The Last Jedi
By ice rivers
- 436 reads
Rigor is an important element in the evaluation of art. Rigor suggests that the finished product adds up to more than the sum of its parts.
Sadly, The Last Jedi is much less than the sum of its parts. The parts, in this case, are all the Star Wars movies that came before this one. Hard acts to follow am i right? Maybe expectations are unreasonably high. I don't think so. This is Star Wars. John William's music, huge guaranteed box office and more life changes for the folks who have changed their lives and altered their realities in order to be more in synch with the Force.
This science fiction with a spiritual journey built in is at the zeitgeist of the American spirit where it has glittered for deade upon decade. The expectations have to be high for cultural touchstones The Last Jedi is what all that came before was building towards. All of the other films are prologue to this one sooooo..what do we get?
We get loud, confusing meh.
Han, Luke, Leia, Yoda, Obi Wan, Darth are pretty much irreplacabvle. I'm certain that a significant percentage of viewers went to the film to see Carrie Fisher for the last time. I know women who cried copiously during Leia's screen time.
Above and beyond the characters there exists the ongoing invitatio0n to particpate in one of our emerging national religions. As Kurt Anderson observes in his book Fantasyland.: "The FORCE is very American...a spiritual discipline but also highly practical...a religion that lets you win battles, makes you succesfful. I remember walking out of the theater thinking that the Force was the first faith with which I felt simpatico.
I've always felt the same way leaving a Star Wars movie. For a couple of weeks following my viewing of the "prologues", I had a tendency to say "may the force be with you" rather than "see ya later" in real world conversation.
Not with this one.
The Force eluded me.
I saw a pretty good space movie.
I saw a franchise rebooting itself and trying to do so gracefully while leaving Lea dangling in space and getting rid of Luke in anti-climactic sacrifice.
The replacement players are lining up. They don't do much for me.
They don't have as much Force.
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