Star Wars is Dead. RIP (But its worse than that) continued

Rating: 1/10 (1 January 2018)

The newest Jedi, the Last Jedi, Rey, had extraordinary powers but no Jedi training. Jedi mysticism, again the foundation of the whole series, is therefore worthless. One no longer needs to study the Force, or practice the disciplines, or grow in understanding through ascetical practice or life's hard experiences. Enlightenment and realization come cheap, and just happen, like reaching puberty. In the Last Jedi the sacred is removed from the universe. Because, we now know, it was never really there. And without that element of the sacred Star Wars no longer means anything.
By claiming that the Jedi were responsible for the crimes of the Sith, Luke denied the metaphysical realities upon which Stars Wars was built. He was implying that without the Jedi, there would be no Sith, that these were man-made constructs. But in the original Star Wars mythology the powers manifested by each side were real. The abdication of one side in this battle would not disable the other, because each side was merely manifesting metaphysical powers that exist, and each one was motivated by moral laws that exist. If there were no Jedi, the Dark Side of the Force, through its lust and greed for power, would dominate the universe anyway unopposed. The Jedi were not responsible for the evil in the universe. However imperfectly, they were protecting the universe from it. That is why their path was so noble. When Luke disparaged the Jedi, the old Yoda would have told him, " to assure the triumph of evil, do nothing the Jedi must."
And so, the Last Jedi is a post-modernist deconstruction of Star Wars. And as such it is post-modernist propaganda. Both the new Luke and the new Yoda expressed disdain for the wisdom both of them had received, practiced and taught. Remarkably their comments were very similar to those of the new Dark Lord, who said to Rey, "the past is dead, if you must, kill it." That is the theme of this movie, spoken by both "sides", but most clearly by Kilo Ren. He is the last Sith. But he killed his Master and is clearly conflicted. Rey is the last Jedi, but she was never trained and the only one left to train her just split. So really in the new Star Wars both the real Sith and the real Jedi are gone forever. The whole galaxy has lost its religion. As we must. The new generation will define new religions as they see fit. They will define their own truths from scratch as we must as well. There are no eternal verities. So instead of the vision of a moral universe based on spiritual realities assumed in the old Star Wars, the new Star Wars has replaced it with an existentialist and post-modernist one. That is, there are no fixed truths, we make our own reality, all that's real is the way I feel. Honor, goodness, nobility...illusions.
Of course, post-modernism and existentialism are the dominant philosophical movements of our times. Thus, the great bait and switch. The popularity of Star Wars has always been because it, almost alone in popular culture, offered a very clear vision of a moral universe underpinned by spiritual reality, a philosophical retreat for the average American movie-goer. Although our popular culture and public sphere in general seldom speaks of or allows us to speak of God, we all know that that's what the "Force" really is. We all got hooked watching the only movies that seemed to have meaning, a grand vision, heroism, freedom fighters, right versus wrong, pure good versus despicable evil that must be vanquished, knowing that ultimately, absolute Truth was real and would triumph. This resonated so deeply in our hearts, it represented principles that so many still believe to be true but are so seldom seen or heard in popular culture. Now the Last Jedi comes along and tells its fans: "Punked. You fools. Believing there's a God and absolute truths. Grow up."
No doubt future Star Wars will still reference the Force, but since the Jedi are gone it will be without meaning or reverence, a habit. And now it's hard to understand what it is that the Resistance is fighting for, or why. Maybe they are just the new Communist vanguard, fighting against economic inequality and social injustice. I think that was the real point of the Casino scene, to prepare us for the transformation of Star Wars from a fable about spiritual warriors to a story about social justice warriors.
I suppose Star Wars will keep generating "Jedi," like Rey, who just pop up out of nowhere. At the end of the Last Jedi a little slave kid moves a broom with his Force power. But without Jedi training, ethics, mysticism the Force will just be arbitrary magic, and Star Wars will just become Harry Potter. Of course, we'll still have space dogfights, and the ever-evolving gorgeous special effects, but the myth is dead. The truth behind it is dead. The real Star Wars is dead, replaced by politically correct, nihilistic propaganda. I admit that the old Star Wars was its own kind of propaganda. Rather counter-propaganda, itself a kind of rebel insurgency against the overwhelming materialism and emptiness that inundates our culture. Its innocence and goodness were once a rare spiritual oasis on the big screen.
At the outset I also claimed that the Last Jedi was influenced by Cultural Marxism. This is a movement started in the 1920's whose goal was to bring down bourgeois capitalism not by a worker's revolution, but by destroying the cultural underpinnings of bourgeois society i.e. traditional religion, traditional family structures, traditional morality, especially sexual morality, any art, or music that seems to uphold traditional bourgeois values.
Some have said that Stars Wars was always that, since the spiritual principles it was based on deviate from Christianity. Still, it posited a Higher Power and a Higher Law, and that is not what Marxists want you to believe. So, the Force must be de-sacralized, like religion in the Soviet Union.
But the clearest example of the Cultural Marxism in this film is in its treatment of men. Whether one is a feminist or not, all are agreed that Western Civilization as it evolved is a patriarchy. Men commanded the heights of power, and men were attached through marriage to their wives and children as leaders of the family. Not all who wish to change the patriarchy wish to destroy Western Civilization, but those who wish to destroy Western Civilization wish to destroy the patriarchy; to pit women against men and vice versa and to disrupt all traditional definitions of gender, family, and power relationships.
Of course, we all know the word for woman-hater: misogynist. I had to look up the word for man-hater. It is misandrist. Both the Force Awakens, and much more so the Last Jedi, are subtly, and not so subtly misandrist, especially towards white males.
In the Force Awakens we discovered that our old heroes, Princess Leia and Han Solo were married and had a son. (Ben Solo/Kilo Ren). With their stormy romance in the First Trilogy we could see them together, deeply in love still, but prone to some bickering. But no, Han Solo left his family, his royal wife, his gifted son because...you can't trust men, they're all just deadbeats.
Of course, when we first met Han he was a rogue, a smuggler, a selfish mountebank. But by the end of the trilogy he had grown up into a committed, selfless and totally loyal freedom fighter, besides being helplessly in love with the greatest woman in the galaxy. Having him abandon his family is another deconstruction of a Star Wars icon. And it added nothing to the plot. How much more fulfilling would it have been to see the interrupted love story of Han and Leia have a happy ending. But in the new Star Wars even heroic men abandon their families. Men are toxic. And dispensable. He is killed by his son. Kilo spares his mother.