The Last Jedi

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"Star Wars went from Sith to shit."

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I did not expect to hate The Last Jedi. The original trilogy was a big part of my childhood, but I have never been a die-hard Star Wars fanatic. Also, let's face it, after the prequel trilogy's Jar Jar Binks, Flubber-Yoda, and Darth Vader's cringe-worthy scream of "NOOOO!" the bar had not been set exactly high. But I almost walked out of this movie.

People enjoy Star Wars because it offers an escape from everyday banalities. When the opening credits started rolling, that is what I expected to get. Only fifteen minutes into the movie, I realized that I was being served a ham-handed lesson about Identity Politics™.

I left the theater confused, clinging to the hope that I am suffering from severe delusions, seeing imaginary interstellar chief diversity officers after watching one too many political debates. After all, at that point, I had avoided spoilers like fire. To my disappointment, I soon found out that millions of fans around the world share my sentiment. 

"The Last Jedi is a textbook bait-and-switch."

There is nothing wrong with having a moral to the story. But Star Wars is supposed to be about the Force and not about force-feeding a questionable, intellectually void ideology. The Last Jedi is a horrible movie because it is a textbook bait-and-switch. Fans were promised the return of Luke Skywalker. They got 2.5 hours of feminists fighting against the bourgeoisie.

This was not an accident. Director Rian Johnson probably had the following checklist for his screenplay:

   ♀ Mansplaining
   ♀ Toxic Masculinity
   ♀ Patriarchy
   ♀ Female Leadership
   ♀ Animal Rights
   ♀ War Profiteering
   ♀ Racial Diversity

Yanking in so much Identity Politics™ claptrap makes The Last Jedi a way too conspicuous socio-political statement. Johnson only forgot to include LGBTQ representation into the mess. The funny thing is, I actually support many of these ideals. I have my reservations about the most toxic strains of contemporary feminism, but I have often cheered for taking a progressive standpoint in movies. I certainly have nothing against animal rights. So why did I hate this movie so much?

"Political statements are either painfully obvious or leave the audience blissfully oblivious."

The original trilogy was not by any means an epitome of bigotry and patriarchal oppression. Lando Calrissian was a black leader and hero. Leia Organa is likewise both a senator and general, a personification of female empowerment. Yet if George Lucas wanted to make a statement about racial and gender equality, he managed to do it in a way that was not distracting. It just worked marvelously.

When it comes to making political statements, they are either painfully obvious or leave the audience blissfully oblivious. The Last Jedi is a paradigm of the former case. Johnson's Star Wars is apathetic, characters are flat, and dialogue is lacking in depth, so when the moral lessons come, they stick out like an angry Luke Skywalker drinking raw alien milk.

What makes or breaks the movie are the plot and overall entertainment value. If the thematic underpinnings tickle the rights spots, scenes are mindblowing, and acting outstanding, a lot can be excused. The Last Jedi misses all the marks. The story is boring and makes little sense, and no scene gets past mediocrity. It is just an overlong cinematic failure.

Who is Snoke? And when he arrived, why did Luke and the rest of the then-victorious Rebellion just roll over? George Lucas had the privilege of creating his universe from the scratch, so it did not matter whatever happened before The New Hope. This time, the audience had every reason to come in with expectations and demand answers. After two movies, it is clear that J. J. Abrams and Rian Johnson have their own vision for the franchise and as far as they are concerned, the old trilogy and its fans can go to hell.

The new franchise is pure Disney and those of us who wanted to rekindle childhood nostalgia just have to accept that this is not the Star Wars universe we were looking for. Disney's Star Wars is just another of their many cash cows. They do not make movies to tell good stories. They make movies to sell tickets and merchandise. Marketing departments have their say at every level of production. Even controversies are often designed to get media exposure.

Let's face it, The Last Jedi was not a commercial failure. It is as badly written as 50 Shades of Grey but just like this atrocious excuse for a novel, being asinine fan fiction is not enough to deter CGI-hungry masses devoid of taste for a good narrative. Most people simply do not care that much about neither the mythology of Star Wars nor Identity Politics™. It satisfies the needs of the hoi polloi and the rest is irrelevant.

"This is not the franchise you are looking for."

In the end, Disney is only accountable to its stockholders and all public companies are ultimately in the profit-maximization business. Perverting an established space opera and outraging a small segment of hardcore fans does not make a money-hungry studio blink if the movie is still attractive to the larger crowds. I won't be interested in seeing another Star Wars film after this, which makes The Last Jedi, ironically, my last Jedi. Yet I doubt there will be enough foot voters like me to turn the upcoming installations into box office bombs.

But there is one thing about The Last Jedi that I have thoroughly enjoyed: the ridicule of it. Leia depicted as Mary Poppins is hilarious. Yet what really made me laugh with tears in my eyes was the latest episode of The Manosphere Strikes Back. They published a 46-minute cut titled as The Last Jedi: De-Feminized Fanedit (a.k.a. The Chauvinist Cut) in which the movie is liberated almost entirely from its female characters. The very idea is just wacky and the fan who made this should be very proud of himself (or herself, who knows) as it has provoked a reaction from many of the movie's crucial cast members: 

Yes, editing out women is dumb. It is silly. It is also funny. (Spoiler: It was almost certainly meant as a joke.) Johnson, Hamill, and Boyega all reacted to it appropriately—when you see great parody, feel free to crack up. The Last Jedi is an awful movie and yet it is only healthy to find humor in one's disappointments. There is no letdown that cannot be cured with laughter.