Star Wars: The Last Jedi now playing
The opening crawl begins, and immediately you feel childhood nostalgia as you’re sucked into a galaxy, far far away. Star Wars, The Last Jedi is the latest installment in the newest saga put forward by Lucasfilm, now owned by Disney. Now, before reading forward, know there WILL BE SPOILERS. You have been warned…
First off, I can’t believe that Snoke is Rey’s father! Just kidding, I put that in there for anyone who read past the spoiler warning, but seriously now, SPOILERS AHEAD.
The Last Jedi, taking place immediately after the events of The Force Awakens, is a tale of pushing towards the future, and letting the past fade away. This movie is packed with humor from the very first scene, including some inside jokes, such as J.J. Abrams sneaking in a lens flare right after the opening crawl. These inside jokes and humor continue throughout the whole film.
The central idea throughout, is making one’s own future, without relying on the past. Kylo Ren even says in the movie to “Let the past die, KILL it if you have to,” even Yoda, who reappears as a ghost tells Luke to allow the ancient Jedi texts to burn, instead of saving the knowledge protected within.
The theme of illusions is also very prevalent in the movie. At one point, Finn and Rose have to find a codebreaker (don’t worry I won’t tell you why, YOU’RE WELCOME!) who helps them escape from a planet by stealing the ship of an arms dealer, who Finn resents for selling weapons to The First Order.
The codebreaker opens the files of the ship and reveals that the owner of the ship didn’t make his money by selling only to the Nazi-like First Order, but to the heroes: the Resistance. This theme continues in better examples, but the power of the spoiler is too great to continue.
The movie is an edited reflection of Empire Strikes Back, to which there are even jokes made about it, almost breaking the fourth wall.
When on a mineral planet with an old Rebel base, the First Order invades with AT-AT’s (remember those? The big camel looking things? In this movie, they look more like big apes) but, the resistance is in trenches out front of the base while the “big apes” are marching toward the door. One trooper puts his finger in the white powder on the ground and licks it, with one word he jokes about one of the few differences between this battle and the Battle of Hoth; “Salt,” he says.
In an interview, Star Wars creator George Lucas says “Star Wars is like poetry, it rhymes” and as such, this movie reflects Empire Strikes Back, with Luke becoming the new Yoda and a new Hoth discovered.
Personally I enjoyed this movie. In my opinion, this film is even better than The Force Awakens, which I liked a lot.
The theme of moving toward the future and not holding onto the past was not just in the story, it encourages long-time fans not to base the new movies off of the original saga, but see them as a new series altogether.
