The Last Jedi and The Limits of Subversion

Star Wars: The Last Jedi is a good movie. I'm pretty sure of that.

The rest of my thoughts on the movie are pretty jumbled, but that's not a bad thing. I'm still thinking about the movie about a week after seeing it, which is usually a good sign and more than I can say for any of the other Star Wars films (most of which I liked, to be clear).

But the movie gives us a lot to think about, and thoughtful people are going to disagree from time to time. What's most interesting about the discussion surrounding the movie is, instead, where reviewers seem to agree.

Here's The AV Club with "The Last Jedi's Best Moment is a 'Fuck You' to George Lucas and J.J. Abrams."

Here's Albert Burneko with "A List of Some Of The Times The Last Jedi Told The Older Star Wars Movies To Eat Shit."

Here's i09 with "The Last Jedi Killed My Childhood, And That's Exactly Why It's Great."

And on and on it goes. The gist of these pieces is basically the same: The Last Jedi excelled because it subverted our expectations of what a Star Wars movie should be. It rejected the old, well-worn tropes of the franchise and found a new path forward.

These takes aren't wrong - this isn't another "disagreeing with critics" post, though there's probably a different piece to be written about what it says that critics are all so gleeful about a Star Wars movie not being a Star Wars movie. The moments these pieces are built around definitely do represent attempts to subvert audience expectations - whether it's the deliberately anti-climactic reveal of Rey's mundane parentage, Kylo Ren's rejection of redemption or even Luke's initial discarding of his father's old lightsaber, there's no doubt Rian Johnson was able to elicit genuine surprise at any number of points in the movie.

 But it's in this ambition that The Last Jedi's biggest disappointment - and biggest missed opportunity - lies. You might be aware that there's a big wall surrounding your seemingly idyllic home, but you never really know its true extent until you walk right up to it and encounter it head on. And that's The Last Jedi's curse: in pushing the boundaries of what a Star Wars movie can be, it showed just how strong those boundaries really are.

Or, to put all my cards out there right now: Rey totally should have taken Kylo Ren's hand and accepted his offer.

It was in that moment after the assassination of Snoke, with Ren's hand out-stretched, with the possibility of the two young powers joining forces to eradicate the Jedi, the Sith, the Resistance and the First Order, to "kill the past" and forge a new future free from the shackles of this famous history, with all that in the offing, that a truly new, exciting and, yes, subversive Star Wars was possible.

Think of the dramatic possibilities that existed in that one moment - the possibility of seeing a likable, charismatic, powerful hero turning on all the audience held dear and embracing evil (put your hand down, Hayden). Or, perhaps, causing us to re-examine how we've always looked at morality in the Star Wars universe - Rey and Kylo, together, might not have been part of the Dark Side. They explicitly wouldn't have been Sith. They would have been something new, something unique, two wounded but powerful individuals driven by their own resentments, tired of chafing against the legacies of those who came before.

And we would have been forced to ask: are they right? Was the universe that came about as the result of the eternal conflict between the Jedi and the Sith really the best possible universe? How much had been destroyed in those interminable wars? Would things be better if all traces of the Jedi and Sith were wiped from the universe? Could a better world be built from these ashes?

We could spend the final movie of this new trilogy watching Rey and Kylo march across the universe, wiping out the Resistance and the New Order alike, building new institutions to replace what they had destroyed. Would Rey be capable of killing Finn? Of killing Leia? How would Kylo Ren react when he finally had the opportunity to destroy Luke Skywalker? We'd finally see the foundations of this well-worn universe thoroughly subverted.

This wouldn't have to end in a dark place. It wouldn't have to end in tragedy. There could still be redemption and light when the final credits of Episode IX rolled. But it would be something different - something truly unique.

But, of course, The Last Jedi didn't choose this route. Rey didn't take Kylo's hand, and she spurned his offer.

And it's in that decision that we see just how unforgiving the wall around Star Wars really is. Because Rey never really had a choice, did she? The Dark Side, a Ren-Rey team-up, the true destruction of the Star Wars legacy - the structure of the franchise ensures those sorts of stories aren't possible.

Oh, there's room for disappointment, for danger, even for the occasional tragedy - but only if they're temporary (or, in the case of the prequels, pre-ordained). Something truly transformative is off the table, at least in this particular story.

There was nothing in The Force Awakens that was as disappointing as Rey's decision to spurn Kylo Ren's offer. That's a reflection of the first movie's lack of ambition, of course, and the fact that The Last Jedi could elicit such an emotion is a testament to Johnson's skill.

But The Force Awakens was a palate cleanser, an attempt to erase the bad taste of the prequels and remind us why we liked Star Wars in the first place. It did that job well enough.

The Last Jedi was something different. It's a better movie, to be sure, and infinitely more interesting. Still, the great paradox of The Last Jedi - and perhaps its defining legacy - is that its ambition illustrates the futility of itself.

The Last Jedi proudly and self-consciously rejected many of the tropes that have defined Star Wars for decades. But for as many expectations as the movie subverted, the core of the franchise proved as predictable and untouchable as we always believed it to be.