The Cultural Logic of The Last Jedi

Rating: Null/10 (19 December 2017)

The purpose of The Last Jedi is to kill the idea that the Resistance need Luke Skywalker to "spark hope" in order to grow the Resistance and further it's aims. In order to achieve this end the film destroys all of the pillars established by the original and prequel trilogy about who the Jedi are and the value of what they bring to the light side and the Rebellion: individualism, heroism, mentoring future generations and traditional doctrines. This film doesn't just kill off Luke Skywalker - it destroys his legacy too. The Last Jedi renders the events of Luke's inner journey, the high points of the original trilogy that shape and build him as dangerous and misguided.
Quentin Tarantino lists the first Matrix film amongst his favourite but also said that the wider trilogy ruined the mythology established by that first film (interestingly, by going too far in the opposite direction to the Last Jedi - over-investing a hyper-individuality in the hero and deifying him). The Last Jedi also ruins the Star Wars mythology but here it is a deliberate agenda against individualism that drives it. This fire sale approach to Luke's legacy has echoes of the way (General!) Solo was portrayed in The Force Awakens - his medals are thrown in the gutter as if he never earned them, he's a deadbeat dad scraping a living, hustling and smuggling and the iconic decisive hardware from the battle of Endor that could have made for a gate guardian outside Resistance HQ is back to unrecognisable junk.
The Last Jedi has a strong anti-individualist message: the opening scene shows ace pilot Poe Dameron performing heroic deeds but disobeying orders leading to the death of Resistance pilots- for this insubordination General Leia Organa reprimands and demotes him. His individuality is shown to be toxic to the cause. We see many other acts of individual heroism but they are shown to only have value if they are suicidal - this serves a dual purpose for the Resistance: they stall the First Order and they also rid the Resistance of an individualist. Individual acts of heroism are tolerable if the price is paid by the individual not the collective - and collectivisation increases if there's one less individual on board. Individuality has value as a latent resource that the Resistance subordinate can activate as one final act to elevate their status - but it is only hallowed if they don't return, otherwise they're penalised. Luke Skywalker ultimately takes the same path after prodding from Yoda about the folly of his adherence to any material manifestations of the Jedi tradition of imparting knowledge of the force and thereby mentoring others. Luke is the ultimate individual in the movie, the cult of personality the Resistance have been risking everything to locate and rehabilitate. He is allowed the dignity of committing suicide on his own terms, just as long as he disappears according to the collective's guidelines on individualism (stalling the First Order, then dying) right after Poe informs the Resistance that Luke Skywalker no longer "sparks hope" only the collective can, at the turning point where he realises his own individuality is toxic, egged on by Leia to become the team player who can run the fastest in the tunnels of Crait.
In this new trilogy, force powers are no longer latent or inherited, force users arrive well formed without any apparent need for mentoring. This film shows Jedi training to be fraught as it takes the mentored to the height of their powers whilst relying on the Jedi doctrine to levy their free will - this is risky as they can choose the dark side and thereby further the conflict. The Last Jedi posits that it is much better to do away with mentoring altogether... the force user will not hit their individual potential but it's a lower risk for the collective if they don't. The tradition of Jedi mentoring is shown to be the junction point where the entire conflict emerges. After Rey abandons her Jedi training, Kylo Ren reveals she is a nobody born to junkers - she declines his offer of a high status role in the conflict instead finding purpose as a force powered rock lifting machine. When she does this, she is not a trained Jedi, she is a mere Resistance worker who uses her innate skill to help the cause. She has no baggage of royal lineage like Ren, she isn't special - she fits right in with the collective. This is the new aspirational image of the good force bearer: a low status worker in the service of the people.
DJ (Bencio Del Toro's Judas/hustler character) showed the iconic machinery of the 2 sides to be from the same source - analogous to the problematic Jedi training that can swing both ways. So, what separates the First Order and the Resistance? In the final image of the film the Resistance is shown to offer hope to an oppressed child labourer who demonstrates force powers and adopts a Jedi stance - but in the context of the preceding narrative the value of the Jedi is now reduced to a second order image repertoire, aligned to the collectivised Resistance, divorced from previous ideas of individualism, heroism, unquantifiable mysticism, mentoring, tradition and doctrines. It has now been reshaped to inspire a new generation of prosaic force users to subjugate the basic machinery of their powers to the collective will of the Resistance. The limitation of massive human potential to manual labour (lifting rocks!) and a Fahrenheit 451 style knowledge-suppressing library burning are the key images of this advertisement for a totalitarian suppression of individualism. It's a world of lowered expectations of individual achievement, reduced risk and a safer collective.
There are echoes of the Maoist implementation of Marxism-Lenism in China (a.k.a. the Cultural Revolution) which led to the brutal slaying of the bourgeoisie - not only the teachers, factory managers and business owners (small and large), but also the artists, writers and individual thinkers who didn't fit with the revolutionary class consciousness demanded by the new society. The takeover of the Star Wars franchise by The Walt Disney Company has now shown a similar approach to the Jedi creed and it's adherents: the entire project and Luke Skywalker have been liquidated and force users are now deindividuated class conscious nobodies who perform manual labour in the interest of the oppressed people - the Resistance.
The message of this film: mediocrity is the price of safety. The last Jedi indeed - tall poppy syndrome took care of that one.