Director: J.J. Abrams
Cast*: Carrie Fisher, Mark Hamill, Adam Driver, Daisy Ridley
Have I Seen it Before: It’s opening weekend fam, beyond the vague sense of a mixed reaction, I had no real idea what I was in for, although I did get the impression I might fall into a diabetic coma with the amount of fan service potentially on the horizon.
Did I Like It: Well, since I’m already on record adoring Star Wars – Episode VIII: The Last Jedi (2017), I guess I have to loathe this one, right?
Is it okay if I still like this one? Are we cool if I do? Do I care if we’re cool? All good questions. Yes, I think the film is messy, and there are plot threads I may spend some idle time over the next few years trying to make sense of, but it was rousing, and crowd pleasing, and fun.
That’s the job J.J. Abrams was hired to do, and now he’s done it twice.
The flaws are real, though. While it was nice to have scenes with Carrie Fisher again, she never felt terribly present in her scenes. Had we somehow not known she died after the production of The Last Jedi, maybe I wouldn’t have had the same issue with her material. Had the film opted for a different tact and had her die off-screen in the events leading up to the film, maybe we would have had a whole new set of complaints.
With the diminished role of the original trilogy characters very much hanging over the film—Billy Dee Williams’ Lando has scarce screen time, and very little to do with the plot other than to show up places and be Lando—the film fully becomes the purvue of the new characters. Rey, Poe, and Finn finally become a trio, spending much of their first two films apart, and their chemistry is breezy, and their quest for the location of Emperor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid, another original trilogy character underserved) is the most coherent part of the film. Kylo Ren’s redemption also gives Adam Driver some of his best material in the series. I’ve read some takes on the film that have said it ruins the legacy of all Skywalkers, Rey, Ben Solo, Leia, the entire series, Rian Johnson specifically, and more childhoods than I thought were still standing after Lucas made swift work of them in the last decade.
The film ruins nothing. The story of Ben Solo and Rey (insert last name here) is complete. As had long been prophesied, the Skywalker was destroyed the Sith and brought balance to the force. The Last Jedi still exists, and as of this writing is still available to watch on Netflix, Disney+ be damned.
So, once again—just like with The Last Jedi—I am left with one big complaint: I could have used a whole lot more Lupita Nyong’o. Yes, Kelly Marie Tran virtually disappearing from the film isn’t a great look for the franchise, but Nyong’o was the best part of Star Wars – Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015) and was tragically underused in The Last Jedi and here even more so. In The Last Jedi she is relegated to not much more than a cameo, but it was a fun moment that added to the mythology around her character, Maz Kanata. Here, she largely just stands around the Resistance base camp quietly reacting to the story around her, and I even think that level of involvement for Maz was a byproduct of her being central to the re-purposed footage of Carrie Fisher from The Force Awakens.
Dear Hollywood,
Please use more Lupita Nyong’o. Jordan Peele and Abe Forsythe are exempt from this notice. Even Ryan Coogler could do a little bit better in this department.
Yours in watching,
Mac
And now, we are left with the final question I introduced in my review of The Force Awakens: While we may not have needed these movies, I’m still glad we got them. They are spectacle writ large, and adventure storytelling at their very best. I’ve spent most of the last day since completing my re-watch of the series and my first screening of this film humming the John Williams march. I’ve dug into my comixology library, purchased a copy of the annotated original trilogy screenplays, and even bought a dirt-cheap copy of the novelizations of those movies. Why? Because even as this film took a winding, sometimes bewildering road to reach its completion, I still don’t want it to end.
* I mean, technically, Harrison Ford should have gotten second billing in this film, as his appearance in the film is far more substantial than Hamill’s was in The Force Awakens (2015), but I suppose that—in the interest of not being nitpicky—I won’t try to override the will of SAG.