Thoughts On TLJ (Spoilers, Duh)

TLJ is in my very soul tormenting me.

This is a strange, polarizing film. It’s one of those things where there are many problems with it yet whenever something was done right, it was as great as anything in Eps I-VI or the best episodes of The Clone Wars.  I’ve only seen it once so far and I plan to see it again soon, but it’s left me so conflicted.  And this review will reflect that conflict.

Let’s look to the dark side first, shall we?

TFA’s nihilistic aftertaste continues primarily in Luke’s characterization.  I’m not surprised by how he initially treats Rey.  In some ways it’s similar to how Yoda treated Luke in TESB, testing a new student’s seriousness.  In fact, the scene where he trolls her in their first lesson was genuinely funny.  But Luke has shut himself off to the Force and forsworn ever training any more Jedi due to the monstrous act he nearly commits on Ben Solo that drives him into Snoke’s waiting arms.  Luke comes off as bitter and cynical for most of his time onscreen.  I suspect this is the single most controversial thing about the film and for those of us who have followed Luke’s journey for 40 years, this was very hard to watch.  I understand what Johnson was trying to do; it calls back to Anakin attempting to prevent something only causing it to happen anyway.  But it still seems a little extreme (later on in the review I’ll get to a theory that might get Luke and Johnson sort of off the hook) and Luke is not the kind of person who would give up on anyone.  His optimism and dedication to those he loved defined him.  But it’s par for the course with TFA giving us a Han Solo who walked out on his wife and never apologized, and a Leia who fared better but for unknown reasons never became a Jedi and outsourced bad son confrontation to the one guy without magical powers.   Then hardly anyone seemed to care when Han ended up dead.  He didn’t even get a funeral.

                                                       Life sucks, then you die

The people who cooked up the story seem to feel the best way to continue the saga is to make the heroes of the original trilogy into failures whose triumphs meant nothing.  TLJ may have revealed why that is in Kylo Ren’s speech about “killing the past,” the odd burning of the tree and presumably Jedi books (though I think Rey saved them), and the film’s ending with a random kid instead of the main heroes.  Whenever you bring JJ Abrams onboard a franchise, his first impulse is to change it.  His mantra seems to be “everything must be different.”  He and Disney know how to work the nostalgia factor, but it’s in a very shallow, window-dressing kind of way.  (Yes, I know Johnson wrote this film but he was basing it on a story that Abrams and co. have already worked out.)  I agree there needs to be a new order so to speak but there’s also something to be said about tradition in how these films are made as well as in-universe.  You might not care there wasn’t a lightsaber battle or that no one says “I have a bad feeling about this,” but it adds to the suspicion that they don’t care if their films work with Lucas’s films or not. There’s just something bizarre and sad about Star Wars films that borrow the saga’s iconography, its galaxy, and some of its characters but don’t pay attention to how Eps I-VI worked.  For example, both TESB and AOTC advance their trilogies’ middle chapters in a particular way while TLJ is circular.  It ends basically where it started, with the exception of little woke kid.  Sure there’s character development in the middle act and some departures but not a heck of a lot changes narratively from the end of TFA to the end of TLJ.  Another example is the rather contemporary dialogue in the film.  Say what you will about Lucas’s “stilted” dialogue but it at least gave the films a sense of being in their own time and place.  Certain lines in the script, like Poe referring to a “big ass door” or Finn calling somebody a “bastard,” just seem too Earth 2017 instead of long ago in a faraway galaxy.

The worldbuilding is just as wonky this time around as with TFA.  Who are the First Order?  What do they want?  This film at least drops a hint that war profiteers are in part behind the First Order’s aggressions.  Who are the knights of Ren and how are they different from the Sith other than glowing red eyes aren’t required to join?  Why do they keep fluctuating between “resistance” and “rebels,” even though it’s basically the Republic playing defense against a coup?

The biggest millstone though is this continues the feeling the Skywalkers have been sidelined in their own story.  Too much time is taken on the side plots, especially the jaunt to Canto Brite that doesn’t accomplish very much besides some character development for Finn, a plot hole involving sleazy DJ, and a chance to briefly bring back then permanently dispatch nothingburger character Captain Phasma.  Oscar Isaac is a really good actor who does the best he can with brash Poe learning to be humble Poe by not questioning his middle aged women superiors, but in the grand scheme of things, he’s basically Wedge Antilles with a bigger role.  Finn learns from Rose about serving something bigger than himself and he decides to become the hero he’d always imagined himself to be, but really, what connection does he have to the whole?  The OT and the PT were about the Skywalkers, their friends, their lovers, their mentors, their students, their co-adventurers, and their enemies.  This is about a collection of people who might bump into Leia every now and then, or can play six degrees of Kylo Ren.  I get that ultimately we’re nearing the end of the Skywalker saga but bringing in woke kids and granting importance to random people this soon is jumping the gun, as though they’re really eager to get those pesky problematic Lucas heroes out the door.

Then there are the film’s bizarre, WTF moments.  Force Ghost Yoda makes an unexpected cameo where he looks like his OT era puppet self, only a lot worse.  His “we don’t need no texts, let the mo-fos burn” remarks were strange; the Jedi messed up in the past not because their teachings were wrong but because they got too embroiled in galactic politics and failed to adapt to changes in the Force.  They destroyed the tree without us knowing very much about it and as mentioned, I think Rey saved the books anyway.  I’m glad they finally showed us Leia’s abilities with the Force but the “space angel” bit is staged too awkwardly and too reminiscent of Data’s silly space jump in “Star Trek Nemesis.”  My mom and I burst out laughing.   Did we really need to see Luke grabbing that big space walrus teet and milking it?

Obligatory porg photo.

Again, would it kill them to show us one familiar alien?  I’m all for coming up with new ideas but a Zabrak here, a Togruta there, a Quarren, etc. would do a lot to remind us we’re in the same galaxy we’ve been visiting for four decades.  I guess that violates the current “kill the past” policy too.

On the light side, I’ll say this first:  at least Johnson has the sense to know the difference between mirroring or callbacks and flat out pilfering scenes from other films.  If you were worried this was going to be karaoke TESB, you can breathe a big sigh of relief.

For all of Luke’s stroppiness, Hamill kills it in his performance.  His finest moment comes toward the end where he displays how powerful he really is when he opens up to the Force and his related death as the sun sets on Atch-Ooo or whatever it’s called was pitch-perfect.

I can see why Lucas has said this was a beautifully-made film.  In this sense it is absolutely superior to TFA, which was sometimes ugly, flat, and cheap-looking.  Johnson has a magnificent eye and an artist’s soul.  Canto Bright looked amazing.  Atch-Ooo was beautiful.  Snoke’s throne room was amazing in its simplicity and symbolism.  The space battles look as good as anything from the OT or PT.   The symbolism in multiple shots were great too.  For example, Rey standing next to a panel of light while Kylo is standing next to a panel of mostly dark, or the red just beneath the surface of salt on Crait.  There were great visuals to go with Rey describing how she perceives the Force early on in her training.  Originality like that is very welcome in my book.

Williams’s score is also far better than his TFA score.  It still lacks a knock ’em out track but it is still beautiful to listen to and fulfilled more of the part-of-the-story function performed in the other Star Wars films.  I detect some influence from his AOTC score.

To my great relief, Johnson seems to care a lot more about the relationships between characters and thankfully doesn’t waste any opportunities.  Luke and Leia are reunited; it’s not in the orthodox sense but he’s present enough for their scene to have power and poignancy.  Especially with Carrie Fisher gone now.  When Luke kisses Leia on the forehead and gives her Han’s old dice from the Falcon, it’s acknowledging the love and history among all of them.  Amazing scene.  I also loved the part where Artoo–who is hidden away too often for some reason–shows Luke the old holo of Leia from ANH to remind him of his old self.  And Johnson has the decency to make sure Leia embraces Chewie this time around!

The porgs were cute but stop well short of overkill.  I’m sure people will complain about them anyway but they were effective comedic relief.  The foxes on Crait were cool and actually served a purpose in the plot.

My favorite thing about TLJ though shocked me and shook me to my core:  the Kylo Ren and Rey arc.  When I walked into the theater, I wasn’t a big fan of either one of them.  Rey to me was the Mary Sue-ish usurper of the Skywalker story who had things handed to her too easily in TFA, even though I do like Daisy Ridley as a performer.  Kylo Ren was Han and Leia’s idiot a-hole of a son who clearly had some mental/emotional issues.  When I walked out of the theater, they were what mattered to me the most.  That sneaky Johnson managed to slip in a romance that’s more than a romance.  It’s a relationship with cosmic consequences and if you know me, two things are my Star Wars catnip:  angsty love and mythological stuff.

(*Uh oh, did lazypadawan go Reylo on us?   Quick, everybody back up toward the exits.*)

When I first saw TFA, I noticed there was some kind of connection between them but I didn’t realize the sexual overtones until I saw it a second time several months later.  The connection between them in this film is still sexual to some degree.  When they start “Force Skyping,” Kylo appears shirtless and a flustered Rey asks him to put on a shirt, which he ignores.  It’s like the Force version of sending a naughty selfie, heh heh.  But there is far more to it than desire or foeyay sexual tension popularized on “Buffy The Vampire Slayer” or “Smallville.”  Their scenes together were searingly powerful and heartbreaking in every aspect.  They are literally the only people in the universe who understand each other because there is no one else like them; I’ll get to my theory on what they are in a moment.  Kylo/Ben is estranged from his family and she never knew hers but wants answers.   They explore their issues together and he ends up baring his soul to her and by extension to us.  Whether he meant to or not, he revealed the Ben Solo hiding inside of him.   He experiences her first rainstorm with her, his hand getting wet on Snoke’s ship parsecs away in space.  The scene where the two reach across the Force and touch hands, was beautiful and intimate.  I hadn’t seen anything like this since Anakin and Padmé’s connection in ROTS.  It really touched me.  And then Luke busts in and freaks out as though he’d caught the two of them in flagrante delicto.

                                                        ALL. THE. FEELS.

Kylo/Ben has fallen in love with Rey and Rey in turn develops compassion and love for Ben.  This leads to her undergoing a mission similar to when Luke left Yoda too soon in TESB to rescue his friends, complete with Luke warning her this wasn’t going to turn out the way she expects.  What she says of course is true.  But since we’ve got one movie to go, we know she probably isn’t going to succeed and that Luke is right.

My other favorite Reylo moment was the incredible fight scene in the throne room.  If Snoke thought he won the lottery he guessed wrong.  The bond between Rey and Kylo/Ben was real and I still can’t figure out if she killed Snoke or he killed Snoke or perhaps they both killed him.  Anyway, Snoke deserves to die for being a cheap wannabe Palpatine and for having the stupidest name in the saga’s history.  The bonded pair then engage in a battle with guards against the passionate red backdrop of the throne room.  Together these two are unstoppable.  They move in perfect harmony and never take their eyes off each other.  It’s brilliant display of yin and yang, light and dark, man and woman, anima and animus, balanced together and powerful.

And then Kylo had to jack it all up when it’s over.  Rey finds out the hard way she was too naive about the nature of the dark side and the severe emotional issues Kylo has.  She gives her own version of “you’re going down a path I cannot follow,” begging Ben to come back to the good side as he is asking her to join him and rule the galaxy together.  Note to Skywalker men:  this never works, stop asking.  Kylo then follows it up with what you kids call “a total d*ck move,”  going right to her deepest vulnerabilities to hurt her (“you have no place in this story”) and yet he also tells her in his weird way that he loves her (“you are nothing…but not to me”) that’s right out of Pride And Prejudice.  But the damage is done and they fight over the family lightsaber that splits in half.

Let’s break this down.  Kylo/Ben and Rey each had visions about the other they were certain were to come true.  Kylo’s vision is Rey will be “by his side” which he interprets to mean that she will become his queen and rule the universe with him.  Rey’s visions were about Ben’s great future which she interprets to mean he’ll turn and become a hero for her side.  What neither of them realize is that while the future’s always in motion both visions are true but instead of trusting the Force, they tried to impose their own agendas on these visions.   The other problem is Rey went to Kylo out of compassion for Ben but also to help her side “win.”  That’s not why Luke went to Darth Vader.  This break between them has tremendous consequences.  Thanks to Kylo and Rey’s inability to reconcile, a zillion beings are going to die in a galactic war because both have subscribed to “might makes right.”  Sure, the First Order is horrible and they need to be stopped but there shouldn’t be any joy in a new Rebellion or whatever forming either.  If there is any hope for peace in the galaxy, there must be atonement between Ben and Rey.  I promise you that the opening of Ep. IX will show them so far apart and Kylo so trapped in his own guilt, rage, trauma, and pain that we will doubt it’ll happen.  But it has to happen.  Think back to TFA where they duel on the Starkiller.  The ground cracks between them.  Why?  They were never supposed to be enemies.

Let me explain.  I think that Ben and Rey are something totally new since they were conceived after the Force was balanced in ROTJ.  This is why Luke feared him just as the Jedi feared Anakin in the prequels; he didn’t understand what Ben was, so Luke reflexively attempts to stomp on “darkness” the way you’d try to stomp on a bug.  I don’t think Ben was fated to be Kylo but I think he was part of the equation of the balanced Force.  Rey is the other half of the equation.  As the saying in the film goes, as darkness rises, so does the light and vice versa.  Together they are the balanced Force and they must lead the new Jedi together.  Now I don’t know where Rey came from and I don’t think the “your parents were drunks” story was the full story.  For all we know, Anakin created her in the Force and sent her a la Laura Palmer in the eighth episode of Twin Peaks:  The Return.  I suppose we’ll find out in IX.  Maybe.

                                                       I don’t trust nobody and nobody trusts me…

But what has to be destroyed is Kylo and the only person who can do that is Ben.  I think he’s going to find that heavy is the head that wears the crown as he always has to sleep with one eye open to watch out for General Rick Astley.  He will be alone in a hell of own making.  He’s going to have to realize that violence and death will only make his pain worse and that no amount of killing will erase the past.  For her part, if Rey ever approaches Kylo/Ben again it has to be purely out of unconditional love for him and not for any other reason.

Bravo to Johnson, Daisy Ridley, and Adam Driver for this fascinating arc.  They’re the balloons that help lift this house off of what mired TFA.

Overall TLJ is a confounding experience.  I’m kind of surprised Disney went with along with this after its meddling in Rogue One and making the super safe TFA.  I can understand why some people loved it and I can understand why some people hated it.

You’re tearing me apart, movie!

The question is will IX be worthy of what Johnson set up or will it go it with a whimper instead of a bang?  The ball is back in J.J. Abrams’s court.

To quote the very last line in Plan 9 From Outer Space, “God help us in the future.”

Tags: Saga