pReview: The Last Jedi

 

So - large and exciting plans for the holiday season?  Personally, I'll be starting my Christmas break with a trip to the Scotiabank theatre this Friday to see The Last Jedi with Karli and her squad. It is my fond hope to avoid any spoilers for the next four days*, so if you've seen the film, please keep any comments generic.

Normally, I don’t mind having a little information going in:  for example, when I saw A New Hope in theatrical release, I'd already read the novelization (which I still own, although it's in rough shape) and probably a couple of issues of the Marvel comic book adaptation. However, in this case, I’m doing my best to learn as little as possible about the film, simply because I’m expecting - or at least hoping - to be surprised by answers to some of the questions raised by The Force Awakens.

First, the big question, the one that should probably be the focus of The Last Jedi: what has Luke been doing since the Battle of Endor?  Yes, we’ve gotten hints about the Knights of Ren, and obviously something went horribly wrong in Luke’s attempt to recreate the Jedi, but it’s been 30 years - what else has happened in Luke’s life?

 

I'm very curious about this, because life has not been kind to Luke Skywalker. In the first installment, Luke is the New Hope, and the assumption is that it’s him, rather than his father, who is the Chosen One who will bring balance to the Force - and where does it get him? 

Poor Luke:  lied to by Ob-Wan and dragged into a conflict of galactic proportions, he ends up maimed, scarred, and a witness to his father's death, the father who still remains the poster child for the Dark Side 30 years after his death. It's impressive that Luke would have attempted to revive the Jedi after everything he's been through in their name, and heartbreaking that his attempt was a failure. Looking at his life from that perspective, it’s not surprising that Luke would bitterly turn his back on everything and everyone - how much disappointment can one person handle?

 

Second, I think we’d all like to know who Rey is – or, more accurately, who her parents are. There’s been a certain amount of speculation that she’s Luke’s daughter, although I don’t see that as being likely, in spite of her extreme reaction to Luke’s long lost lightsaber and the proven tendency of the Skywalker children to be discovered on desert planets. I suspect that if Rey was Luke’s child, it would be immediately obvious to anyone with even hint of Force abilities, let alone her cousin and her aunt. 

Perhaps Obi-Wan Kenobi’s grandchild? Hmmm. Possible but a bit of a stretch, given that there’s not even a hint that old Ben ever decided to ignore the Jedi injunction against attachment after the fall of the Republic.

All that being said, let’s not forget this useful exchange from Spaceballs:

Dark Helmet: Before you die there is something you should know about us, Lone Star.
Lone Starr: What?
Dark Helmet: I am your father's brother's nephew's cousin's former roommate.
Lone Starr: What's that make us?
Dark Helmet: Absolutely nothing!

Let’s face it, it’s a big universe, it may well be that Rey’s back story is solely one of abandonment, rather than abandonment by someone we know.  Obviously, she has to be someone’s child, but not necessarily the child of someone named Skywalker.

Similarly, are we going to discover that Supreme Leader Snoke (worst villain name ever, by the way) is actually someone from the other movies, like Emperor Palpatine or even Anakin Skywalker?  Both seem equally unlikely, but there aren’t really a lot of other options if they decided to go that route – who else could it be? There actually aren't that many choices for a returning villain.  Snoke’s brutally scarred visage suggests that there has to be some kind of significant back story involving lightsabers and/or explosions, or else why bother having him look like that? 

Both of these questions share the same characteristics: the plot seems to demand some kind of significance for both the puzzle of Rey’s heritage and the mystery of Snoke’s injuries, but none of the options seem to make any sense.

Personally, I'd like there to be no connections with anyone, with just as much of a clean slate as possible for the new characters.  The death of Han Solo in The Force Awakens sends a clear message, and that message is that this is not your father's Star Wars - or his lightsaber.

  - Sid

* We really need to establish a baseline for this. Is four weeks a good spoiler buffer?  At what point can we assume that plot details are common knowledge?  For example, if anyone reading this was previously unaware that Darth Vader is Luke's father, my apologies – but it’s been 37 years, that has to be old news by now.