Not so much Subversive As it is Reductive

Rating: 3/10 (29 December 2019)

There's a good movie there somewhere - just not in the context of the 8th installment of a 9 part "saga". I fail to see any real chances taken in the story here. The main overarching event in this movie is a standard space battle whose only unique trait is that it stalls out for 3/4 of the movie as one side waits for the other to run out of fuel. Then we have the precocious young Jedi leave the old master against his wishes before the training is complete (as we do in Episode V). She then valaunteers herself to the enemy where the little bad guy kills the big bad guy while the big bad guy has the heroine defenseless (as we do in Episode VI). The big bad even taunts the heroine with the sight of her fleet being decimated like we see in Episode VI. Then the old master distracts the little bad guy and turns into a ghost as the good guys get away (Episode IV). As for the subversion- if I say "knock knock" to someone and they respond with "who's there" and then I punch them in the stomach - I have subverted expectations. It doesn't make for much of a knock-knock joke though. Episode 7 poses a question like "who is Snoke?" Episode 8 answers with "dead". Episode 7 asks "who are Rey's parents?" Episode 8 answers with "no one". Episode 7 ends with a single shot of Luke Skywalker who had been sought out by every character in the film. He was only able to be found because he left a map in case he was needed while he sought the ancient Jedi texts. What new knowledge did those texts hold? What has he been doing? Episode 8 answers with "he didn't read them" and "he's been waiting to die". Sure these are all unexpected, but the reductive nature of these answers are the opposite of brave story telling. They refuse to push the story threads any further along and paint the overarching plot into a corner. There are moments where this film gets interesting but all of the grey morality and "deconstruction" gets walked back by the end. Had Rey taken Kylo Ren's hand after he killed Snoke....THAT would have been subversive. THAT would have brought the audience to a place of unpredictability and novelty. Instead we are left in the same predictable space with one less bad guy. The only one that remains (Kylo) has already been beaten clean by Rey in the first lightsaber duel of her life. No wonder they decided to bring back palpatine.