Dir. J.J Abrams
This film should have been an event. This film completes the sequel trilogy and the 9-part Skywalker Saga that has been a cornerstone of pop culture for over 40 years. For good or bad, this movie should induce some kind of emotion. Yet on opening night, in a sold out theater presumably full of hardcore fans, the movie fell flat. When the end credits rolled there was one awkward clap that quickly petered out when nobody joined the lackluster show of enthusiasm. In the moments clearly meant to inspire shock, worry, or relief, there was just nothing. I don’t doubt the internet will find many things to fight about in the years to come, but upon first viewing it didn’t appear to generate much feeling at all. It’s hard not to compare this film experience to that of Avengers: Endgame; both these films wrap up years of storytelling but one film ended with screams and cheers and excited chattering, in the other, everyone just left.
Despite some sure to be controversial moments, this film doesn’t feel like a unique story so much as Return of the Jedi (Remix). When it’s not inspiring Return vibes, it’s trying very, extremely hard to not be The Last Jedi. (Which is a shame because TLJ is a good movie). This movie could have come out right after The Force Awakens and with the addition of “Rey is briefly trained by Luke before his death” to the opening scrawl, the viewer would be almost entirely caught up. In a vacuum, maybe one could be convinced that this is truly the story they meant to tell; but in the real world, everything about this film feels reactionary. A certain segment of fans didn’t like the previous movie so Disney felt the need to do everything in their power to invalidate it.
In brief summation, General Palpatine is back! The how is never explained so you just need to accept that. Kylo Ren goes looking for him to eliminate the threat to his position as the Supreme Space Nazi and General Leia send her forces out for information on the return of her greatest enemy. Rey has advanced in her Jedi training under Leia’s guidance but must abandon it early on the quest to defeat Palpatine once again with the assistance of Finn and Poe. Along the way she learns more about her parentage and her place in this intergalactic web.
In parallel with Rey’s journey of self-discovery, Key Lime the Facism Kid aka Kylo Ren continues to wibble-wobble over the line of the Dark Side. I subconsciously compare every attempted villain redemption to Zuko’s in Avatar: The Last Airbender and I can’t think of anyone who has surpassed (or even met) the quality of that arc. Zuko’s sympathetic but the trauma he’s inflicted on others is addressed repeatedly and atoned for. And from a wider view, Zuko was always depicted as doing evil to make his father accept him, but despite his best efforts he is never actually that good at it. Kylo is very, very good at doing evil things. An entire planet’s worth of sentient beings lost their lives to him. He could save 500 puppies a day for the rest of his life and not make up for that. But why do that when ~forgiveness~ sounds nice on a hallmark card without any kind of nuance or care for those that suffered at his hand.
This film is the first in which we really get to see Finn, Rey, and Poe as a trio in the style of Luke, Leia, and Han, but they never seem to match the familial connections of the original. In the first two films, the relationships of FinnandPoe and FinnandRey both crackled with visible on-screen chemistry. The actors clicked immediately and it really showed in their relatively small amount of shared screen time. Yet in trying to hammer in the fact that they are a trio, and not two people with a shared friend, they lost a lot of that chemistry. The film tries to quickly establish an old friends dynamic between them that we just haven’t seen. There’s a lot of “not again” type comments made by the characters that doesn’t land when this is the first time you’re seeing this particular argument. And it’s hard to buy this magic trio when for some reason everyone seems to have issues with Poe. There’s so much bickering that eventually you question if they’re really friends at all.
Several characters are sidelined, most notably Rose Tico, in order to introduce new ones that weren’t necessary and contributed very little. It’s especially tragic considering that Kelly Marie Tran faced horrible sexist and racist backlash to her mere presence in Star Wars and Disney essentially sided with her harassers. With a weak excuse, she’s removed from the main narrative and instead gets about 5 lines and a few background shots. Considering Rey’s journey causes her to spend most of her time alone or with Kylo, Rose should have been the third side to the triangle with Finn and Poe instead.
Keri Russell’s newly introduced character could have been completely taken out of the movie and nothing would change. The one thing she’s brought into the movie to do could have easily been done by someone like Maz Kanata, which would have been a great opportunity to give Maz more screen time, develop an interesting character, and not waste Lupita Nyong’o. (But Maz couldn’t be used to hammer in how freaking Hetero Poe is so…here’s Keri). Naomi Ackie’s character, Jannah, has an intriguing backstory but opens a door to a story line there’s not sufficient time to explore. So while I hate to complain about the sole Black woman in space, most of the things she does in this film could have been accomplished by Rose. Even Finn and Poe, who are very much present in the film, feel like they have nothing to do. Finn’s dialogue in particular is mostly “REY?!” accompanied by distressed facial expressions.
Finn doesn’t have to worry too much about Rey though, in hardly any time at all, she’s one of the most powerful Jedi we’ve ever seen. Several new Force powers are introduced and mastered in what appears to have only been a couple of months. And unlike most Star Wars mains, she lost zero limbs in the process. It’s a bit jarring, even given the expected lee-way for movie protagonists to be good at everything in no time at all.
Star Wars is a space opera for kids (for everybody sure, but you know…it’s for kids) and this one felt childlike in the execution of its themes. Hope, Good vs Evil, and Teamwork are all tried and true, but played out in a way that felt a little juvenile and forced. There were several points where I mumbled “the power of friendship” to myself mockingly because of the way it was being spelled out to the audience. Even children can handle and appreciate complexity but this movie took a hard turn away from any it may have accidentally stumbled upon.
This film is obsessed with lineage, you only matter as much as your last name. It’s obsessed with Kylo’s relationship with the father he murdered. It’s obsessed with his mother, who he says nothing about unless it’s in relation to Vader or the Skywalker name she gave him. It’s obsessed with who Rey’s parents are and why it’s super duper important guys. It was like Megan McCain wrote this movie, the whole film screaming “DO YOU KNOW WHO MY FATHER IS?!!?” You rarely see movies try so hard to not be original. It feels as though the creators were so afraid of upsetting a certain angry subset of the audience, they worked overtime to make the unseasoned oven-baked chicken breast version of this movie.
As a viewing experience, this film is fine. It goes out of its way to be inoffensive (except for one particular plot turn which feels like the worst fanfiction has gone canon) so it can make that easy $1 Billion without all those mean tweets from huffy nerds. But this movie only succeeds at being as bland as it wants to be if you ignore not just the internet discourse and press tour shade throwing but the previous movies. When you can see the strings, the whole movie like a series of workshopped business decisions rather than any one person’s creative vision. To be fair, I am not a big Star Wars fan, I only saw the original trilogy about two years ago and was pretty meh about it then. I missed that boat. Because I have no real strong feelings about it, I’m probably going to forget about this movie within a couple of weeks (or I would if I wasn’t on twitter). For those who care about this series and looked forward to something new, sorry to say this is a tepid and lazy finish to the trilogy. For the people who hated The Last Jedi, this is a refreshingly unoriginal retread of the trilogy finale they’ve watched countless times since 1983.