Here’s my list for The Last Jedi, the second installment of the sequel trilogy. You can find my thoughts on The Force Awakens here.
Favorite Scene
Luke facing down the First Order on Crait. When Luke says to Rey on Ach-To “What, you think I’m going to face down the First Order all by myself with a laser sword?” little did we know that that is exactly what he was going to do. Because in the end, he’s Luke Skywalker, and he does heroic things. He just forgot for awhile, or rather, rejected it. And he did it in the most Jedi-like way: non-aggressive, his actions a subterfuge for a higher purpose–giving the Resistance time to get away. And the fact that he wasn’t actually there just blows my mind. I didn’t see it, at first; I just thought he cleaned up for his appearance, you know? I didn’t notice the clues: the fact that he didn’t leave any red footprints in the salt; Leia’s lack of worry at her brother facing down the enemy alone; his wink at C-3PO; and where the heck did he come from, anyway? His scuffle with Kylo and the “See ya around, kid,” was great, and the fact that he sacrificed himself to do this–and more than likely knew he would die doing it–is just profoundly sad and awe-inspiring. A great scene in a movie full of great scenes.
Favorite Duel
Rey and Kylo vs. Snoke’s guards. This was an eye-popping duel, the likes of which we haven’t seen since the prequels. Everything’s red as blood, and Kylo and Rey are working together rather than against each other. And they are a force to be reckoned with. We don’t hear the word “dyad” yet, not until TROS, but these two clearly work well together, and their connection in the Force is apparent. I love Rey’s savage yells, and how Kylo keeps checking on Rey when he can. It’s a foreshadowing of their working together in TROS at Exegol, but here it’s only their potential. As long as Ben is Kylo, it ain’t gonna happen.
Favorite Line
“You’re nothing. But not to me.” This is one of those “Um, thank you?” statements that insult and gratify at the same time. Kylo doesn’t get any points for charm here, but he doesn’t have time for that. He gets right to the point. And so when he holds out his hand to Rey and asks him to join her, adding a vulnerable “please,” you almost want her to take his hand already, for goodness sake. Almost. Again, Rey feels the connection, but can’t accept Ben as Kylo, and rightfully so.
Funniest Moment
General Hugs. Some people thought that this little exchange between Poe and Hux was dumb or silly, but I thought it was pretty funny myself. But I have a goofy sense of humor. I do think it’s exactly in Poe’s nature to mess with Hux like this, and Hux to be fastidious enough to take the bait. When Poe says into his comm “Yeah, I’m looking for General Hugs,” I chuckled. Good enough for me.
Most Impactful Character
Luke Skywalker. See aforementioned “Favorite Scene,” as Luke saved the day in this film. But it wasn’t just that scene that makes Luke the most impactful here; the whole movie was his, when you think about it. Everyone’s been looking for him, Rey finally finds him and–oh my goodness, why is he so crabby?–and we have to process and react to that; we find out that his moment of weakness was the nail in the coffin of Ben Solo and put him on the path to Kylo Ren. Everything centers and swirls around Luke here. We even get to see Yoda once more! A lot of people didn’t like how Luke was portrayed in this movie, and I understand that. Call me weird, but I liked it from the get-go. My first thought was, “Oh, this is interesting.” I HAD to know what the hell had happened to Luke, what was going on his mind, and if and how it would change by the end of the film. What I loved about The Last Jedi as a whole was how it just subverted all of our expectations. The Empire Strikes Back, the second film of the original trilogy, did much the same. TLJ is following a pattern, where the good guys take heavy losses, and characters surprise us in numerous ways. Anyway, that’s a whole other post, lol, but Luke gets the prize for this one.
What did you like about The Last Jedi? Comment below and we’ll talk about it!
Star Wars and Other Obsessions 
My girlfriend and I both liked TLJ a lot. It’s been disappointing to seem so much hate leveled at it from a small but extremely vocal (and extremely negative) segment of fandom.
Luke Skywalker as a flawed, fallen hero was at first shocking, but Rian Johnson did an excellent job at really making it work. I appreciated the callbacks to the Prequels, and how Luke had unwittingly become trapped by the exact same overconfidence and hubris that brought down the Jedi Order.
The battle in the throne room was awesome, one of my favorite scenes out of any SW movie.
While I felt the execution of the whole Canto Bight subplot was a bit off and needed some fine-tuning, I did appreciate that Rian Johnson was willing to take the story in a more morally ambiguous direction. Revealing that the war profiteers based in Canto Bight had gained their extreme wealth by selling weapons to the First Order *and* the Resistance, perpetuating a state of continuous warfare to be endlessly exploited, was a surprising direct critique of America’s military industrial complex.
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Good points. At first the whole Canto Bight sequence seemed distracting to me, as well as the seemingly pointless feud between Holdo and Poe. But after several viewings, I’ve come to love everything about TLJ, and realize the brilliance of Rian Johnson. The TLJ hate (as well as the whole sequel trilogy hate) saddens me, but I’m hoping they will come around after a while. I myself did not like the prequels when they came out, but I adore them now, lol. So there’s hope.
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