Let the past die. Kill it if you have to.

Rating: 8/10 (18 December 2017)

It's in the title and emblazoned all over the trailers; Luke Skywalker, the last Jedi master, declaring the need to end the Jedi order and bring balance to the Force. And for much of the film it looks as if it will keep this promise to explore the darker, twisted complexities of both light and dark side, and finally deliver a conflict that isn't merely the next generation of different coloured lightsabers clashing. That was one of the main criticisms of Abrams' revival, that we had seen it all before (and better). The Last Jedi barely allows any time to muse on the poignancies in the long gaze between the weathered face of Luke and his daughter (or so fans pleaded and speculated). Unceremoniously, he tosses the ancient weapon over his shoulder as if he was throwing out the trash. Immediately Rian Johnson signals a changing of the guard - there is to be no Obi Wan mentoring here, no Karate Kid style montages. Luke sees a deep pit of darkness within Rey, and for once it seems more than just vague menace and funny helmets.
Yet ultimately it is a little too much to ask of the film to be brave with Rey - this is Disney property after all. Shame too, because Ridley is good enough to go there, by the look of her impulse and ferocity; see how she snarls and spits accusations at Kylo Ren before he can even get a word in, and furiously searches for the truth once aware of the discrepancies in the Jedi myths. The script affords the pair a good deal of time to explore their not-too-subtle duality as the two sides of the same coin through a neatly visualised psychic connection (the editing, with its seamless graphic match cuts and eyeline matches makes this simple but effective), but scurries back to its traditional legacies as if frightened of being too subversive of the most iconic film franchise of all time.
Seeing the fan reaction over the opening weekend would confirm these fears. They'd rather have Rey be a next generation Skywalker than be forced to confront the uncomfortable truths of her abandonment as a child, or the failure of the original hero to wrest control of his force-sensitive underlings. There are scattered moments where you feel Rian Johnson is finally excavating the legendary mythos of the Jedi order and uncovering old lies; the force not as video game moves but as the entity that binds all of life together in a stunning and fleeting sequence reminiscent of those non-narrative mood poems such as Baraka, and a clever special effect that stretches the seconds both before and after Rey's present actions into an eternal stream. But right on the threshold of unearthing a game changer they regress back to how Star Wars has always been. If Del Toro's stuttering, double-edged space scoundrel has a point about the never-ending cycle of explosions and new model Death Stars, it falls on this chapter's deaf ears. There's little separating the two sides except the direction of the lasers - Johnson should have dug deeper or simply caved and given the fans what they wanted (a lightsaber extravaganza). It trickles down to the subplots too; Rose and Finn make a detour to cosmic Casablanca in Canto Bight, a gorgeous, otherworldly spectacle of cascading waterfalls and gold-tipped casinos (and just a hint of the Cantina theme), at least until Rose shatters the illusion with a bitter unveiling of the city's dubious origins. Most of the script's Marvel-esque quick wit lands with similar poise, an awkward bathos that elicits a few chuckles while the fate of the galaxy hangs in the balance. The most jarring moment comes when Rose's grand romantic declaration of "saving those you love" is immediately followed by the cannon demolishing the rebel base gate, with the emotional whiplash so exquisitely timed it almost belongs in a comedy sketch. I laughed out loud, although I know I shouldn't have.
The film follows a long line of stylistically ugly digital filmmaking that can't always be compensated by the ability to will whatever exotic creature or fantastic biome into existence via CGI. I'm talking about those ridiculous long lenses and open apertures that force everything but the foreground into a blurry mess, squishing and distorting Hamill's face as he whispers into the ear of a meditating Rey (he's literally right beside her). Nearly every conversation needs to be boxed into a nauseating closeup, often cutting off chins or foreheads and negating much of the emotional anxiety conjured by Ridley and Driver (who does the most with the least - where exactly did this inner darkness come from, what lured him over? Will we ever find out?). Yet at the core of the film still lies that sense of wonder that captivated audiences that many decades ago. Could any other franchise elicit the audible 'woah' I heard in the theatre when the rebel ship activated hyperspace and threw a jagged arc of light across the screen? I've been pondering on what these new revival films ought to be. We're long past the grand theatrics and scope of the original space opera (ridiculous helmet is correct, Phasma can't sell it), and it can't be a galaxy far, far away with so much emotion and hope invested into the story. The final shot speaks to the child in all of us, harking back to a simpler time where a broom could be a blue lightsaber, and that meant you were the good guy. Perhaps we too should let the past die.