Rian Johnson had one job: follow The Force Awakens. He did something harder. Star Wars: The Last Jedi, the 2017 middle chapter of the sequel trilogy, takes the pieces J.J. Abrams set out — Rey, Kylo Ren, a map to Luke Skywalker — and spends them. It runs 152 minutes and it earns most of them.
Trailer, via Star Wars.
Luke Skywalker Refuses the Call
The film picks up right after the Battle of Starkiller Base. Leia Organa and the Resistance are evacuating when the First Order fleet arrives. Poe Dameron, against Leia’s orders, leads a costly counterattack that destroys a First Order dreadnought. The film never lets Poe forget the price of it.
Rey goes to Ahch-To to recruit Luke. He is in self-imposed exile and refuses. He believes the Jedi should end. R2-D2 talks him around, and he agrees to give Rey three lessons in the Force.
Mark Hamill plays Luke as a man who has already lost the argument with himself. It is the best work of his career in the role, and the film knows it.
Rey and Kylo Ren Across the Force
During training, Rey and Kylo begin communicating through the Force. Neither understands it. Kylo tells her Luke feared his power. Luke then confesses that he briefly thought about killing Kylo after sensing Snoke’s corruption — and that this is what pushed Kylo to destroy Luke’s new Jedi Order.
That confession is the spine of The Last Jedi. Adam Driver plays Kylo as a man failed by every adult who ever held authority over him, and Daisy Ridley plays Rey as someone deciding, in real time, whether that excuses him. Convinced Kylo can be redeemed, Rey leaves Ahch-To.
Yoda Summons the Lightning
Luke prepares to burn the Jedi library and hesitates. Yoda appears as a Force spirit, summons lightning, and destroys it himself. Frank Oz returns to the role, and the scene is the film’s cleanest statement of its own thesis: that failure is a teacher, not a verdict.
It is also the moment the film stops being a sequel and starts being an argument about what Star Wars is for.
Canto Bight Slows Everything Down
Poe sends Finn, the mechanic Rose Tico, and BB-8 on a secret mission to disable the First Order’s tracking device. Maz Kanata points them to the casino town of Canto Bight, where they meet the codebreaker DJ.
This is the film’s weakest stretch. Kelly Marie Tran is good as Rose, and Benicio del Toro is having fun as DJ, but the detour sags against everything happening on Ahch-To. The point it makes about war profiteering is real. The execution is baggy.
Holdo Takes Command
With Leia recovering, Vice-Admiral Amilyn Holdo takes command of the Resistance. Laura Dern plays her as a leader who does not owe Poe an explanation. The remaining fleet is low on fuel and being tracked through hyperspace, and the film sides with her patience over his impatience.
Carrie Fisher’s performance here is the one that stays. She died in December 2016, and the film is dedicated to her. Leia survives the bridge attack by using the Force. It is a strange, quiet moment in a loud film, and it works.
What The Last Jedi Gets Right
Three things matter most:
- It gives Luke an ending that is about teaching rather than fighting.
- It lets Luke’s confession about Kylo carry the weight the plot needs it to carry.
- It puts Poe, Finn, and Rose in positions where their heroism causes harm.
The film’s tagline is “Let the past die.” The film does not actually believe that. It believes the past has to be understood before it can be set down, which is a more interesting position and a harder one to dramatize.
The runtime is 152 minutes, and the Canto Bight sequence is where that length shows. The film’s weakest instinct is its faith that a new planet and a new character can carry the same weight as the old ones. They cannot, at least not here.
An Argument Worth Having
The Last Jedi is the only film in the sequel trilogy with a thesis. It asks whether the Jedi should continue to exist, and it answers through Yoda and through Luke. Not every answer lands. The ones that do land hard.
A middle chapter that plays it safe is a wasted middle chapter. This one spends its inheritance and leaves the next film with real problems to solve.
Against The Force Awakens, which rebuilt the house, The Last Jedi is the film that argues about whether the house should stand. That is a better use of a second installment.
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