Movies and TV Shows

The Last Jedi was a plea to expand the story beyond one family of aristocratic space wizards and remember that Luke was once some rando farmboy with a chip on his shoulder and nothing left to lose.

It's an anti-war film. It is, honest to god, 90% of an anarchist critique of Star Wars, then 10% "nevermind." People shit on the Rose-Finn-... Benicio del Toro subplot. Guys: that is the plot. Rose is the protagonist. The movie opens with her sister's sacrifice, arcs from showing her faith in the cause to losing it, and closes on one of the magic-wielding enslaved children inspired by her unsubtle metaphor of freeing some animals.

Now: how'd that get into a numbered Star Wars film? Fuck me sideways, I don't know. Is it a good movie? Not really, mostly because it's betrayed by the edit and the surprise fourth act veering back toward the status quo. But it's the best of the sequel trilogy by far, and it was a few easy choices away from living up to to the shock and praise of Empire Strikes Back.

One: end Rey's story when Kylo asks her to join him. Leave her allegiance hanging as we go into the last film. To make this work better, give Kylo an aversion to the First Order's militarism, so his beef with Hux is not giving a shit about megalomania. Kylo's lust for power has nothing to do with hierarchy.

Two: have Rose leave. With Finn or without him, depending on how John Boyega felt about being in all three movies. But by the time she's ditching precious materiel to stop him from repeating her sister's sacrifice, why the fuck is she gonna run back to the rebellion? Not like she's in the next movie anyway.

Three: when the rebels escape, it is because of some glorified extra. A soldier who just watched her friends get pulped by AT-AT fire, stumbles back into the dead-end caverns, and finds the native fauna casually brushing aside boulders. When the survivors can no longer hold the entrance, they find her there - arms raised, avalanche floating in midair, staring in disbelief at her own abilities. She doesn't get dialog. She doesn't get a name. Who she is, does not matter. This is the point the movie keeps writing in eight-foot-tall letters: anyone can be a hero. The Force is in all living things. No religious order could ever own it. Nobody needs to hand you a destiny. You can go out and change the universe.

Anyway, the people who say the next movie's first-draft plot-faucet is better are dumb as dirt. Just to pick one fuckup, Palpatine would be a million times more threatening as an immortal ghost, tempting anyone anywhere anytime.