First, a quiz. Below is a bullet-point summary of a Star Wars movie:
* The movie opens with the rebels on the run.
* The protagonist goes to meet an exiled master for training. The master, disillusioned and retired, senses in the protagonist a conflict and anger that allowed darkness to prevail before. However, he agrees to the training after being reminded of something from their past.
* In the B-plot, the second lead heads to an establishment known for gambling in search of allies. One is found, but turns out to be working for the enemy. However, the second lead begins to realise he has feelings for the person accompanying him.
* The main protagonist is lured back into the fray, their training incomplete, believing they have a chance of confronting the villain. They fail, but a close connection between them has been established.
* The movie features a battle between a rebel holdout and an AT-AT-led enemy force on a planet whose dominant colour is white.
* At the end, when all seems lost and the rebels are almost completely vanquished, the Millennium Falcon arrives to save the day. Despite all their losses, there is a sense of hope.
* The movie's central theme revolves around how well-intentioned rashness and giving into anger and conflict only leads to darkness and loss.
So, as should be obvious by now, my question is... is the summary for THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK or THE LAST JEDI?
For the record, I mostly enjoyed the movie, moreso than Force Awakens at least. Rian Johnson has a keener sense of the tone and style of pulp sci-fi than Abrams, and I like how most of the 'revelations' feel like a middle finger at Abrams' inane 'mysteries' from Force Awakens. Luke Skywalker's character arc is an inspired turn for the character, and Hamill really sells the thirty-years of crushing disillusionment at his own failures. Adam Driver is secretly one of the most nuanced actors working today, and he has this trilogy's most complex character in Kylo Ren. Rey, like Finn, is still a bit of a cypher, but Daisy Ridley is settling into the role nicely. Turning General Hux into a dimwitted punching bag is a very entertaining shift for the character. Laura Dern has a nothing character, but seems genuinely honoured to be there and her short scene with Leia is touching. Aesthetically, the movie looks great and the lightsabre fights, picking up from one of Force Awakens' strengths, have a real sense of danger and physicality to them. Also, the fun, mischievous Yoda from the OT is back!
Downsides. Well, the second movie in this trilogy rehashes almost everything plot-and-theme-wise from the second movie in the original one. The movie nods to deconstructing the Star Wars mythos, but only on a very superficial level, almost all of its subversions related to stuff only introduced the movie before - though admittedly, the revisions are welcome. The stretch in Space Monaco hints at the movie's most interesting world-building ideas (the black market traders arming the First Order and Rebels alike) but does little with them beyond reminding us that the dark and light are opposite sides of the same perpetually spinning coin, which is basically the Star Wars mission statement. Killing Snoke was a well-played move, putting a small spin on Vader killing Palpatine in RoTJ, but this time for evil rather than good. Dramatically, however, it basically changes nothing. Similarly, everything to do with Finn and his subplot feels like being reminded the characters exist so we don't forget when they're, hopefully, given something useful to do. And Gwendoline Christie is given unacceptably little screen-time, again.
When the movie actually achieves something approaching deconstruction, it works in the moment, but like all forms of deconstructivism, fails to realise that tearing something down is not the same as building something new in its place. Obsessing over deconstructing something ties you as firmly to that supposedly being deconstructed as those participating in it in the first place. The subversions that work don't take away how everything surrounding them is a second successive rehash - with minor variations, of course - and ultimately, achieve nothing. Two movies in and to all intents and purposes, this trilogy and its characters finds itself in the same place the original did at the end of ESB. At a generous stretch, one could say the movie is saying that those who seek to destroy the past are those most doomed to repeat it. However, for all this movie's merits - and it certainly has a good number on its own terms - it remains, at the end, little more than another echo.
