The Last Jedi is the most important chapter in the saga.

Rating: 8/10 (14 December 2017)

After getting home at 3:30AM, after the midnight premiere, I just couldn't get to sleep. I was left with a huge deal of stuff to think about. Not just about what I saw in the movie, but about the world, about how we behave, and about how and why we always make the same mistakes over and over again.
I'll start by saying that The Last Jedi is not a perfect movie by any means. Its rhythm drags for a while, the amount of comedy and its timing will be awkward or too much for some people, it doesn't answer questions about Snoke (directly), it doesn't feature the Knights of Ren (to the dislike of many people), and it creates strong disjointing with some scenes featured in The Force Awakens, which will be inevitably left as annoying plot holes. But that doesn't matter that much to me, because The Last Jedi delivered something that I appreciate much more deeply than the prospect of watching Rey and Luke fighting Kylo and his Knights of Ren. This film aimed to address the biggest issues of that galaxy far, far away: how the cracks in the concepts of morality, heroism, and both dated conceptions and standards inevitably and cyclically lead people into mistakes, conflict and war. And most importantly, it serves as a mirror image for our own world.
I made an effort to watch the movie having only seen the first teaser, so I had my ideas and preconceptions for what the story could've or should've bee. Even though I could glimpse that Rian Johnson was aiming at delving into the grey area of the fight between the light and the dark. Plot-wise, I expected a sort of voyage, discovery adventure with a huge focus on Rey and Luke, racing them across different worlds, while revealing to us juicy details about the origins of the Jedi Order, while also giving us much expected reveals, like Rey being Luke's daughter or Obi Wan's granddaughter, answering where Snoke came from, and last but not least, finally giving us the Knights of Ren in an epic fight where we could get to see what amazing and crazy new powers would Luke use, as the most powerful Jedi ever. I got none of that. This movie was a completely different ride, even though I expected the unexpected. Yet, I'm not a bit disappointed. Quite the contrary. Johnson made a thematically driven story that betrayed expectations, and, in my opinion, made Star Wars better for it, because instead of just making an exciting adventure that consciously avoided the questionable choices of past episodes (mostly repetition and cheap fan service), he instead took this fantasy tale and gave it a direction as to what it should mean all along, and what we should keep from it after it's done being told in episode IX.
As flawed and messy the prequels were, those three chapters tried (but didn't quite succeed, due to poor execution) to address how the tension created between extreme ideologic opposites could create destructive inner conflicts in someone, and how those inner conflicts could lead to choices with huge and harsh consequences for entire worlds. We were shown how the dogma, short sightedness, and unreal -and hypocritically bended- high moral standards of the Jedi, and the reckless, selfish, and ultimately meaningless pursuit of power of the Sith and their sympathizers, put the galaxy into a never ending state of turmoil. Almost every fan of Star Wars wants to forget that the prequels exist. But as much as so many of us don't like, to whatever extent, what George Lucas did with those movies, they're a big part of the whole story, the themes, and the lore of Star Wars. Rian Johnson acknowledged what Lucas tried to convey in the prequels, he embraced them, and he made a risky but bold statement about war with this subversive chapter of the space saga.
I think almost everybody sure wanted to know where Snoke came from and why he looked the way he did. But aside from wanting it, did we really need to know that? I mean, we've already seen three different stages of a character like that. We've seen how the greed and deception of Palpatine ended up turning him into a disfigured monster that wanted the galaxy for himself, and made it so for a while to no real use. We've already seen how fear and confusion about what the "right way" means made Anakin Skywalker get lost into the cruelty of what Darth Vader was to become. We now see Kylo, who's complete lack of anchors is setting him on a course for him to become yet another tyrannic figure. We already know where someone like Snoke comes from. We don't really need his backstory.
As Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five, the core of The Last Jedi acknowledges the role of stories and entertainment in conveying messages (mostly the unintended ones) when it comes to war stories. It starts by showing us the largely overlooked effects of the galactic war when it comes to the people who lose their lives fighting, and the survivors who have to deal with the loss of their loved ones. It unexpectedly addresses how the recklessness of some cool-looking and (arguably) heroic actions of characters we cherish, always have collateral and lasting consequences (Rose: "That's how we're gonna win. Not fighting what we hate, saving what we love"). It challenges the concept of heroes and why legends can be dangerous. It addresses the messiness of war, how economic interests are behind the firepower of both sides, and even how there's hardly a "good side", because it doesn't matter whom the blasters, cannons, and fighter ships belong to, and for what purpose are they shot at other people. All they create is death, and with death there's only defeat. The Last Jedi questions Star Wars itself as a tale about morality, the good and bad, and its huge and convoluted grey area.
If Rian Johnson would've made the movie we wanted and/or expected, he would've kept Snoke alive and would've left episode IX with a starting point for it end too closely to how Return of the Jedi did, with a big epic space battle and "Rey Skywalker" killing Snoke, the rebellion winning and the fascists being defeated again, with everybody happy because "good always wins". And just as that, the Skywalker legend would be complete. But if the story would've been mapped that way, the whole saga would've really meant something? "Good always wins" would've been the right conclusion? if so, expanding the story of this saga to 9 episodes would've been kind of pointless, because if a regime like the First Order could rise to loom a shadow over the galaxy all over again, that means that the victory over the Empire at the end of the original trilogy wasn't really such. The galaxy keeps going through wars because old ideas that have been proven not to work are still deeply rooted in people from both sides, and thus the loop can't be broken. Change is the only way to break with the past and create something better. To grow and evolve. This applies both to the story depicted and the saga as a whole.
We can't forget the fact that this isn't a movie made only for us, die-hard fans who grew with the saga, and who want to enjoy a new chapter now that we're older, but its also one made for children who are just getting into a universe of stories based on the theme of war. The Last Jedi shows awareness of that, and aims to make a statement that hopefully will help children to grasp ideas about the world in a different and more sensible way than we did when we were that young, and motivate them to question important issues that we, as adults, unfortunately don't think enough about. That's why this movie is important. It presents a chance for a discussion that can and should include children.
The ending shot of The Last Jedi, for the first time in the saga, leaves the main characters out of the picture. Instead, we see a nameless boy, that, in a very brief and subtle moment, reminds us that the force can shine through anybody, that people are not born into greatness, and that the force doesn't really belong to anybody. At the end, this isn't about the Skywalker family, it's about the force. It's about that energy that can be put to any use, and only wisdom is the key to use it well.