How The Last Jedi Killed Star Wars And Why That's A Good Thing

ii: rage of the untouched

This is Part 2 of a three-part Substack piece. Links to Part 1 and Part 3.

THE EXPANDED UNIVERSE

Star Wars culture was not limited to the six George Lucas films. Both of George Lucas’s trilogies had rich expanded universes, through books but also TV shows and video games. What canon means in the context of a fantasy story that no one thinks is real is a different discussion, but these auxiliary stories were always treated as less “canon” than the films.

As a child, I read some of the Star Wars expanded universe fiction from both the original trilogy era and the prequel era. The main ones that I remember were Jude Watson’s books, the Jedi Apprentice series, about Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon’s adventures before the events of the prequels. I also read the 90s Star Wars series Young Jedi Knights, about Han and Leia’s twin children Jacen and Jaina post-original trilogy. Both of these series are targeted at young readers and are about people with lightsabers and magical powers saving the day in various situations. I liked them but there’s not a lot of substance to speak to. 

The adult books hopefully have more depth, but I have not read them because I’m not sure they do. Many books build on Luke’s triumphant conclusion in Return of the Jedi and turn him into a super warrior who rebuilds the Jedi Order to the heights of the prequels, with Jacen and Jaina from the books I read members of the new Jedi order. Luke has a wife, a former aide to Palpatine named Mara Jade, and a child with her. Han and Leia have three kids, the two twins, and one other son of who is turned to the dark side but returns to good. There’s a threat of invader aliens from outside the galaxy, there’s a forgotten Imperial general who musters a counter-offensive, there’s a cloned Palpatine, Han’s friend Chewbacca dies when hit by a moon. Luke saves the day in many of these situations, with his green lightsaber from Return of the Jedi in his hand. 

When Disney acquired Star Wars from George Lucas, they made the decision to wipe their canon clean of every expanded universe story, with the lone exception of The Clone Wars TV show that George Lucas worked on. This was particularly relevant for these post-original trilogy books that told the stories of the beloved original characters which Disney planned to bring back. I don’t think there was any other answer for Disney but to do this; they couldn’t reasonably start a trilogy on top of all of the plots of the old Star Wars books from thirty years ago that superfans read. There was a little uproar when this happened, but I think more people were excited at the return of the films than they were disappointed that the books that tacitly didn’t matter that much anyways now mattered less. 

THE FORCE AWAKENS

With their clean slate, upon the shoulders of the two George Lucas trilogies, Disney created The Force Awakens, which was released in 2015. The Force Awakens is branded as Episode 7, the sequential sequel to the original trilogy, a narrative which had not been touched in 32 years. This was the first Star Wars film to not be guided by George Lucas’s hand, which changed things. George Lucas is of course trying to make money, but Disney is publicly traded and the largest media company in the world. They have immense resources but also need to produce films that are accessible and appeal to a global audience. Their template was the Marvel films. They aged up the Star Wars tone, making every movie PG-13 unlike the aberration of Revenge of the Sith, to appeal to the new demographic that Marvel charted. 

The Force Awakens is a safe film. It addressed the often-criticized overreliance on computer-generated sets of the prequels by using real sets and practical effects like the originals did, which was stressed in the film’s marketing. It returned familiar characters from the original trilogy, who were more beloved than characters of the prequels. The characters were not inhuman space monks who reject the concept of love, they're fun and relatable humans who drop Marvel-style quips.

It also returned the aesthetic of the original trilogy. Classic spaceships designed in 1977 return here, unlike the fresh aesthetic of the prequels. It brought back the same Empire vs. Rebellion conflict as the originals, even though this conflict ended in 1983, under the new name “First Order” vs. “Resistance”. Dialog in the Disney sequel trilogy frequently misnames the Resistance the Rebellion, which I find hard to believe is a mistake. It treats the recycled conflict as a fascist resurgence, like WWII compared to WWI, but it's hard to believe that they mean any real commentary on the nature of fascism. It was just a way they could explain why they brought the same things back. 

I stress the prominence of returning elements because this was a choice Disney made. The prequels proved that you could do something different with Star Wars, but Disney intentionally chose to return elements of the widely-loved original trilogy because that was known safe territory. Star Wars had been dragged through the mud in the prequel era, so they needed something safe to restart it.

The story of The Force Awakens is a remix of the original trilogy. It opens with Kylo Ren, the son of Han and Leia, as he goes Darth Vader mode in a black mask and slaughters a village. Kylo Ren is turned to the dark side, and working for the evil First Order. He’s searching for a map to Luke Skywalker, the hero of the original trilogy. At the village, he captures one of the heroes of the new trilogy, Poe Dameron, an ace spaceship pilot for the Resistance. Seeing the brutality of Kylo’s rampage, one of Kylo’s fascist foot soldiers named Finn defects to the good guys, the Resistance. Finn is also one of the main characters. He rescues Poe, but they are separated. The final and true main character is Rey. She is a resident of a desert home planet, just like Luke. Unlike Luke, she doesn’t crave adventure, she wants to stay on her home planet so that her long-lost parents might find her. She meets Finn, and despite her desire to reunite with her parents her good heart pulls her into the galactic conflict that currently centers around finding Luke. She has adventures in space, flying the same Millenium Falcon Han Solo did in 1977. She meets Han, knows him as if he’s a celebrity. 

In the middle of the film, Rey is given Luke’s original blue lightsaber and has a strange vision when she touches it. Shortly after, she meets Kylo Ren, and has a strange connection with him. She’s captured and taken to Starkiller Base, which is reminiscent of the Death Star from the first Star Wars movie in that it also houses a giant planet-destroying laser. On the base, Kylo speaks to a giant hologram of an alien named Snoke, who we learn little about besides that he is Kylo’s master. Finn and Han rescue Rey, but Han is killed by his son Kylo, in a classic Star Wars oedipal confrontation. Kylo and Rey have a laser sword duel, over the ownership of Luke’s beloved blue lightsaber. Kylo uses the Force to pull at the lightsaber stuck in the snow, evocative of Luke pulling at the same lightsaber stuck in the snow in Empire Strikes Back, but the lightsaber soars into Rey’s hands, as it is her destiny to wield it. Rey wins the duel despite never wielding a lightsaber before. Starkiller Base is destroyed from well-placed shots by pilot Poe Dameron, just like Luke blew up the Death Star in the first movie, and the good guys triumph over the First Order. They return to the Resistance base to celebrate while bittersweet with the death of their friend Han Solo. 

Normally, a Star Wars movie would end here, but this movie continues on. Rey, now aware of her power, follows the map to legendary hero Luke Skywalker to ask him for help in the conflict against the First Order. She finds him on a remote island on a watery planet, and holds out his lightsaber to him. The film ends with Luke never saying a word, not taking the saber, looking at Rey, contemplating something unknown to the viewer. 

This movie was well-received as a return to form for Star Wars. The big criticism was that it was safe. The common criticism phrase on the forums was that it was a “shot-for-shot remake of A New Hope”, which obviously is not literally true but I don’t think it’s even metaphorically true. It combines elements from all three movies in a remix synthesis, but it doesn’t follow the emotional arc of A New Hope at all. In terms of symbols, yes, it leaned on symbols from the originals, but there’s no resemblance to the original in terms of morality or fantasy. It takes Luke’s story and spreads it out over three characters: Rey is the Knight, Finn saves the girl, Poe blows up the base. Unlike A New Hope, this film is just references, it doesn’t mean anything on its own. Disney heard the complaint, and they wanted to do something that felt fresher with the next film in the series. 

EXPECTATIONS FOR THE LAST JEDI

Before I explain the plot of The Last Jedi, it’s important to lay out what a viewer might have expected from the movie. The discourse about the movie often uses the phrase “subverting expectations”, so what were the expectations that were subverted? 

• Luke Skywalker Matters. Luke was a great and noble warrior, the hero of the original trilogy who already saved the galaxy once. Now, thirty years later, viewers expected to see him as a powerful Jedi master. The cliffhanger ending of The Force Awakens doubled the anticipation. Luke was absent from the first film so what would he do in the next ones? 

• About Family. Star Wars has strong familial oedipal themes. The subtext of The Force Awakens hints that Rey is Luke’s daughter, but it stops short of stating that. Even if Rey’s father was not Luke, people were excited to know how she fit into the Star Wars world. There were many theories about who her parents were, many listicles hypothesizing obscure minor characters from the Star Wars extended universe. Any character that made logical sense and many that did not were predicted to be Rey’s parents, somewhere on the internet. The next second Disney Star Wars film was expected to answer or at least progress the mystery here. 

• The importance of the puppet master villain. Similar to Rey’s parentage, there was a lot of listicle speculation on Snoke, who appeared in The Force Awakens without much explanation. He appeared to have a Palpatine-like role in the narrative. Who was he? And how would his story progress as the trilogy moved on? He was presumed to be the big villain of the series. 

• The Lightsaber Battle. Every Star Wars film has a lightsaber battle. These laser sword battles are cool and release the emotional tension of the story. There was a poster that was often reposted on Reddit, updated after The Force Awakens, with silhouettes of each movie’s lightsaber duel. It’s a weird thing to call out alongside other more thematic or plot expectations, but this is an important part of Star Wars to its culture. These posters were never updated after The Last Jedi, because it shattered the myth.

THE LAST JEDI 

Here we are, at The Last Jedi. Episode 8. Rian Johnson took the director’s seat. Rian Johnson is an interesting choice for a Star Wars director. He makes different films, smaller scale and theme-driven movies, not huge sci-fi fantasies. But he clearly does love Star Wars. We’ll walk through the plot and then discuss why the plot made people feel that way. 

The film begins immediately after the end of The Force Awakens, the first time Star Wars has ever done this. Though we thought the Resistance was saved after the destruction of Starkiller Base, it turns out the First Order still has significant resources, and they followed the Resistance back to their base. The Resistance attempts to evacuate. During the evacuation, pilot Poe Dameron attempts a counterattack, leading out a large number of ships to attack the First Order fleet. The attack goes poorly. Poe pilots well and escapes with his life, but the Resistance loses many ships due to his recklessness. On one of the doomed Resistance ships, Paige Tycho is a Resistance soldier who clutches a moon medallion for strength as she dies. In her moment of death, she barely releases a series of bombs to destroy a large First Order spaceship and give some positive turn to the opening battle, but this is a major defeat and a disgrace to Poe for pushing the attack forward. 

The Resistance flees from the First Order using common Star Wars technology called hyperspace where a ship travels faster than the speed of light, but they are immediately caught again by the First Order. Rather than continue hyperspace jumps, General Leia Organa, Luke’s sister and villain Kylo Ren’s mother, orders the Resistance fleet to stop. They are being tracked through hyperspace, and they have limited fuel left. Such tracking was previously thought impossible, but it must be possible now because it’s happened. They enter a slow and extended chase sequence, as the large resources of the First Order chase after a lone Resistance cruiser keeping pace in front, like OJ Simpson’s Bronco in front of a horde of police cars. 

Aboard the head sheep of the First Order fleet, Kylo Ren speaks with his master Snoke in Snoke’s throne room. Kylo is mocked for losing his duel to untrained Rey, mocked for larping as Darth Vader with his unneeded black mask. Kylo smashes his mask and doesn’t wear it again for the rest of the movie. Enraged by this threat to his identity, Kylo attempts an assault on the Resistance, flying a small group of ships ahead of the First Order fleet. He tries to kill his mother on the command bridge but backs off, unwilling to fire on her. Someone else fires instead. Leia is sucked out into the void of space and nearly dies, but in an often-mocked scene pulls herself back to the ship using the Force, which she has never used before on screen but presumably has due to her prophetic bloodline, as daughter of Anakin Skywalker. Leia survives but is unconscious in critical condition. Admiral Holdo, a new character, is put in charge of the remaining Resistance fleet. 

On the other side of the galaxy, Rey is left where we last saw her, meeting Luke Skywalker on the remote watery island planet. Luke takes the lightsaber from her outstretched hand, resolving the last scene of the prior film, but then he casually throws it over his shoulder, off the edge of a cliff. The tone of him throwing the sword is mocking, the dramatic music stops as though it’s a comedy scene. How could you, the viewer, have been so dumb as to care what happened next? Rey retrieves the sword, but the meaning of the scene is clear. Luke does not wish to train Rey like Yoda did for him. Luke wishes for the Jedi to end. Rey stays on the island, fending for herself, and pleading with Luke to save the galaxy. Luke still refuses to train her and denies his own power as a hero, through one especially memorable line: 

“You don't need Luke Skywalker. Did you hear a word I just said? You think what? I'm gonna walk out with a laser sword and face down the whole First Order?”

Here, The Last Jedi is mocking the entirety of Star Wars. Does it make sense for a single individual with a lightsaber to turn wars, the way Luke alone turned a war in Return of the Jedi? Wars are won by large numbers of people giving everything they have, not one person who’s really awesome with a laser sword. It’s easy to see why someone who loves the Star Wars films would get offended by this argument. 

Back on the Resistance cruiser at the head of the space chase, Finn meets Rose Tycho, the sister of Paige Tycho, mourning the death of her sister in Poe’s doomed fight and clutching her own moon medallion.  Rose is a maintenance worker for the Resistance. Seeing their dire straits, Finn was planning on abandoning the war effort to save his own life, but Rose stops him. Together, they devise a plan to stop the First Order’s hyperspace tracking so the Resistance can escape. They must find a master codebreaker who can sneak them onto the command room aboard the head First Order ship, where they can disable the tracker, which will allow them to escape into hyperspace untrackable. They communicate the plan to Poe, who joins their secret rebellion against Holdo. 

Finn and Rose exit the spaceship chase in a small ship and cross the galaxy to find a codebreaker. The famed codebreaker they seek is on a casino planet populated with wealthy individuals who gamble on cards and bet on horse races. The wealthy are served by an oppressed lower class. Finn and Rose see the grotesque world of the rich, which Rian Johnson parodies more in his Knives Out movies. They find a code-breaker, not who they were looking for, but someone. They escape by charging through the casino on the backs of the horses that the rich gamblers bet on, smashing their luxurious champagne glass world, and then set the horses free. They head back to the spaceship chase to save the Resistance. 

Back on the island, Rey adventures around, attempting to find out the secret of why the Force is calling to her, an orphan from a desert planet. Seeing her raw power, Luke agrees to train Rey, but to teach her why the ways of the Jedi are flawed. Luke teases Rey for her perception of the Force as magic for lifting rocks, a common perception among Star Wars fans because of Luke doing that in Empire Strikes Back. Mixed with Rey’s training and self-discovery, Rey and Kylo connect with each other across the galaxy through a telepathic Force bond. Kylo is on the First Order ship, Rey is on the island, but they can each see the other. They talk and both realize how alone they are, and a potential romance emerges. They briefly hold each other’s hands, before Luke comes in with rage and stops them. Soon after, Luke is forced to reveal the impetus behind his exile. When Kylo was a young boy, Luke sensed darkness inside of him and attempted to kill Kylo in his sleep. Kylo awoke, and lost all faith in Luke, which then led to his turn to the dark side. Luke failed Kylo, and thus he does not believe in his own power as a Jedi. 

Rose and Finn and their codebreaker infiltrate the head First Order cruiser to take out the hyperspace tracking. Their codebreaker demands payment for his services, and Rose gives him her moon medallion. But then the codebreaker uses that same medallion as a conductor, to help open a part of the circuitry necessary in his codebreaking, and returns it to her. When Rose and Finn get into the tracking room, they’re greeted by a battalion of First Order stormtroopers, and they are captured. Their plan failed, not because of inherent flaws, but the overwhelming force of their enemy. They were too idealistic. Finn and Rose are taken to a hangar and are about to be executed. 

Because of their force bond connection, Rey decides she must confront Kylo in the flesh to bring him back to good. Luke is beginning to see her side, but she leaves him on the island, takes the Millenium Falcon, and is dropped off into the middle of the spaceship chase on to the head cruiser of the First Order. Kylo takes her to Snoke’s throne room. In that throne room, Snoke taunts Rey and takes her lightsaber, Luke’s blue lightsaber from 1977. Snoke orders Kylo to kill her to prove his resolve. Kylo instead uses the Force to activate the blue lightsaber on Snoke’s chair and slice him in half. Snoke dies at Kylo’s hand, and Rey and Kylo fight together to kill his bodyguards, Rey with her blue lightsaber, Kylo with his red, and then confront each other. 

The confrontation is a subversion of the scene when Vader reveals to Luke that he is his father in Empire Strikes Back. Kylo makes Rey reveal what she always knew but was too afraid to admit to herself: her parents are no one, she has no royal bloodline like Kylo’s. She was abandoned by her family and her power totally belongs to her. Despite that, Kylo recognizes her value as a person. He pleads with Rey to join him, and together they can build something new, but she declines, because what he wants to build is evil. Both of them reach for Luke’s lightsaber with the Force, that prophesied heirloom, but they are equally strong. The blade is not pulled either direction, it hovers perfectly between them, until it is shattered in half. 

Back on the Resistance cruiser, Poe stages and fails a mutiny for control of the Resistance fleet, not trusting Holdo’s leadership, and Leia has awoken from her coma. The Resistance evacuates the main cruiser on Holdo’s orders. Their large ship will run out of fuel, but on small ships they can get to nearby planet Crait undetected. Crait holds a forgotten but fortified base from the Rebellion days of the original trilogy. From the base they can call for help and live to fight another day. But Finn and Rose and Poe’s reckless idealism gives away their plan, when the codebreaker sells them out to save himself from execution. He tells the First Order their plan and the small Resistance ships are detected. Many of the small ships with nameless soldiers of the Resistance are gunned down. A few ships make it to safety in the base on Crait, including Leia and Poe, but the Resistance is on its final legs. The main cruiser is left to Holdo, who stays behind on a suicide mission. As she does, she realizes one last shot she can take to save the ships that carry the Resistance.  Holdo points the main cruiser at the head ship of the First Order. She jumps to hyperspace and kamikazes the ship through the enemy fleet and slices the big First Order cruiser in half. These three big moments, Luke’s lightsaber snapping in half, Rose and Finn about to be executed, and Holdo’s hyperspace kamikaze, all happen at the exact same point in the narrative. 

Kylo and Rey are both knocked unconscious. Finn and Rose escape their execution in the chaos of the kamikaze, and take a First Order spaceship on Crait to rejoin Poe and Leia.  Kylo leads a First Order ground assault on the base on Crait. Rey boards the Millenium Falcon and heads down Crait to support the Resistance from the air. Kylo is filled with rage at the sight of the Millenium Falcon, his father’s ship, and foolishly orders all First Order spaceships to pursue it into a canyon. Kylo chooses destruction of a symbol over destruction of the literal enemy.

The last troops of the Resistance hide inside the base, faced down by the First Order, which brings out a huge laser that can blast open their walls. They attempt a counter assault using mining equipment from the base, to take out the laser. Rose and Finn and Poe all take part in the assault, Rose bearing her moon medallion on her dashboard, which is now once again a symbol of strength like it was for her sister. But they must turn back when they realize it has no chance at success, on Poe’s orders, showing his growth as a commander. Finn disobeys orders and suicidally attempts to destroy the laser but Rose crashes her ship into him, and saves his life, explaining to him “we're going to win this war not by fighting what we hate, but saving what we love.” Rose is wounded in the crash and Finn drags her across the battlefield back to the base. The rest of the Resistance turns back too. From inside their base, they call for help, but no one comes. 

Until Luke Skywalker comes. He appears inside the sealed Resistance base, and the Resistance troopers watch him as if he’s a demigod walking into battle. He speaks with his sister Leia, holding her hand, where he reveals to her that he’s a projection. The real Luke is still on the water island, a galaxy away, and he is using the Force to project an image of himself across millions of miles. But the viewer doesn't know that yet. Luke’s projected image walks out the hole in the base the laser has made. First, he soaks the entirety of the First Order’s army’s fire. Then Kylo goes out to duel him alone. Luke’s projection ignites his lightsaber, not his green lightsaber from Return of the Jedi and the expanded universe, but the famous original Star Wars blue lightsaber that was just destroyed by Rey and Kylo. He’s facing down the First Order alone with a laser sword like he said was impossible. Kylo swings his saber at him, but Luke’s projection dodges every blow, not revealing to Kylo that he is not the physical Luke. Luke does not attempt to turn Kylo back to good, he faces him as evil that must be stopped. He taunts Kylo, buying time for the Resistance. 

Kylo discovers that Luke is a projection, but it’s too late. Rey has evaded the First Order spaceships, and landed the Millenium Falcon on the back side of the base in which the Resistance hides. There's a back exit, blocked by a giant pile of rocks. Rey uses the Force to move the pile of rocks, the same small physical task that cynical Luke earlier said the Force meant so much more than, and opens a path for the Resistance to escape the sealed base. The entire Resistance boards the Millenium Falcon, that famous symbolic ship from the original trilogy, and they escape into hyperspace. They are depleted but hope is alive. Luke dies due to the tremendous effort necessary to project his image across the galaxy. They will have to face the next challenge without him. 

Again, a Star Wars movie would normally end here, but Disney gives a strange coda. We go back to the casino planet. The boys who work for the horse stables are playing with homemade toys, like kids in the real world do with Star Wars action figures. They have set up the climactic confrontation of this movie, Luke Skywalker facing down the First Order with a laser sword. They’re speaking in a foreign space language, but you can understand the words “Luke Skywalker, Jedi Master” in any language. They’re interrupted by their big mean boss and go back to their chores. One boy goes to pick up a broom and reveals that he can use the Force, because he pulls it to himself with magic. Fans give him the somewhat mocking name “broom boy”. He goes outside and looks up at the stars, and sees a ship streak across the sky, presumably the Millenium Falcon on its way through hyperspace, carrying the hope of the galaxy with it. 

While it’s a corny ending, I love it. It reveals that The Last Jedi isn’t trying to mock Star Wars, but celebrate it. It explores the franchise’s weaknesses and pitfalls, and then returns by saying, all of that is true, but despite that, the story makes people feel like this, and let's celebrate that feeling. The Millenium Falcon carries the hope of the galaxy, Luke Skywalker really did face down the first order with a laser sword, Rey really did need to use the Force to lift rocks, the kids are still playing with action figures. It ends with total love for Star Wars as a symbol but not just a symbol. Good needed both halves, the symbol and the literal. Luke, the symbol, to face the enemy and inspire the galaxy, and Rey, the literal, to lift the rocks to set the heroes free. These two moments, Rey lifting the rocks, and Luke’s symbolic projection duel, happen at the exact same point in the narrative, as Luke drops the film’s title to Kylo proclaiming “I will not be The Last Jedi”.

WHY IT MADE PEOPLE MAD

I think the detractors don’t get to that part of the narrative arc, or they love the literal story of Star Wars so much that they aren’t interested in its symbolic deconstruction and reification. The way that Rian Johnson pulls apart the structural threads of Star Wars can be abrasive to a Star Wars superfan. 

No lightsaber ever hits another lightsaber in this film. That may seem like an innocuous thing to an outsider, but to a Star Wars fan it’s sacrilege. Every Star Wars film has a lightsaber fight that serves as its emotional climax. The Last Jedi has two different fights that reach the dramatic heights a Star Wars lightsaber duel typically has, Rey and Kylo vs. Snoke’s guards and Kylo vs. Projected Luke, but neither fight is a lightsaber duel in the traditional sense. Through lack of a lightsaber fight and Luke chucking his lightsaber off a cliff, and Luke’s mocking earlier lines about facing down the First Order with a laser sword, The Last Jedi is calling into question the value of a lightsaber duel. People who loved the prequels for their spinning excessively choreographed laser fights and people who loved Luke dueling Vader to save the galaxy in Return of the Jedi weren't eager to engage with that question. I think the film finds an answer that isn't “these are worthless”, the film totally believes in their symbolic value, but a lot of people weren't along for the ride as it undermines their literal value. 

The Last Jedi calls into question another fundamental aspect of Star Wars: its central oedipal familial connections. Rey’s heavily-speculated parents are “no one”. Those words, no one, are important. The film orphans her. They could have explained more, but the point is that she is alone compared to Kylo Ren’s rich bloodline of prior Star Wars main characters. The two of them are equally powerful, but one is from noble blood the other from nothing. Again, I think this is a thematically powerful message. The Last Jedi is pushing against the Star Wars obsession with lineage, but for people who read lots of listicles speculating Rey’s parentage, this feels like a slap in the face that mocks them for caring. 

The most common criticism is how the film handles Luke Skywalker. When we saw Luke in 1983’s Return of the Jedi he was an unstoppable warrior bearing his green lightsaber to save the galaxy, and many expanded universe books keep the character growing more powerful from there. Here, in this new trilogy, he’s not that at all. He’s weak, retreated to a remote island out of shame for failure in the training of his sister’s son. 

We never see Luke with his green lightsaber. The Last Jedi’s projected Luke uses his blue lightsaber because the blue lightsaber evokes the obsession with heirlooms that it’s trying to discuss. Luke’s heirloom lightsaber is a symbol offered by Rey, a symbol rejected by Luke, a weapon used by Rey, a button remotely pressed by Kylo to kill Snoke, an heirloom that Kylo wants, an heirloom destroyed by Rey and Kylo, and then, past its destruction, a more-real-than-real symbol wielded by Luke to face the entire First Order. 

This isn’t the only heirloom object that The Last Jedi takes on a journey between literal use and symbolic value. In the thematic arc of The Last Jedi objects veer between inspiring symbols or tools for physical use. Both sides have value. 

• Paige and Rose’s shared moon medallions are symbol of inspiration for Paige, then a symbol of sadness for Rose after Paige’s death, then monetary value for Rose to give to the codebreaker, then a literal conductor as a piece of metal for the codebreaker, then a symbol of inspiration for Rose again. 

• Rey has a two-way tracking beacon that she shares with Leia, and it’s passed between various characters when Leia is unconscious. It’s a literal way to track Rey, but also an object that reminds her of her commitment to her friends, and reminds them of their care for her. At the end, the use of the tracker is flipped, and Rey uses it to find her friends in the back exit to the base. 

• On the island, Luke shows Rey ancient Jedi books stored in a tree, which he later threatens to burn as a symbolic end to the Jedi, before backing off. Then the ghost of Yoda, Luke’s master from Empire Strikes Back, does burn the tree, because the books had no literal value, they were boring old treatises with ideas that can be derived from real-world experience. It’s later revealed that Rey had already taken the books out of the tree and saved the physical objects. 

Luke himself goes through that same arc as a symbol and literal. He is a hero who had literal value in the prior trilogy. In his final moment he makes himself a symbol instead of using physical violence. He’s powerful and does amazing things with the Force, but it’s to inspire others, because that’s more than he could do as an individual. In my opinion, overshadowing the new characters with an all-powerful Luke busting out his green lightsaber to slaughter hordes of enemies wouldn’t have been interesting, and I love this take that appreciates Luke and lets him become bigger than himself while leaving the stage for the new characters. But green lightsaber badass Luke slaughtering enemies was all some people wanted to see and they didn’t get it. 

Another argument about Luke is the way he can’t see any good left in Kylo in The Last Jedi contradicts his character in Return of the Jedi. In that original trilogy film Luke unconditionally sees good in his father Vader. In my opinion, if you want the thematic arc of Return of the Jedi, watch Return of the Jedi. I think The Last Jedi is critiquing that film’s morality here, saying that at some point someone is gone, and there's a duty to fight against evil. You can’t unconditionally assume some people have good left in them due to the circumstances of their birth. Vader was good solely because he was Luke’s father and had been good at one point; does Kylo deserve that inherent pull to the light side just because he was Leia’s son? 

The film also pushes familiar elements from prior Star Wars films to extremes that call into question the logic of other movies. If Kylo can rotate and ignite an unattended lightsaber with the force to slay Snoke, why hasn’t anyone else tried that over the thousands of years of lightsaber combat? Surely a Jedi could spin a lightsaber and press a button with their mind, if they can do other much more powerful magic with their mind. Seems like it makes your laser sword a big liability if someone else can turn it on and off for you at will. The most notable is Holdo’s hyperspace kamikaze. If you can destroy a fleet with a single hyperspace kamikaze, surely someone would have used that technique before. They attempt to retcon this in the next film by calling the kamikaze  a “one-in-a-million shot” but that’s not in the text of this film. In this film it’s a unique idea that the First Order never saw coming, just like Snoke never saw the rotated and ignited lightsaber coming. In both of these moments, the film is repurposing familiar Star Wars elements in creative ways. It makes The Last Jedi feel like the final chance for good, with everything put on the line and every last option used. But it makes this film feel like it’s operating under different logic than the others. 

And it is operating under different logic. This is a thematic Star Wars movie, while the other movies are literal. No other Star Wars movie does anything like this. I deeply respect the value of a fantasy, so I like the other Star Wars movies. This is a very English major movie and since I was an English major I like it too. But it’s undoubtedly different. 

The result of all these elements, no lightsabers, Luke as a symbol, pushing to the limit many “canonic” Star Wars rules, thematic Star Wars instead of narrative Star Wars, is a feeling of the Star Wars universe being subverted or undermined. I think that is the open intent of The Last Jedi, and I don’t think the film does it in a way that’s cruel to Star Wars. But that’s what made people mad, either because they didn’t like it or didn’t understand it or didn’t want it to happen. 

HOW PEOPLE CHANNELED THEIR ANGER

The average hater of The Last Jedi isn’t going to sit down to write a few thousand words on this subject. They use weaker words, write a few angry sentences in a forum post. I’ve read a lot of these posts so I’ll try to summarize their complaints. 

• Mocking use of the term “subverted expectations”. They hate how Luke throws his lightsaber casually over his shoulder, they hate how Snoke is killed without explanation of his background. Since subversion is the goal of this movie, it’s hard to engage with this phrase without explaining the entire movie, so that’s what I’ve just done. 

• They ruined Luke Skywalker. I explained this one earlier, and I think they correctly articulate their feelings here. They don’t understand where the film lands Luke Skywalker’s character, as a beyond apotheosized legendary Jedi who saved the last hope of good in the universe with his symbolic image, but they know what they wanted. They wanted Luke Skywalker with a green lightsaber slicing down bad guys, and since they don’t care about Luke as a symbol they think he was ruined. 

• Rose and Finn’s story was pointless. I agree that the casino arc is awkward in terms of how they exit the chase and return to it. And Finn and Rose’s plan resulting from the casino story fails. But for the thematic arc of the story, it’s essential. Without this, the story is just Rey and Kylo and Luke as superpowerful beings influencing the fate of a war; we needed to see real people fighting with everything they had as a contrast. That Finn and Rose’s plan fails is another Star Wars trope counter. In the originals, the heroes constantly beat long odds, but here, the long odds catch up to them. 

• Rey is a Mary Sue. This is weird TVTropes brain vocabulary, but the implication in these words is that Rey is powerful without explanation. This is more a criticism of the whole trilogy. If anything, The Last Jedi is Rey’s least overpowered movie. But it's still often brought up as criticism of this particular film. Some of this is misogyny, or resentiment at the idea that Disney thinks Star Wars is misogynist. Previously all Star Wars films had a male hero and the Disney Star Wars films being made in a different time period intentionally choose a female one. Yes, it’s performative activism by Disney, but also getting upset about it is insane and using the word Mary Sue pretty much unilaterally proves that you get your movie opinions from CS:GO knife run videos about how social justice warriors are ruining media. Again, it doesn’t even make sense for this movie. This one is spiritually embarrassing so I have to stop talking about it now. 

• They hate Rose’s character too. The same explanations above can be listed again. The film does make Rose the wiser and more perceptive character, compared to Finn. Rose already knows the film’s moral lessons and teaches them to Finn. That makes her feel like a know-it-all overpowered girlboss to people, I guess. 

• They hate the way Holdo’s character is a scold. The fact that she has pink hair does not help in the avoiding misogynistic comments department. This perception is the result of an awkward placement in the movie’s story. Holdo’s plan to get the Resistance to safety is framed by the film as cowardice on first viewing because information is hidden from the viewer, to make Poe look rash once the full details of her plan are given. Holdo scolds Poe for not trusting her, and doesn’t seem competent, while Poe is idealistic and has a real plan, which fails, but at least we see it as it unfolds and empathize with him. At the end before she dies Holdo says some kind words about Poe but it’s not enough to make up for all the runtime where she feels like a misguided HR bureaucrat. This one is an unfortunate accident where the film overloaded, trying to do too much. But it again prompts cruelty towards the female gender. 

• The three main characters, Finn Rey and Poe, don’t spend time together, and we don’t get fun scenes of them having a good time. This is true, but it feels like viewers who say this were expecting a tone that Star Wars hits only half the time. Empire Strikes Back and Revenge of the Sith don’t at all have main characters united and being silly together. This is maybe true of generic action-adventure movies, but Star Wars is not cared about by its superfans as an action-adventure movie. 

• They hate the scene where Luke is milking a space sea cow. This is in there as a callback to the first Star Wars movie, where the Luke’s family drinks blue milk as a sci-fi beverage. Seeing Luke press on the boobs of an animal is emasculating for him and they see it as part of the overall emasculation that they believe Luke receives. 

• They hate the scene where Leia pulled herself through space. They often say they started laughing in the theater the first time they saw it. I don’t even know what to say in response. I don’t think this one relates to the larger concerns of the movie but it comes up so often. I think it’s some sad unwillingness to imagine older women with power? I have no better explanation. 

The Last Jedi as a thematic movie has many moments where literal plot is sacrificed for thematic progression. There’s the repurpose of elements central to other movies, like the hyperspace kamikaze and the force-activated lightsaber to kill Snoke, which sacrifices the plot of other movies for theme, but that’s the point of those moments. Where this movie is weak is when it undermines its own plot, when it doesn't make literal sense how characters get from point A to point B. How do Finn and Rose get to and from the casino planet in the middle of a huge space chase? How does Rey get on to the Millenium Falcon after the confrontation in the throne room, in the middle of a kamikazed spaceship wreck? How does Rose crash into Finn’s ship to save him when Finn is shown far ahead of the rest of the group? How do Finn and Rose get back across a huge battlefield with Finn dragging Rose on a piece of metal behind him like a girl scout dragging a wagon of cookies? The moments do not make literal sense, but this is not a literal movie, it’s a thematic one. 

Even the thematic arc is not perfect. It’s very busy. There’s weird side themes like the anti-capitalist arc with the casino and the codebreaker, and the Berniebro arc where Poe’s mutiny teaches him that he as an idealistic male must trust Leia and Holdo, the women who have been in power for longer and have more experience. Even the central themes that I do think are powerful requires rapt attention from a viewer, because they happen very fast as a result of this movie being so crowded. Poe goes from disgraced reckless idealist to pragmatic leader within minutes, Luke’s rejection of the Jedi turns into total love for the Jedi off-screen, and Kylo turns from potential companion to Rey making a fresh world to villain obsessed with legacy within seconds. It’s a lot of whiplash, and if you start to feel uncomfortable you may not stick it through.

Plot holes and crowded themes don’t prompt the vitriolic response that The Last Jedi received though. Petitions demanded Disney decanonize the sequel trilogy, like they did with the original books, and start over. I found this change.org post that demands “Rian Johnson has to admit that The Last Jedi is awful”, which lists out many of the reasons above. People hated Rian Johnson, said he ruined Star Wars and didn’t understand it. Mark Hamill, the actor who plays Luke, gradually turned on the film, stating publicly in interviews that he didn’t like how the plot handled Luke, seeming to miss the point in the exact same way the fans do. Every single time I post about this movie on Twitter I have someone in my comments who tells me the Leia flying through space scene is horrible. Fans famously harassed the actress who played Rose off the internet, because of her “pointless character” in The Last Jedi, because Star Wars fans didn’t like that the pointless character was an asian girl I guess. 

One could argue that this reaction came from the male-dominated culture of prior Star Wars, that arose from George Lucas’s themes of legacy,  his world where female characters were just objects to be saved, and white people were all the main characters. I personally don't believe that to be true, Star Wars fans can usually take deep breaths and handle female and minority side characters.  I think it was the way The Last Jedi undermined Star Wars ethics, a fantasy people deeply cared about, which led Star Wars fans to then lash out in weakly articulated and cruel ways. But the lashing out was embarrassing regardless and I can’t blame those who think that.

What’s sad is the lashing out worked. Rose was almost entirely written out of the last movie because of the hate her character received. She stays behind on the main plot to “study Star Destroyer schematics”, which never becomes relevant to the plot.  Like they listened to the fans' criticisms of the prequels and The Force Awakens. Disney took the hate that The Last Jedi received and listened to it.