Photo Credit: Lucasfilm
Star Wars: The Last Jedi did not live up to expectations and predictions, and that’s what’s great about the movie!
A retrospect of Star Wars: The Last Jedi.
Tasked with the impossible expectation of repairing, rebooting and continuing the most beloved franchise in modern history, J.J. Abrams didn’t shirk away from his responsibilities. So careful in his execution to get “that” feel of the classics, once discarded by George Lucas quicker than Anakin’s limbs tumbling into a molten lava river, that his new version of our heroes and their adventures bordered on plagiarism.
Whatever you think, it worked. Disney could give you 2.068 billion little green pieces why they would agree.
Accepting The Force Awakens for what it was on the surface, a reboot/sequel akin to A New Hope, maybe on some subconscious level, we all were hoping for The Empire Strikes Back Redux. We didn’t get that movie.
Rian Johnson’s script made sure to crap all over whatever Abrams tried to recapture and your childhood at the same time. He made sure to show you that the Force was more than mind tricks and moving rocks, a la, Leia morphing into a crystalline Star-Lord in the dark chasm of space before performing her best Mary Poppins impersonation.
He made sure to show you that allegiance is just a strange synonym for whoever gets you through the moment as DJ (Lando-lite played by Benicio Del Toro) plays both sides only to live and get paid — means to an end. And, that legends are just propped up myths, flawed and human and still prone to making the same mistakes that beset them on this journey.