Goodbye to an old friend

Rating: 8/10 (20 May 2020)

Star Wars, or as the rest of the world came to know it, A New Hope, was the very first movie I ever remember going to see at a drive-in in New Jersey when I was a kid. Immediately it captivated me and for the last 43 years has maintained that captive hold on my imagination. Essentially a story about good versus evil, it is the way in which the story is told, along with the mystical powers of the Jedi and Sith that makes it so appealing. There are a lot of amazingly awesome characters thrown in along the way, and over the course of my life these pretend people have become like family to me. Anyone that give any of the movies in the Star Wars universe a poor review is not a true fan, in my opinion. Each and every movie is a new adventure. Granted there are some movies that are far superior to others, but they are all good and enjoyable in their own ways. Removing the creator, George Lucas from the telling of these stories was probably not the best decision, but I cannot find any reason to hate these films, nor go on here or any other form of social media and bemoan how awful they are. Each death of a main character is like a punch directly to my heart.
I know none of that preamble has anything to do with this movie, and if you are still with me, then I thank you. I just needed to spout off some positivity here to counter the hate.
The last Jedi follows the beginning of Rey's training under Luke, though begrudgingly so. It expands upon the abilities of force users to speak over vast distances to the point that they can now see each other, which was pretty cool to me. Rey is is led to face Snoke by Ben Solo/Kylo Ren. Ren hopes Rey will join him and she hopes he will join her. While Snoke is focused on Rey, Ren uses the distraction to kill him. The resistance is being run down by the First Order with no hope of escape as they have developed a means of tracking a ship through hyperspace. Leia launches an ill fated plan to elude them, which strands the very small remnants of the Resistance on an desolate planet. As they all hide in a bunker, awaiting help that will not come and facing their impending doom, Luke shows up, without explanation. He gives Leia the dice from the Falcon, one of this movie's most touching scenes, and goes out to face the might of the First Order alone so his sister can lead their people to safety. What follows is the most impressive display of force mastery in any of the movies. Kylo faces Luke in a duel, but soon discovers that Luke is only projecting himself on the planet and is still in his exile. The ruse works, and with the help of an escaped Rey and Chewie, the small band that is the Resistance escapes. Sadly though, the amount of energy Luke used to project himself so far across the galaxy causes his body to fail. In one of the most beautiful shots in the franchise, Luke sits atop a mountain looking at the sun, much like we saw in A New Hope, and his body vanishes as he joins the force. For the second time in as many new Star Wars movies I had to say goodbye to a friend that I walked through most of my life with. I get that this trilogy was meant to usher in a new group of people, but it was still one of the saddest moments of my Star Wars experience.
This is of course not a perfect movie, and it does have flaws, like how is Rey so powerful without any training to really speak of, but it is a GREAT MOVIE.