The Last Jedi and The State of Star Wars

I recently wrote up a piece for Fandom which was actually positive of The Last Jedi. But I kept the scope limited and that was by no means a proper review. I didn't write a proper review because I was more confused than I came off in that piece. I stand by every word, but don't assume that because I liked what director Rian Johnson was going for that he actually succeeded.

The Last Jedi is a strange kind of movie for me. It's easy to praise a great movie and easy to mock a terrible one, it's much harder to review something that's in the middle. All around on an intellectual level I think The Last Jedi was doing the right thing. But in terms of execution? I don't want to watch this movie again.

Now because this is 2017 2018 and the entire universe has gone to shit, The Last Jedi has somehow ended up as yet another front of the endless culture wars that have taken over the entire internet. Men's "rights" "activists" recut the movie without women and random people on Twitter decided to share National Review articles to prove how I was wrong. (And if my take on Star Wars happens to put me on whatever side The National Review is not on, then all the better.) I care deeply about Star Wars but some care a lot more, I guess. It almost makes me want to like The Last Jedi more because a lot of the people who hate it are /r/KotakuInAction scum. But sadly, while those people are wrong, they're less wrong than they usually are. They just hate a mediocre movie for the wrong reasons.

The fact that The Last Jedi blew up into an exhausting GamerGate flamewar exactly the problem. Star Wars isn't fun anymore. It can't be. We won't let it be fun. I said that The Last Jedi might have given the series a chance to live again in my piece. A month later, I think I was wrong. Star Wars is dead and we killed it. Not just the fanboys who can't stand a female Jedi or losing Luke, but you and me. We all killed it. Disney makes The Force Awakens that is pure fanservice from top to bottom. Then we complain that it's too similar to the past. Then they make The Last Jedi which wants to radically remake the formula. Then fans hate it more. Star Wars is an unsolvable problem.

So if you want some thoughts on The Last Jedi here you go: it's not very good. You've probably heard every take from every direction already, so I'll just summarize my issues. The opening scene is horrifically awful. The humor is a bad distraction. It's the same problem that Marvel movies have. The Last Jedi is way too long and has two third acts. It's got exhausting pacing problems. Rian Johnson couldn't think of anything for half the characters to do. And yeah, Leah surviving in outer space and floating like Mary Poppins was really stupid.

Final verdict: Meh, Missable. Didn't even come close to making my Top 15, in case you were wondering.

All that is fine. Plenty of film franchises have bad sequels or minor mistakes. I actually think The Last Jedi is considerably better than Rogue One, which was incredibly boring. At this movie has characters worth getting upset about.

But this is Star Wars. Star Wars can't be a C-. Star Wars has to be GLORIOUS. There aren't many movies that are major events for people anymore. Mary and the Witch's Flower came out this weekend and I'm very excited to see it. But I'm just going to drive to New Brunswick and see it in the morning. With The Last Jedi I gathered friends, we pre-ordered tickets, I bought popcorn which I almost never do. And then we sat down, expecting to fall in love immediately.

And that's the problem. I go into movies with low expectations and high expectations. But I don't go into movies thinking "this will be the greatest moment of movie-watching in my life" unless it's Star Wars. This is the Cornerstone of Western Nerd Culture. Empire Strikes Back is my go-to answer for "Favorite Movie of All Time" because I can't be bothered to think of a better one. We have been raised by these movies as children and then spent our adolescence ranting about the Prequels. Our childhood never has to end, isn't that wonderful? It's so wonderful we all grew up to be bitter little shits who can't appreciate anything.

We are all now, of all us, Kylo Ren, a toxic fanboy.

If you start a relationship demanding that you fall in love at the first date, it's going to end poorly. By the end of the night somebody will be crying and somebody will need to change their pants. That's what happens with Star Wars. When the new Kingsmen movie was merely okay last summer, it didn't become a huge thing for me or anybody else. Because it's just a movie. Star Wars can't be "just a movie". It has to be a pilgrimage. By the end we should be quaking in religious euphoria, having just touched the Ein Sof, the divine essence of creation itself. But when The Last Jedi is "just a movie", I'm left like mad junky who can't feel the next hit anymore.

It is to the point that it doesn't even matter what was on screen. A lot of The Last Jedi was really good. Luke's character arc in this movie is surprising, bold, and intense. I really hope Mark Hamill has a career revival like Michael Keaton had after Birdman. Hollywood, that old man can work so please use him. I think Rey and Kylo Ren's relationship is solid ground. If anything, the movie should have pushed their romance more. And you know what, screw Rey's mystery backstory. She's not the chosen one, who cares? There is no chosen one and that's a brave idea in a franchise that's such a slave to Joseph Campbell. Admiral Holdo is the MVP of this entire new trilogy. Hell I even liked the boujee Space Casino because it was something totally new and it wasn't made of cannibalized bits of Empire Strikes Back or Return of the Jedi.

That's all fine, I got my money's worth, certainly. The Last Jedi was fine. But there we go again. "Fine" isn't good enough. The State of Star Wars in 2018 is not good. I'm sure Disney is disappointed with the box office and they're definitely disappointed in how little of an impact Star Wars has had overseas.

Maybe, however, this temper tantrum is just part of our growing process with this franchise. I'm not saying I'm not a part of it, this post sounds angry for a reason. Disney was going to have to cross this road eventually. They couldn't keep giving fan service over and over - I already was complaining about how the series was stuck in a rut after Battlefront II's single player kept cutting back to Luke or Han. This was a necessary trial by fire. If Star Wars as a brand can't survive The Last Jedi, then Star Wars as a brand is finished and we won't get new movies anymore. You know what? I can live with that. There's a plenty of good movies out there and if I'm going to be honest, I don't want to see that Han Solo movie at all.

Maybe though, maybe, this fanbase can grow up a bit. My expectations are low now for the next Star Wars movie. When Episode IX rolls around, maybe we could treat correct, as simply another movie. That does mean this franchise has to relinquish its crown as the Queen of Nerdom. But that was never healthy for it or for us. Disney will have to have lower expectations but that does free them up to do some really weird stuff with this franchise. I hope they make a Star Wars horror movie next. Then a cartoon musical with a magical talking Porg.

Credit /u/AdamxKH

If there's anything that gives me hope for this series, it's this: /r/PrequelMemes. After seventeen years of RedLetterMedia reviews and endless nerdy scholarship about how they suck, I think we all reached a good place with the Prequels in 2017. A great many people grew up on those movies so their childhoods certainly weren't killed by them. Now those movies are jokes. They're awkward and strange but hilarious. The Prequels finally became what they should have been in the first place: movies. Bad weird movies, but I think internet nerds finally worked out their issues.

If we can work out our issues over Hayden Christensen and embarrassing lines about sand, maybe we can work out our issues over a great many more things. Star Wars seems unsolvable and I'm a pessimist by nature. By I have been wrong before and can hold out some hope.