I didn’t know they had it in them, but I’m grateful to be
proven wrong. Star Wars: Episode VIII –
The Last Jedi is the first great Star
Wars movie since creator George Lucas sold his company to Disney. Though
run by Lucas collaborators and acolytes – from an ILM and Skywalker Sound
stocked with Wars veterans to a story
group built out of the prequel days, to a longtime producing partner in Kathleen
Kennedy overseeing it all – the results thus far have been mostly successful
recreations of franchise sensations past. They were nostalgic, fleet, and fun
enough. JJ Abrams managed to introduce a handful of bright and promising new
characters along the way in Episode 7
– the searching Rey (Daisy Ridley), stewing dark-sider Kylo Ren (Adam Driver),
turncoat stormtrooper Finn (John Boyega), and hotshot pilot Poe (Oscar Isaac). Gareth
Edwards and company cobbled together a decent margin note in the franchise’s
canon with the heisting of the Death Star plans in Rogue One. But for all that potential, it took writer-director Rian
Johnson (whose Brick and Looper marked him as an original voice
to watch) to return the sense of surprise to the galaxy. He makes a movie
following Abrams’ new characters and some of Lucas’ classic ones into a roller
coaster of creative developments.
Where Johnson succeeds is in his molecularly precise
evocation of the Star Wars style, not
by simply copying faithfully what’s come before, but by returning to the
source. He realizes the series is a suis generis blending of Westerns and World
War II movies, gangster pictures and samurai films, high fantasy and low serialized
sci-fi. He returns to these inspirations for whip-smart visual language,
spirited tone, and adventurous spirit, shot through with zen portent and
seriousness of mythological import. So once more unto the Star War we go, the sinister First Order seeking
to crush the rebellious Resistance once and for all. General Leia (the late,
great Carrie Fisher), hoping for the return of her brother Luke (Mark Hamill,
soulful and unpredictable), leads the surviving rebels across space, pursued by
the evil Supreme Leader Snoke (Andy Serkis). The usual sturm und drang of space battles and aliens worlds follows, with a
healthy dose of Jedi mysticism on a far-flung planet where a Master hides from
his mistakes and an earnest would-be Padawan desperately seeks his help. He’s
their only hope. The Rebels assemble for dogfights and showdowns; the Dark Side
and the Light ready their laser swords with patient, spiritual connections in
The Force; nefarious characters plot backstabbings and pure-hearted beings become
the sparks that will light up the darkness. In the middle is Rey, an ever more
exciting new hero movingly unmoored from a sense of destiny, hoping to find her
place in all this while Kylo Ren, similarly lost, circles with roiling bad
vibes.
This is rich emotional territory mined with crisp, clear
storytelling in painterly precision and elegantly lensed filmic cinematography.
It’s big, broad, immediately satisfying storytelling in the tradition of the
series’ best moments. Every step of the way, Johnson finds visual invention for
his gripping sequences and compelling settings – a bombing run is so crisply,
efficiently unfolded, the fate of a character we’ve never before met and who
hardly speaks is intensely felt; a dazzling casino world drips in
military-industrial power and is larded with slimy monsters of all sorts (and a
jazzy alien band to boot); a colony of frog-like nuns caretake a crumbling
village surrounded by a sea of squawking bird-beings; a salt-covered planet is streaked
in billowing red dust as a battle rages; a red-walled throne room is draped in
ominous Dark Side intent; a hyperspace jump shatters plans – and minds. In these
thrilling images and places are a host of creatures and more new characters,
from a mysterious pink-haired admiral (Laura Dern) to a big-hearted rebel
recruit (Kelly Marie Tran) and a slippery thief (Benicio Del Toro). Johnson
imagines fun adventures, tense escapes teetering on massive stakes, and pleasing
grace notes – First Order office politics, a melding of prequel lore in sequel
minds, loving glamour shots of vehicles and tech – while never stepping wrong.
What a deeply felt outpouring of the finest Star Wars anyone not named George Lucas
has managed to get on the big screen! This isn’t a film entirely coasting on
old nostalgia (though the familiar sounds of lightsabers, TIE fighters, and the like are powerful generators of it). Nor is it content to simply doodle in the margins of the expected. Johnson uses the old as a
runway for new adventure to take off. In the end, I found it poignant to
consider how he’s skillfully built in an old franchise a space for new
imagination, while connecting to the childlike wonder at the sense of grandiose
unfolding mythology that makes it evergreen. Johnson has pulled off a perfect
balancing act – a reverent brand deposit that pushes all the right nostalgic
buttons while fearlessly unfurling satisfying surprises. It’s a sensation as
pure and as real as a kid, head swimming in the galaxy far, far away, picking
up a broom and, for a fleeting moment, imagining it a lightsaber.
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