Island.
To the film’s detractors, the Luke of TLJ is a prop whose character is sacrificed to make way to newer characters. Luke’s self-exile from the galaxy and the Force served no real purpose but to get him off the stage and make other, newer characters look more heroic. Like my earlier question regarding the greater leniency a genre fan may give a movie with many great pieces that don’t make a good whole, is a SW fan’s opinion regarding LS in TLJ dependent on how much (or how little) of the Star Wars Expanded Universe novels (now known as Legends in the post TFA timeline) they’ve read?
Of my immediate social circle (an admittedly small sample size) this maybe the case. Those who’ve read at least the Thrawn Trilogy liked TLJ, those who haven’t ready any SW EU disliked Luke Skywalkers’ story intensely. I’ve read SW EU books from the Thrawn Trilogy through the Legacy of the Force series, and I loved the Luke Skywalker I met in TLJ. This Luke is not a sacrificial prop, but a logical extension of the character of the I saw develop after Return of the Jedi.
A character who made mistakes, misjudged people, and made a heartbreaking decision regarding his sister’s son. In the Legacy of the Force book series, Leia’s son Jacen Solo turns dark by becoming a Sith Lord. It the movie it’s her son Ben. If the last you saw of Luke Skywalker was at the end of ROTJ, you may see TLJ as a cheap shot at the character we remember from the original trilogy. In this framework, Rian Johnson ruined a beloved hero to build up newer characters like Kylo Ren and Rey. Perhaps Star Wars now has a fandom similar to Star Trek – with fans of various generations rooting for “their” version of the story.
The Ballad of Rey and Kylo
I’m a Reylo, I’ll admit it. And the development of the relationship between Rey of Jakku (Daisy Ridley) and Kylo Ren/Ben Solo in TLJ is so far beyond anything I hoped to see on screen that I’m still a bit amazed. TLJ developed and built on the scenes between Rey and Ren in TFA – from the “Bridal Carry” to Rey’s interrogation to their duel in the snow on Starkiller Base, I felt that Rey and Ren had intense screen chemistry.
With the Force Bond (maybe) established by Snoke existing continuing after his death, “Reylo” – as a relationship of enemies, reluctant allies, or something else – exists; it remains to be seen how it will develop in Episode 9. The choices made by Ren and Rey at the end are less of a final note than a springboard further story. I see Kylo Ren/Ben Solo is “Anakin done right” and Rey is Jane Eyre In Space. Kylo Ren is a multi-dimensional character with glimmers of light in his darkness. Rey is fascinating in her sturdy self-reliance and inner loneliness. We know as little about Rey’s history as she does. I love seeing a character who is (as far as we know), unencumbered by legacy and bloodline developing into a major part of the SW universe.
Like the yin-yang-esque art in the Jedi Cave in TLJ, will Kylo Ren and Rey become the future of the Force?
Will Episode 9 “Save Ben Solo” from the decades of manipulation and brainwashing from Snoke?
We will all find out in 2019 with the release of Star Wars Episode 9.
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