I'm going to use Iaera's post as a spine for my own thoughts, out of respect, and also because I disagree in fundamental ways and I love The Discourse.
I really, really liked this movie (tending towards 'love'). Nothing will ever beat the Ralph McQuarrie aesthetic that defines the OT for me, but I also don't believe I've ever seen a Star Wars movie that was this beautiful to look at. From the gaudy brightness drenched in shadows of Canto Bight, to the magical fantasy version of Skellig realized as Ahct-To (and it's ALREADY a magical island in the real world!), to the exploding red crystal-plain of Crait, I was genuinely enthralled the whole way through.
I really like all of these characters, which was TFA's strength and JJ Abrams' sole real gift to the franchise, and every single reunion was like getting to see an old friend again.
I despise Snoke, and I think that the inclusion of the character was, perhaps, the wankiest and most grating element from TFA. Like the 'mystery' of Rey's parents, like whippin' out Anakin's old lightsaber, like having the Resistance ONLY USE X-WINGS, I felt like it was an attempt to reify a specific vision of Star Wars: the 'I bought all the action figures and am enacting my own backyard-theater version of Star Wars'. Adding this Supreme Leader character and building him up as this mysterious enemy was, to my current way of thinking, the dumbest and most pathetic element thrown into the goulash (yes, even more than just having a QUINTUPLE-DECKER DEATH STAR as the main threat).
Thus, I'm really happy with the decision to just axe him and let Kylo Ren take his place as the main villain. While I wish they'd thrown at least one LINE explaining or, at least, DESCRIBING who the fuck he is ("I was a Sorcerer of Tund, driven into the darkness by Palpatine's ascent!' or 'I cleaned Darth Sidious' undies and was imbued with Dark Powaaaahhh by his buttfunk!'), I'm grateful the movie came to see his redundance and dispatch him just in time for his SoulCalibur Guards to have a cool fight with Rey and Kylo.
I'm at odds with Iaera's take on Canto Bight...I love that Star Wars is, consistently, stories about lower-class people taking on fascistic militaries, but it felt both timely and moral to point out how no war machine can exist at such scale without someone profiting from it, and tying that it with the (not really all that far-fetched) cruelty and venality of such profiteers was a new twist, and helped develop the Finn character even more.
And, yes, I realize that this is a Disney product and that George Lucas is largely responsible for a special effects and programming industry scam that has systematically immiserated and devalued literal generations of workers. There is no ethical consumption under capitalism, but the creators' messages are as integral to the film as the perfidy behind its creation and I can honor the artists while despising the businesspeople. Today's secret pinko code is 'doublethink'.On the subject of just how 'Unleashed' the Force is in this...yeah. There is a power-creep there that I'm not TOO fond of. With that said, though, I've always been open to the idea that the Force can do more things than the seven or eight tricks we saw in the movies (while, simultaneously, wanting things like the Emperor's lightning and the Jedi's Force-survival tricks to remain special and unique to their 'masters'). I have no difficulty believing that Yoda's spirit, at one with the Force, could influence a storm into doing what Luke couldn't (but should've done, a long time ago). And the psychic-contact/astral-projection stuff is a cool new wrinkle that I desperately want to leave isolated to this movie and this movie alone.
(Also I love the way they do lightsaber fights in these two movies so much more than the prequel stuff, don't @me. Did I mention the part where all the red-garbed goons had their own polymorphing kung fu weapon? That was great!)
The biggest disagreement, and the thing that I want to come back to the most when thinking about TLJ, is about the film's moral core and message...which I think is VERY strong and threaded through the movie both expertly and thrillingly.
Going back to the OT and the prequels, we learn about the Jedi as Luke does...mighty heroes, moral and intellectual leaders, impossibly-skilled warriors who guard peace and justice. Then, we see them as they were at their height: enforcers for a corrupt government, cloistered, arrogant, hidebound. The failure of the prequel Jedi feeds into the essential wrongness of Obi-Wan and Yoda in Episode V and VI...their protestation against Luke's desire to save his friends, their focus on the war between Jedi and Sith and the final battle where son must slay father to defeat the Dark Side. They lie to him, trick him, groom him...and he rejects them, and in so doing, becomes a true Jedi and helps destroy the Emperor.
But not the Empire. The great blow against them lays in the hands of Leia, Han, Lando, Chewie, the Ewoks and the Rebels. Luke wins a great moral victory, stands strong against a great darkness and, in so doing, dispels it...but the crushing blow to the Empire, the destruction of their abomination, comes through guile and guts.
And that's what 'The Last Jedi' is about...not about The Hero, but about how brutality and oppression require that the people rise up, and that Heroes exist to inspire the best in all of us. The training scenes on Ahct-To are wonderful, both because they display Luke's understanding of this...but also how he's allowed despair and defeat to rob him of the strength this provided, to divorce himself from everyone who counts on and exalts him...because, when the crisis came, he failed, and he fears his vanity and arrogance (which he has extended, not completely incorrectly, to his Jedihood) will always bring about failure in the end.
But it won't! Because, as wrongheaded and harmful as the Jedi could be...they also WERE mighty heroes, they were moral and intellectual leaders, they were impossible warriors who guarded peace and justice...just not all the time. And not perfectly...at times, not even adequately. The galaxy needs the Jedi...not because the Jedi are the righteous heirs to the Force, but because the Jedi, more than anyone else, can REPRESENT the Force. They fight the battles no one else will, and, in doing so, INSPIRE people to dedicate themselves to those fights...to survive, to win. The galaxy needs the Jedi because the Rebels believe in the Jedi, and that belief lets them live and fight and die knowing that there is hope, even if they don't know that THEY are the hope.
Why is Rey the hero? Because, when the galaxy calls to her, when mystical forces churn within and offer power and influence and DESTINY...she chooses to be a Jedi. When she descends into the Evil Pit of Darkness, and looks in the mirror, and asks for her heart's desire...she sees nothing. Just herself. The dark side has nothing to offer her.
The dark side feeds on the pain inside of people...it offers the salve of power, of force, of vengeance. All of Rey's pain has become strength. It gave her the strength to survive on Jakku, to live off of what appears to be toothpaste-flavored instabread, to keep going in the hope that she'll see her loved ones again. When she finds a new star to guide her, friends and a cause, she may stumble but, in the end, she accepts them and rejects the lures of power, no matter how sympathetic she might be to whoever offers it.
But she's only one hero, and not even the hero that the Galaxy needs. That's the Resistance, the rebels, who's symbol she wore as a talisman when she was alone; whose humble engineers give Finn the jolt he needs to look past his own desires; who put up with Poe's impulsive gambles because they see the good in his heart.
And that ending...oh, man, that ending was something I didn't even know that I needed to see. My friend complained that, in the end, Rose and Finn's trip to Canto Bight was nothing but harmful to the cause. But, I reminded him, that we close out this movie not on the heroes triumphant...nor on the darkness growing within...but with the hope of a child for a better tomorrow, and knowledge that somewhere out there heroes are fighting for you, and that you are part of their struggled even if you only brush it for a moment. It's the best closing shot* yet, and I loved it.
https://i.imgur.com/7oCWB0z.mp4*Also, this simple, almost cheesy translation of the real-world feelings of Star Wars fans is so much fuckin' better than just making an ersatz version with a Mega-Dega-Ultra-Death Star and I will never stop disliking JJ Abrams' horseshit, even if I do enjoy some of his movies.
