Star Wars: The Last Jedi is the ultimate letdown movie and that’s why it’s so great

Photo Credit: Lucasfilm

Shades of grey.

Finn finds life outside the conflict is more gray than black and white. Rose tries to show Finn what the fight is truly about as the Star Wars galaxy’s version of the one percent on Canto Bight, the arms dealers, live lavishly, profiting from war and slavery. Even The Resistance funnels payments to them to acquire weapons for the fight. But, more than that, Finn is still trying to reconcile his place within this new life as a person and not a number before Rose shows him the things worth fighting for.

The holy triumvirate of the force; Luke, Rey, and Kylo are essentially struggling with what has weighed us all down at one time or another: the past.

Rey finally meets Luke, a man who was revered through the galaxy as a mythical hero, a space god with a laser sword, only to find a cynical old hermit who has cut himself off from the Force altogether. Give him a bottle of Jack, some Lucky’s and the best Mark Hamill Joker voice, and he’s the perfect hobo.

He believes that the galaxy’s dysfunction stems from the hubris of the Jedi and Sith and that he was complicit in that arrogance by believing in his own legend — that he failed a boy with that mighty Skywalker blood. Through Rey’s persistence and a little help from your friendly neighborhood force ghost, Yoda, Luke realizes that the Jedi can endure as long as they evolve.

Rey deals with the past in her way. She, like, the audience, believe there is more — that her parents must be someone. She must be a Skywalker, a Solo, Ben Kenobi’s granddaughter or the reincarnation of Anakin Skywalker (an idea I love but would never work). Sadly, unexpectedly, quite shockingly, we find out she’s nobody, and it’s brilliant.

See, before the midi-chlorians and the Jedi temples, before the sequels and prequels and the expanded universe, Star Wars was much simpler. In some ways, it was about something more relatable, our place.  We were all Luke Skywalker. A farm boy who felt stuck with what his uncle and the universe thought he should be — gazing out amongst double sunsets with the comprised posture of someone just waiting for the opportunity to bust out of his own skin and jump on the first cruiser, laser beaming him straight off the planet.

What George Lucas accomplished is making you believe that the energy that flowed through him flowed through us all. That anyone from any walk of life, with the proper training, direction and focus could wield it while being guided by it—that we all played a part in destiny.