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Jul 25, 2018JCLIanH rated this title 4.5 out of 5 stars
An outstanding film that proves Disney's tactic of hiring great directors with a distinct style and point-of-view will make for better movies. Rian Johnson tells a Star Wars story that breaks the series out of its comfortable mold (assuming we all agree that The Force Awakens was incredibly fun, but essentially a quasi-remake of Episode IV). Luke Skywalker is a crotchety old man living on the edge of the universe, sitting on the sidelines as the New Order asserts dominance over the galaxy. I feel like this portrayal of one of cinema's greatest heroes is at the heart of all of the backlash for the Last Jedi (well, that and the insanely misguided idea that having Star Wars anchored by strong female characters is somehow politics being jammed down our throats. If you want a shining example of toxic masculinity in our culture, look no further). It's a hard pill to swallow, but ultimately it's the most interesting storytelling decision that could have been made. The new trilogy is all about establishing the new heroes as successors to the group who saved the galaxy from the Empire in the original trilogy, and Johnson does a great job giving us heroes we can care about in Rey, Finn, Poe, and Rose. He also gives us a complicated and conflicted villain in Kylo Ren, torn between his dual lineages of good and evil. Whereas Darth Vader just annihilated planets and choked dudes out until Return of the Jedi, Kylo displays flashes of humanity that gets us to buy in to his struggle. It's easily the most emotionally charged Star Wars movie, and maybe that's why I was so blown away walking out of the theater, agonizing over the fact that I had to wait two more years for the follow-up.