Last Jedi: The Subverter

The subversion part of a Star Wars episode always tells us something definitive about the characters. By the time you're done with the subversion part of an episode you will have encountered the emotional core of all the characters, what they'll come back to time and time again. When in doubt the characters of Star Wars will always act upon what you see in the subversion part of the subversion chapter of their trilogy.  So what do we learn here?

Starting with Rey, we learn of her wish to define herself by her relationships, without having to reflect upon who she is. Unable to find an interior reference point she leans on Luke Skywalker, who obviously wasn't having anything to do with that nonsense. Ben is right to call her out on this weakness. If you can't be alone with yourself then who can you really be alone with? Well, as Rey finds out, nobody. Rey goes to the dark place in the island, which pulls her in. Since no one can teach her what she wants to know Rey reaches out to the darkness and finds.... herself. This sends her back, terrified, to Ben. She reaches out to Ben from the right, in an effort to end their loneliness, only to be stopped by Luke. Rey tries to reach through to Luke but ultimately abandons him, disgusted by her mentor's inability to move beyond his own perceptions to the need right in front of him. And, refusing to be perturbed by Luke's hatred of the Jedi, she takes the books with her.

Finn, Poe, and Rose, meanwhile, are so defined by their own compasses that they create disaster by ignoring the situation around them. They don't really care about what others say, they're going to do what they're going to do and to hell with everyone else.  While they want to step up and be heroes these three just can't imagine a world where they may have to stop, look, and listen to other people. This issue is what Finn's conversation with DJ revolves around: there is more going on than Finn would like to know about. The galaxy knew that the First Order was coming and not only didn't care but profited off of it! The galaxy does not care who is in charge by this point. But Finn doesn't seem to take this into account. Like Anakin, Finn only cares about saving those right in front of him, regardless of how others think they should be saved. It's this tragic tendency to overly rely upon one's self that leads to the destruction of all the shuttles. Most haters of TLJ complain about how pointless this particular set of arcs are, but in doing so they miss the point of what the film is trying to say. Far from being pointless it's the arc that ultimately sets up the message: we learn from our failures far more than our successes. And these protagonists have a lot to learn from, given how much they fail in this chapter!

Finn's failure in particular requires a closer look. But first:


 And then this:

These two fights play out opposite of each other, but end the same: Rey and Finn go to the right. In The Force Awakens Rey and Finn develop a strong bond quickly. Most people think of this bond as platonic, but no friend asks "Do you have a cute boyfriend?" anxiously. Sorry, but no male asks that question and, crawling behind said female, tries hard not to look at her backside in an embarrassed way. There is a reason why a couple proposed to each other dressed as Rey and Finn, because it's not platonic. The two bring out the very best in each other, and that's never a platonic thing, not on the level  they encountered in each other. They're so linked, in fact, that they wind up having mirroring journeys: both of them find out about their place in the world, not with each other (like it should have happened), but with black haired people with anger issues grieving over the death of a loved one. Finn's victory over Phasma is hollow, because he has defined himself without Rey.

Before getting to Kylo Ren and the death of Snoke I find that I have to address my least favorite part of arguing The Last Jedi: the jump into hyperspeed by Holdo. First off, let's get one thing out of the way: this was not a move done on purpose. Holdo, far as she was concerned, was going to do minimal damage to the Super Star Destroyer, assuming she did any damage at all. And that is, in fact, what happens. She bounced off the front. However, if you noticed, the Raddus's shields, when hit by turbolasers in the rest of the movie, flare differently than others. When dropping into hyperspace these experimental (and unique) shields reacted similarly to the Starkiller Base weapon, ripping hot plasma and debris through the fleet. You can see this as either the Force taking care of everyone or as an incredibly convenient plot armor. After all the other ridiculous thing that have happened in Star Wars you're only questioning the plot armor effects of the Force now? Somehow I feel it's a little late for that. That being said, the fact that this isn't better explained is really the only issue I have with The Last Jedi.

Kylo Ren's twist is one that I'd called... sorta. After recalling all the points of 2 and 5, back to back, and seeing The Last Jedi trailer I found myself knowing that Kylo Ren and Rey would team up and that maybe even Kylo would switch sides. Johnson, of course, played it out differently: Ben does kill Snoke (which checks off a promise that 2 and 5 try to fulfill and fail), but does not switch sides. His offer to Rey to destroy the Resistance and remake the galaxy comes from the left, and that's just...weird.

So what exactly is going on here? Keep in mind that Ben is, before all other things (like mass murderer, father killer, and all around jerk), a victim of abuse and manipulation. Snoke had been manipulating him from afar for decades, possibly all of Ben's life. Imagine if someone was constantly poking into your head and twisting everything you see and feel for decades, and all of a sudden you catch him admitting to it, ala the mind  connection with Rey. Your whole life has been revealed to be a blatant manipulation by some scarred jerk in a gold robe. So you kill the dude, wanting to be free. But your attempt to be free is colored by the person you're trying to break free from, right? Your whole life has been defined as power and blood and fatalism and all things awful. So, when you try to break free, you do it the only way you know how. This is why Rey's refusal and attack of Ben comes from the right: she mistakes Ben's attempts to become free for an act of malice and, furthermore, turns Ben back to malice by her offensive effort. It's tragic and ill-done on Rey's part. But, with Ben knocked out, Rey chooses to let him live. She gives him another chance.

This is all encapsulated in Luke's conversation with Yoda. Luke, in his years of depression and trying to fight himself, had forgotten the very essence of what it means to be a hero: to be born into a situation that only you can change. It matters little what the far reaching effects of your actions are, because there's very little you  can do to affect any of that. Luke is trying to keep the Sith from coming back, because wherever the Jedi are the Sith will inevitably follow. In refusing to come to his friends' aid Luke has finally caved into the bad advice that Yoda had given to Luke so many years ago: to sit it out, to allow the fight to go on without him. But Yoda learned a valuable lesson from Luke that day, and so he reminds Luke of what he knew so many years ago: do what you can, with what you have, for whomever is closest to you. The rest of it? There is no controlling it.

For those of you who look at this scene and go "But what about him destroying the tree and claiming that the books aren't page turners and ORGANIZED RELIGION IS BAD AND HOW DARE YOU SAY SOMETHING LIKE THIS"..... relax. Take a deep breath. Yoda knows that Rey has already taken the books. Yoda is trying to get Luke to let go of associating himself with the Jedi Order. What, don't believe me? How many times does Luke talk of himself in the same sense he does in the Order? It's throughout the movie. Post-ROTJ Luke has, not unreasonably, conflated himself with the Jedi Order. Yoda, by torching the tree, shows Luke that he will survive without the emotional crutch. Luke, all the way back in IV, had resolved to become a Jedi as a way to avoid the trauma of losing his aunt, uncle, father, and students. Don't believe me?

Luke deals with his aunt and uncles death by resolving to become a Jedi.

Luke mourns his father's death and is comforted later by Jedi.

Luke loses his temple by thinking like a Jedi

Yoda tells Luke to let his idea of the Jedi go.

For the first time in Luke's life, someone is with him in the death of something dear to him (No, Artoo does not count. Artoo cannot help Luke process). This scene is not about destroying the Jedi Order, it's about Luke finally being able to mourn all the horrible things that happened to him. Yoda understands and  gives Luke the one thing he's craved his entire life: closure. In death Yoda has finally evolved to be what he was always meant to be. I would say that this is the most beautiful scene in Star Wars for me, but that's coming up. I can't wait to write about it.

Last Jedi: The Opener

I've been waiting for this for over 8 months now. Even though I've written about The Last Jedi before, each time I found myself having a lot of difficulty doing so. This is because The Last Jedi is the best movie of the whole saga. Nope, didn't stutter, and no, I'm not crazy. Pound for pound, The Last Jedi understands what Star Wars is better than any of the original six and does a better job at executing Lucas's vision than any other movie in the series. It is the climax of the series, where everything comes to a head. When I think of The Last Jedi I think of the entire movie series. This movie is the climax of the Skywalker Saga. I doubt that I'm wrong, not at this point. If I am I will be more than happy to eat crow. But I think what I'm writing here is accurate, more or less. Like I say to my three year old son (who seems to have more maturity than a lot of The Last Jedi haters): ONWARD! TO THE REVIEW!

After the charm of Oscar Isaac had convinced Abrams to keep Poe on, we add him to the main characters in The Last Jedi. Let's be honest: Poe is a tool. I mean, what did you think was going to happen when the guy who was hopelessly outnumbered and captured by Kylo Ren was going to do when facing down a dreadnought, be serious? But let's not kid ourselves, Poe is a man-child with massive talent, which is perfect considering that he's military. Part of what makes the military so spiritually deadening is not caring about how something is done, so long as it gets accomplished. Those of you who would splutter at my seemingly flippant take on the military and ask about military honor have either never served in the U.S. military or are the type of vet that remained naive throughout their career. Hotshots like Poe can (and do) thrive in a military setting, where their character defects are ignored because of the results they generate... until someone needs them to be a leader. If the groomer has integrity they call out the soldier on the defects of character which, up until that time, were irrelevant. But if the groomer does not... well... that's how we get the vast majority of the U.S. Air Defense Artillery leadership, isn't it? Thank God Leia isn't ADA, cause Poe would have fit in quite nicely in that ancient and venerable branch of the U.S. Army.

(And for those of you who say that Leia couldn't have survived in the vacuum of space, please do some research and leave space fantasy, which you shouldn't be nitpicking at this level anyway, alone. Thanks.)

But Poe is in for a nasty surprise. Vice Admiral Holdo has no time for someone who lost her an entire bombing squad. So she lays it on him, giving him a speech that's incredibly common to hear in the military: shut up and do your job. Hell, as a vet I found her incredibly restrained, not once giving him the tongue-lashing that anyone with five second's time in bootcamp would have been expecting. I mean, I get it's PG-13, but the fact that there wasn't a single F-Bomb dropped along with a hardcore rant about Poe's clear ineptitude actually shows Holdo's charity to someone who just lost his rank for being a shitbag officer. But Poe is egotistical and when he gets the chance to help Finn go off on a half-assed horrific idea of a mission... he does. I'm going to say it again: the movie makes no effort to say that what they're doing is a good idea. No Star Wars plan is, by and large.

For his part, Finn is confronted by his own doppelganger: Rose. Like him, she was someone who worked behind the scenes. Unlike him, however, she's actually got a set of principles and is, contrary to first appearances, not naive. Rose genuinely believes in the cause of the Resistance, something that Finn has never had the luxury of having. The death of her sister Paige unlocked heroism within Rose, in direct contrast to Finn, who just became a runner. It's through her that we find out that The First Order has been preparing for this assault for at least twenty years. But their idiocy and haste gets them jailed, away from the master code breaker and they find themselves trusting DJ, who initially comes in from the right.... and of course they trust him! Because they're far more concerned about results than doing it right Finn and Rose show the callow of youth, begining a chain reaction that no one could have seen coming. Well, except for Maz. She probably would have. Too bad she's too busy being shot at right now.

Ben, for his part, finally encounters the truth that Han tried to tell him first hand: Snoke doesn't give one solitary crap about him and is only using him for his power.  Snoke belittles Ben and refuses to help him achieve any peace at all. Ben, enraged, finally sees that he's been living a lie the last few years. The manipulation that Snoke has been doing to Ben becomes obvious and he wants out of the trap that is his life. But does that mean killing his own mother? No, Ben can't, and that moment of self-questioning will hopefully grow in time. But, for the moment, he thinks that killing the past is a literal thing, as shown by his destruction of his own helmet. For those of you who think that Ben's killing of Snoke is out of left field I present the destruction of that helmet, which was his way of identifying with The First Order. It's not out of left field. Ben is looking for a way out, starting right then and there.

Rey's encounters with Luke are even worse off than I'd anticipated in my prediction of who Luke was. Luke is past despondent, he's ready to die....right? We'll get to Luke's motivations in a minute.With Rey and R2 Luke finds his old self coming back, bit by bit. He teaches Rey while belittling her idealism and shows, once and for all, that Yoda was right: he is afraid and he did succumb. This is where Luke has always been headed, to the point where he lost faith and needed someone's help to get back to the fight. The film does tell us in typical right to left fashion that Luke did fail Ben, and that Rey will also let Luke down, but that's coming up in the subversion, isn't it?

The Force Bond between Rey and Ben is not a new concept. Anakin and Padme had one, as did Anakin and Luke. So no, Force Bond is not a new thing. What's new is the suddenness and strength that it sets on here. Ben is taken aback by it because he knows enough to know this is beyond unusual; this is a one in a million occurrence. Rey, for her part, is too naive to get that she's walked into a situation that she doesn't have all the information for, and Ben is too bitter to do anything other than pretend he's still a monster. He even lies to her face about where he's at. Monsters don't experience doubt. And Ben definitely has more than a little doubt bouncing around in his heart.

Luke Skywalker is the key to The Last Jedi's narrative. The story of Star Wars has always been about how the real enemy is not the Trade Federation, or the Empire, or the Sith, or anyone else; the protagonist must discover that they are their own worst enemy. No one can stop you but you. It doesn't matter what is going on outside of you, if you are your own enemy you will never win at anything.  But sometimes you wonder if you can actually defeat yourself. Sometimes, looking at the interior battle that lies before you, you start to think that the best way to win (and thus help everyone) is not to battle yourself at all. Sometimes, when you face an aspect of yourself that's much darker than expected, you hang up your sword and call it quits, convinced you can't win. Cowed by your own darkness you sequester yourself away emotionally, trying to count down the days until you draw your last breath. You can't kill yourself, because there's still something good in you and you can't kill that. In fact, it's the good in you that comes to the conclusion that only by suffering alone can you help anyone else. In a really screwed up way this is a courageous move.

That is exactly what Luke has done. No, he didn't do the right thing. But he did the next best thing he could think of.

Force Awakens: The Closer

I'm really happy with Rey's motif being a hug. Be it with Finn or Leia, Rey's symbol is always a hug. Someone finally coming back for her. Finn may not have much of a center yet but there is something really good inside of him. The death of his friend (whoever it was) at the beginning of this movie had woken something that Finn had never felt before, a tiny spark of goodness. Journeying around with Rey has made that spark into a small flame. But he hugs her from the right. This isn't what Finn is looking for. His friend died right there in front of him, and he could do nothing about it.This is not the catharsis Finn is looking for, even though he'd really like it to be.





"My son is alive". This comes from the left. Kylo Ren is a mask, a shell, for a hurting and abandoned Ben Solo, who was going to respond to his father... until the light goes away. I'm not sure Snoke had anything to do with Ben's sudden change of heart, but I'm willing to bet that, even if Snoke wasn't directly involved, Snoke's brainwashing was too strong this time around. Ben is hoping that if he can remove his connections he can be free of the pain that he feels, but Leia's pain stuns him and he gets shot in the gut.

Ben is coming from the left, again. So what's he up to? Clearly he's angry at Finn for leaving The First Order (and this completes the loop of them staring at each other over a battlefield), but the film portrays this pain as legitimate. There's something happening inside of Ben with his father's death and no one is catching it. Instead of realizing "Hey, this guy still has something inside of him and we might be able to turn him" they're (understandably) overwhelmed by their emotions and turn on Ben.

This is the key tragedy: Ben can be turned but nobody seems to understand how to do it. Rey calls him a monster and she's wrong. And it becomes obvious that Ben's intentions towards Rey are not lethal: he wants to teach her! She looks inside... and comes back with the Dark Side of the Force. Make no mistake, she's falling here, overwhelmed by her emotions and by reaching into Kylo Ren's memories so she can be...somewhat of a match for Ben? Cause make no mistake, Rey is no match for Ben, on any level. She has a lot of raw power and is learning to access the powers from Ben's memories, but this is not a fight between equals, by any means. He's not trying to kill her here, he wants to teach her and he's nursing a wound that should have scooped out his insides. But fortunately she's spared from her fall and goes off to find Luke so that way she can figure out how to control this power that accidentally became hers. What could go wrong?

Again, this movie makes the case that Rey is no Luke. All of Luke's biggest moments stand in sharp contradiction to Anakin's. Whereas Anakin started naive and became more and more spiritually insensitive, complaining about his lack of power (the only way he had of saying "Something's wrong"!), Luke, by becoming more spiritually sensitive, realizes that there is a great deal wrong in the galaxy. Rey, on the other hand, becomes aware that something is wrong because she fails. Going to Luke is her way of trying to become better, in the face of her failure with Ben, which she doesn't understand.

And this shot sums up what's coming...

Force Awakens: The Subverter

Well, this is different. Lightsaber crystals have been revealed to be semi-sentient things in new canon, but one calling out to someone? That's totally unprecedented. Whereas Luke was handed his father's lightsaber and pretty much ignored it Rey actually bonds with the darn thing. However Maz got it is irrelevant, she has it and that's all that matters. What matters is that crystals don't just go and bond with new people. In fact, Sith usually break a crystal of this bond and forge a new, perverse, bond with it, which is why it bleeds red. Ahsoka Tano has lightsabers without color because she undid the damage, but there's no evidence that the crystals actually chose this. With Rey, however, the crystal calls out and bonds to her, even after having been bonded to Anakin. Rey, to her credit, is as puzzled as we are, although a good deal more scared. She runs off, vowing to never touch that bloody lightsaber ever again. Can't say I blame her.

And with this, she starts the beginning of the end of the New Republic, undoing Luke's affirmation of who he is. Most of this movie is about Rey not being Luke and everyone suffering on account of it. Analogically she denies her calling and the world suffers on account of it. With the New Republic gone the First Order can now have a field day with the rest of the galaxy. Good job Rey, this is all your fault. Get used to it, too. The Sequel trilogy brings back the tragedy of the Prequels: personal failures lead to galactic failures. Or, as the Emerald Tablet of Hermes says: "As it is above so it is below and as it is below so is it above". Rey doesn't yet understand this principle. Unlike Luke and Anakin she has no guide and the narrative is propelled forward, without their guidance. I may have ragged on Obi-Wan and Yoda for being bad mentors but the Sequel Trilogy makes a powerful case for the superiority of a bad mentor over none at all.

But it's not just Rey's failure that makes things worse, but Finn's. Finn, who can't see any way to beat The First Order, abandoned Rey, who was left alone and defenseless against Kylo Ren, who easily takes the scared and confused Rey. Finn pays for his cowardice by losing the connection that made his turn from The First Order mean anything at all. Finn had found meaning with Rey and in losing her rediscovers it. But it's too little too late. Finn is forced to re-live the loss he had faced at the beginning of this movie. By failing Rey Finn has failed his friend.

Han and Leia's reunion is sad but informative. Like I'd said in the previous post, we know what the issue is and everyone but Rey and Finn have known for a long time what happened and why it did. Leia tells Han he can reach their son. It's from the right. We know she's wrong, and so does Han, sadly, but he doesn't want to believe it. It's at this point where Han knows he's going to die and, if we're being honest, so does the audience. But Han knows he has to try, as does Luke in RotJ. This subverts that conversation, undoing it by the knowledge that Han is destined to fail where Luke succeeded. Each and every stroke of this movie has been designed to take RotJ and cut it apart, revealing that the people were of the previous trilogy are just that, people. Heroism is not an inborn trait, it's a gift, and when that gift leaves you there's no faking it. Heroism left with Luke and nobody (and I do mean nobody) else in this entire series has had it so far. It's a hard pill to swallow.

And finally we get the conversation between Rey and Ben. What's important to note here is that Rey has been dreaming of Ach-To for years, probably since before Luke went there. Ben picks up on this odd dream and tries to address it, but his attempts at empathy are limited by his role in The First Order. But something wakes up inside of Rey. As she fights back against Ben they both realize that they share a connection that they do not understand and that is most unwelcome. But connections come with knowledge of the other, including their methods. And Rey is a fast learner. She takes the knowledge she begins to glean from Kylo Ren and turns it back on him. In a similar move from Empire Rey learns about the Force by connecting to Ben and adapting to it. This is not someone who's a virtuoso, but a desperate attempt to fight off mental invasion. And the thing is that Ben, on some level, knows it as well. He doesn't ask how she does it, Ben knows full well how she learned how to fight back against him! And, with this new connection, Rey questions Ben's ability to live up to his idol, Darth Vader, thoroughly shaking him to the core. Now Ben doubts in a completely different way. He doubts his own identity and needs to find a way to prove to himself that he is who he says he is.