Plenty of things about Rian Johnson’s The Last Jedi have been divisive, but few have been as derided as the Canto Bight sequence.
“The whole thing is just a disgracefully bad bit of storytelling.”
“…feels pointless and tacked on…”
Was it put there as a merchandising tool, a way to sell space pony plushies and several dozen more figurines? Does it fail to advance the story at all? Does it matter?
No, and no, and yes. Canto Bight is neither a fluffy diversion nor a tacked-on way to find something to do with Rose and Finn. It’s absolutely vital to the themes of The Last Jedi, and if you took it out, you’d lose more than just a few lines of dialogue about morality and wealth in the galaxy.
Canto Bight isn’t really about the rich people at all. It’s about the reality of life under a fascist First Order, and about unsung, unflashy work that needs to be done to fix the galaxy.
Spoilers for The Last Jedi follow.
One of the key themes of The Last Jedi is that we need heroes less than we need hope—and that the old narratives of heroes and heroics aren’t necessarily the most useful ones. Luke Skywalker doesn’t appear to defeat Kylo Ren, but to give the Resistance a shred of hope at survival. Kylo and Rey both hold out hope that they can change each other. Vice Admiral Holdo doesn’t care at all about how her choices look, but how they work—like Luke, she provides the Resistance with a moment of hope.
The little Force-sensitive kid at the end is the symbol of all that hope: a small boy from nowhere, who has nothing, gazing at the skies with determination on his face and a symbol on his finger.
But where did he get that hope?
From Rose and Finn.
Rose and Finn’s trip to Canto Bight is a failure from a mission standpoint: they don’t get the master codebreaker, but a thief who sells them out at the first sign of trouble. But while they’re there, they succeed at something we’ve not seen anyone else do: they seed a new place, a place full of wealth and privilege, with devotion to the Resistance. And they do it with kindness and hope.
There’s hope in Rose’s face when she reaches out to that stable boy, Resistance ring in hand. And there’s a huge reason it’s Rose who does this: she understands. She tells Finn what the First Order did to her mining-colony home, stripping it of resources and then testing it with weapons built with the planet’s own materials. She doesn’t have to say it outright, but it’s clear this is at least part of what led her to the Resistance: mistreatment by those in power.
So when, on a planet of wealthy pleasure-seekers, she sees a small, dirty-faced boy, she recognizes what it means to be that kid. Showing him the ring is a risk, but she knows he probably doesn’t have any loyalty to his masters (and not just because she saw said masters being cruel to both fathiers and children). She’s acting out of self-preservation, but also out of kindness. Even in a state of panic and danger, there’s no yelling, no shouting, no bossing. When she tells the boy they need his help, it’s a request, not a demand.
And that help makes a difference—for Rose and Finn, and for the fathiers. If it doesn’t solve everything—if Rose and Finn still need a lift offplanet; if the fathiers get rounded up again a few hours later—that’s also the point. Not everyone can fix the galaxy single-handed. Really, no one can. The little jobs are vital, too. Imperfect work is still work. And failure, like Yoda says, is a great teacher. Having tried, having made that choice, still matters.
What about Finn, though? At first I thought it weird that his role in this sequence was so small, but then I realized: he’s barely socialized. He’s barely out of Stormtrooper armor. He’s spent his whole life being ordered around by the First Order and its obsession with power through cruelty. It’s hugely valuable for him to be the observer, to see how people—both fancy and downtrodden—live in the galaxy, to see what conflict and class divisions have wrought, and to see exactly what it is the Resistance has to contend with.
Other arguments have been made for Canto Bight’s inclusion. David Sims at The Atlantic looks at the way the sequence illustrates the broader oppression in the galaxy—it sets up Rose’s last line, when she tells Finn they need to save what they love, not fight what they hate. The line is a little clunky, but if you consider it in the context of Canto Bight, it makes more sense: fight for the downtrodden stable kids, not against the bad guys.
Joanna Robinson’s great take at Vanity Fair focuses on the powerful representation of having two of the film’s characters of color go on a meaningful adventure of their own—and how this is a corner of the galaxy we haven’t seen before. “Neither rebels nor imperialists, the Canto Bight residents lend shades of gray to the universe in a way that’s explored in every corner of The Last Jedi,” Robinson writes.
In an interview with Syfy Wire, Star Wars concept designer Neal Scanlon said Canto Bight is his favorite creation of the new movie:
I think that’s Canto Bight, for two reasons, really. One is because there was no absolutes. And secondly, it’s really significant thing to The Last Jedi, that there’s a point in the film—and I think you’ll probably know what I mean when you see it—that we wave goodbye, a little, to the established past, and start to take those first independent steps. You know, the genre has got to turn, stand on its own two feet.
The genre has to stand on its own two feet—and so does the galaxy. The importance of Canto Bight isn’t fully clear until the very last scene of The Last Jedi, in which we return to that stable, and to the children who live there. Word of Luke’s actions in the climactic scenes has clearly spread: the kids have a little handmade Luke Skywalker figure, posed in front of their versions of walkers. The story being told is exciting—and, we know, not enough to change the world on its own. You need more than an exciting narrative; you need people, on the ground, doing the work. You need real examples of change created by ordinary people; you need change to look like something possible, not just for a select few. If the mythology of the Jedi was enough to motivate the galaxy to action, it wouldn’t be in the position it’s in.
But it’s a good story, and one many of us have told and retold, sitting on the ground, playing with Star Wars figurines, imagining ourselves princesses and warriors, generals and queens.
How many of us grew up to be those things?
What you can grow up to be, if not a crazy old wizard or a wise general, is a person who joins the fight. Who puts in the work, who runs the errands, who takes a moment to do something kind, even if it doesn’t necessarily matter to your mission. (Rose taking the saddle off the last fathier makes me tear up, every time.) The Last Jedi dismantles the idea that heroism is the only thing that changes the world, and leaves us with a little kid with hope in his heart—hope that was put there by two people who weren’t trying to be heroes, but were just doing their jobs.
Molly Templeton had to watch The Last Jedi twice before she fell in love with it, but she’s fully on board now.
The Canto Bight sequence was largely pointless to the plot. To the movie’s themes, however, its importance was real and tangible.
However, it was painfully obvious to me that Lando Calrissian should have been there rather than Benicio del Toro hamming his way thru scoundrel 101. Its criminal that one of the most liked characters has been overlooked so badly.
I actually never really had much of an issue with this sequence from a conceptual or thematic standpoint, but I did find it obnoxious from an execution standpoint. It seems to fall apart for me when Finn and Rose lose the plot after escaping from prison. At this point they seem to forget why they were down there in the first place. They completely abandon their search for the codebreaker and ignore the one dude who seems to be a reasonable although risky alternative. Seemed implausible that they would not accept DJ’s help considering their situation/timetable/lack of alternatives.
Also, after trashing the city with the fathiers they observe that “it was worth it.” Oh it was? Do they even remember the stakes of their mission or what the mission was?
I feel like I understand the intentions of all of the choices the filmmakers made throughout this sequence, I just felt the dialogue never adequately communicated any of them.
As a Star Wars fanboi I will 100% rationalize all of this stuff in my mind and grow to love the sequence in some fashion. I’m certain of this. But I think with a few careful dialogue edits to better explain why the characters do what they do the onscreen action would play much better.
The story line potential for a new wave of rebels & jedi is enormous. Better than what any one expected out of this film. It shames me that someone has to explain it to the fans.
I wasn’t aware there was any issue with that sequence. Criminy, fans will complain about anything.
Quite aside from its thematic centrality (as the article explains), for me the sequence contains the money shot for the the whole film — the one shot that tells me the filmmakers understand Star Wars on a deep level. (Not that I thought the film was perfect; actually I think it was quite flawed. Nevertheless: )
After the fathiers are set loose, there’s an absolutely wonderful shot of the herd racing along the beach, at night, by the light of two moons. To me, that shot — its beauty, otherworldly exoticness, and breathless exuberance — embodies the spirit of Star Wars at its best.
@1 The Canto Bight sequence is actually vital to the plot, though not in the way it’s initially expected to be. It inadvertently leads to the First Order learning of the Resistance’s real plan via DJ’s betrayal. Without it the story ends with the Resistance’s escape.
This is exactly why I really want to see the movie again before I really form a permanent opinion on it (although all the discussion on Tor has also helped with this too). At the time I was watching the movie (for the first time), I found myself kind of puzzled about this plot (and mostly eager to get back to the other characters) and wishing it would hurry up and resolve, and then directly after the movie was kind of scratching my head like, ‘why did we do all that???’.
But after taking time to really think about all the different themes, and look at the movie as a whole, I think a lot of things do resonate and amplify those themes – and so I’m looking forward to seeing it again so I can watch it with that context.
I don’t make movies (or analyze them in any professional way) – so there may still be some legitimate argument that the Canto Bight sequence didn’t do this perfectly or as tightly as it could have. If people ARE feeling bored or like it drags, then it fails on some level, regardless of how profound the themes are. I wasn’t really one of those – I enjoyed watching Finn and Rose quite a bit, actually – but I can see how that might be a problem. I DID find myself feeling that the movie was a bit too long, especially as I had some squirmy kids with me. Hoping our next viewing is child free (funny thing to say about a Star Wars movie, lol).
@6 I think a lot of people felt this way. I know I did. Though since seeing it, I’ve come to understand how the sequence fits in with the rest of the story on a plot level, and now, thanks to this article, have a better appreciation for how it fits in thematically, while watching the movie, I found myself constantly wishing we could get back to Rey during the Canto Bight scenes.
The twenty-five to fifty percent run is the usually the slowest part of any story (and the hardest to get right, imo). In TLJ that’s all the stuff on Canto Bight, the fleet running out of gas and slowly getting picked off, and the bulk of Rey, Luke, and Kylo’s story. I think part of the problem is that all the biggest, flashiest players are in the same thread, and it just overpowers everything else. It certainly doesn’t help that the fleet thread is almost literally spinning its wheels during this time, and doesn’t heat up until around the midpoint when we learn Holdo’s plan and Poe turns mutinous.
I think this thread needed to be punched up a bit, the ticking clock made more visceral, to ratchet up the tension so that we we welcome a temporary release during the Canto Bight scenes. Also, Poe needed something better to do during this section than fretting over the clock. Maybe show him planning the mutiny from much earlier since he has to be on the bridge to bring the ship to lightspeed.
I loved the themes handled in Canto Bight… but also think the execution fell short and its screws needed some tightening. For starter, the short time window harkens to the same problem The Force Awakens had: it fails to show how big space is, with hyperspace allowing travel between plot planets to take minutes/hours.
Having JD be the second-best alternative felt unnecessary; he might have been the man Maz sent them to find in the first place, without the need for a Space Bond red herring.
Also… “master codebreaker” sounds silly used as a proper noun every few minutes… I know Disney purged the EU, but they could have rescued the term “slicer”…
Yes, Molly. Yes to all of this. I’ve been saying this from the day I saw it, and I really cannot understand why people can’t see how important this part of the film is.
@1 – ragnarredbeard: But that would have entailed Lando selling them out to the First Order. No, thank you. Also, that’s exactly why Rian Johnson didn’t use him, he said it himself.
@5 – Michael Booth: Exactly.
@8 – Al-X: I also wished they’d use slicer, even if they also used “master codebreaker”; because non-EU readers wouldn’t know “slicer”. They haven’t done away with the term, though, it’s used in canon novels.
@9
It wouldn’t have required Lando to sell anyone out. Lando could have been the guy who’s running a massive con on these rich losers and he knows “a guy” who can help. Not Lando’s fault if he turns out to be a scumbag.
(and by the way, calling it now – in Episode IX DJ will be back and he’ll do the right thing instead of selling anyone out)
Oh, you could have used Lando that way, but it wouldn’t been him instead of Benicio del Toro, it would have been him in addition to DJ.
And I hope that if they bring DJ back, he does the right thing without anyone knowing or without anyone being able to accept or reject it, because I wouldn’t accept his help after what he did.
@8 Even though they used “master codebreaker,” my very first thought, just for a second, was: could it be Ghent? That would be… oh, wait, it´s an EU character, never mind. And that was, basically, the only problem I had with Canto Bight: I spent watching that part of the movie missing the EU.
It could have been Ghent, but only if this was Rebels. :) But I guess Ghent is like 8 in that time frame.
Funny enough, when they talked about a slicer (even if they didn’t use that word), I thought of one of my favorite Star Wars RPG characters, a slicer himself. I chose Joseph Gordon-Levitt as a picture for my character. Who’s in the Canto Bight sequence? JGL, playing Sloven Lo, the Abdenedo who rats Finn and Rose to the cops. :)
Canto Bight is where the next great subjugation of the galaxy starts. A moppet headed kid with force powers and in a position of servitude… Please, nobody teach that kid how to develop their force powers; we’ve seen that trilogy already. Although this kid might have a healthier opinion of sand.
@13 He would probably be at least decent slicer even at 8. :) But yeah, Thrawn in Rebels only made me want more EU characters in canon.
@8 @14 — I’m pretty sure DJ does at least use the term “slice” at one point — when he’s talking about getting through the shields, maybe?
My biggest problem with Canto Bight was actually aesthetic — the casino patrons (yes, even though some of them were aliens) just looked entirely too … terrestrial for my tastes; none of the outfits would’ve felt too out of place in the casino scene in a James Bond film. I would’ve preferred something that leaned more into the Roman toga/Chinese court robe aesthetic we got in some of the earlier films. Oh, and also the games were straight from Monte Carlo. But that’s just me.
Given that broom-kid is shown using the Force, idea that the final scene sells theme that “little people, doing their job, is the thing that makes a difference” is, well, normally I’d say an almost willful misreading. But given how incompetently and inconsistently the director deals with themes and character arcs through the film, well, any arbitrary reading is as good as another.
The notion that the blight of Canto was needed so that broom-kid can reinforce a theme will disproved as soon as we get a fan edit without the deary parking violation driven plot line, and we see that simply showing the kids responding to what they’ve heard is just as effective. Hacking out a half hour will make the film better, sadly editing can’t conjure up the real character development for Finn, Rose and Poe that should have happened, but didn’t.
@17 – hoopmanjh: He uses the word “slice”, and I cheered, but he’s talking about “slicing into their shields” to go through. Not about “slicing code”. But perhaps it was on purpose.
I thought the Canto Bight subplot was good, as it provided contrast to the A and B plots (Jedi training and space pursuit) while at the same time reinforcing some of the messages the movie was trying to get across. And it offered some color and comic relief in what would have otherwise been a pretty grim and claustrophobic tale. The weakest plot line was the space pursuit plot, which depended on a lot of contrivances along the way. I know a stern chase is a long chase, but why didn’t the First Order just have some of their forces make a short hyperspace jump to put them ahead of the Resistance ships. Or call for reinforcements (they can’t threaten the entire galaxy if they only have the one squadron of ships that was chasing the Resistance). And I am still unclear on why Holdo needed to keep her plan secret, or deal with the obvious dissention in her ranks. Compared to that, the Canto Bight story was a storytelling gem.
“Vice Admiral Holdo doesn’t care at all about how her choices look, but how they work—like Luke, she provides the Resistance with a moment of hope.”
Adm, Holdo’s choices looked, and worked, very badly indeed. Despite her harsh judgement of Poe her actions got a shitload of her command killed too. He suicide mission redeemed her in my mind.
As for the kids of Canto Bight, has anyone noticed that they’re STILL talking about Luke? Inspired by Luke? Playing with Luke toys? Not talking about Leia, inspired by Holdo or even playing with Rey toys?
I agree with those who say this current series of films is an attempt to redirect the story, but it was a really good and powerful story. Very difficult to get away from. So much so that apparently the filmakers forgot what they were supposed to be doing at the very end.
And, nit picky CBG type question here: how does anyone but Kylo know that Luke was a Force projection? They were really far away from everyone else. Concievably, everyone but Kylo could have seen Lukes disappearance as an Obi Wan style “death”. Luke’s actual physical form was completely alone and far away. His death appears way more heroic if it’s thought that he bought time for the escape of the skeleton crew of the Resistance by actually being there. Maybe that’s why the kids revere him.
This entirely misses the point of the complaints about Canto Bight. No one is saying take it out and replace it with nothing. They are saying take it out and replace it with something that works better. It can still reinforce the movie’s themes.
Are you talking about the kids at the end? What makes you think they’re telling the story about Luke fighting Kylo? I assumed they were telling stories about the Original Trilogy. As far as them telling stories about Luke, and not Leia or Rey… Um, that should seem obvious. Luke blew up the Death Star. Luke fought Vader and redeemed him (even Rey has heard that one). Leia… helped.
And Rey? Those kids have no reason to know who she is. At the end of TLJ, assuming the scene takes place in the aftermath of Rose and Finn leaving Canto Bight, its been less than a week since Starkiller Base was blown up. A place that no one in the galaxy knew existed until it destroyed the Republic a week earlier. Those kids likely don’t even know the republic has BEEN destroyed.
@22 I think @18’s “Hacking out a half hour will make the film better” implies taking it out without adding anything. I’ve seen other complaints where people think the entire Finn and Rose adventure should have been ditched.
The Canto Bight sequence also to explains why we’ve once again got a tiny band of plucky rebels facing an overwhelming force of space Nazis: the new republic (or whatever the Rebel Alliance ends up calling itself in this timeline), never dealt with the deeper roots of the Empire. They seemed to have thought that removing the Emperor and restoring democratic rule would be enough. But all those people making money off the war hanging at Canto Bight are just as instrumental to the Empire as the Sith. As I’ve said before, the evil we see there needs to be defeat just as much as the Sith and the genocidal militarists.
@23
Those were intended to be separate points.
As far as the kids playing with Luke toys, I wasn’t really making an in universe point. I was making more of a future of the franchise point. They’ve done a nice job positioning the Rey/Kylo dynamic to drive the continuing story, then they lost the thread a bit at the end. Just a bit though.
On my CBG question: I meant anyone anyone. Your reply brings up an interesting timeline question though: I had thought that some time elapsed between Rey deciding to find Luke and actually finding him. I’m going to see TLJ again tonight and I’ll rewatch TFA over the weekend to try to figure out why I think that. The high level overview of what I think that I thought right now is that the First Order controlled a corner of the former Galactic Empire. The New Republic controls a much larger portion and there are some independents. The Resistance is a movement supported by the Republic in ways that are plausibly deniable to avoid outright war. The Resistance itself functions within First Order territory. Even with destroying several systems with Starkiller Base I had thought some time would be required For the FO to ash can the Republic. I clearly need to pay closer attn.
I actually thought they WERE re-enacting the end scene – it looked to me like the Luke figure was in front of large tanks like the ones on Crait, but I got such a brief glimpse that I couldn’t be sure.
Anyway – I don’t think the point is necessarily all heroes are bad and we shouldn’t have them at all, but just that we should be more discerning. Part of Luke’s problem perhaps was that he went way too far into the other direction and became so cynical (and disillusioned by his own failures and the Jedi’s failures) that he figured he had NOTHING to offer anymore.
So…the Reb-, er the Resistance shows up, breaks lots of stuff, thinks they’ve Accomplished Something, and then moves on, leaving wreckage in their wake that will be swept up, repaired, and forgotten as things go back to normal once more — and in the process they’ve inspired a new generation to repeat the process. This is progress? This is good?
It’s what happens. It might be the most realistic thing about this franchise.
One thing that has always struck me is that the humor in George Lucas’s Star Wars could always be a little whimsically cruel. Fauna in the original films were either dangerous threats, or were used as throwaway jokes–jabba stuffing squirming frogs into his face. This is the only film where kindness to animals seems to be a consideration on anyone’s mind, whether it is freeing Fathiers or Chewbacca looking guilty for eating a porg.
@25:
Ancillary material has explained, to some degree at least, where the First Order comes from. At least, up until 6 years before TFA. They were in hiding. That constituted their big coming out party, six years before TFA, which can be read about in in the book Bloodlines. If you don’t care about reading it, you can look up the entry for it on Wookiepedia.
I’m not sure of the exact timeline, but the First Order learned the location of the Resistance base in The Force Awakens. That was the whole point of attacking Starkiller Base. They were the next target. And, as TFA and TLJ have made very clear, you can move across this entire galaxy in a matter of hours through hyperspace. I can’t imagine they waited long to attack. Or that the Resistance waited long to evacuate. They would have started the evacuation immediately after blowing up Starkiller Base.
Colin@29:
That is most certainly a function of its time. The messages we care about as a society have definitely changed in the past 40 years.
There was a story a few weeks back about how upset Mark Hamill was at how the Wampa scene turned out in Empire. The wampas, after all, are just predators in a harsh environment–Hamill didn’t think Luke would have maimed one just for being hungry.
To say nothing about that poor rancor!
Canto segment was boring in my opinion. Some might like it. The biggest effect on the story is them getting caught, and DJ giving the first order intelligence that the resistance is landing unshielded freighters on Crate. DJ over heard Poe telling them this.
Without this intelligence the resistance may hav e landed unnoticed on Crate,and this would have ruined the finally. However, we did not need this much of the film dedicated to this.
Overall, a. good movie. Some of the humor was forced. This might have been to light to a dark/weird movie. Johnson has made some artsy/weird movies. This movie had some weird going on.This will make fans of blockbusters uncomfortable. I like Lynch,John son, and indie films, so it did not bother me. Strange for a Star Wars/blockbuster movie. Yes, Star Wars are blockbuster movies. From ROTJ through the prequels this is very apparent. Empire was different, and strange in relation to the other films. Much different than any of the other films, and by far the best. ROTJ is the definition of summer pop corn movie.
I am glad they shock things up. If Rey was related to however, and Snoke was so and so friend It would have felt small, and repedative. This gives them the opertuinity to move forward. Star Was fans do not worry. JJ will make a standard pop corn movie for episode 9. Disney will make sure of it.
Was Canto Bight necessary? Well that depends on how you like your movies. If you don’t mind a movie where Characters don’t share information with anyone just so that the audience won’t know what’s going on to create a false sense of dramatic tension while other characters are running around carrying the idiot ball just to advance the movie’s plot, all to provide an OMG I can’t believe that just happened moment, then you can probably make an argument for the Canto Bight sequence being necessary. On the other hand if you prefer a movie that doesn’t need to lie to the audience to establish it’s mood and has characters with believable motivations who respond and react with understandable actions within a plot that isn’t being driven by authorial fiat, then it is a totally unnecessary sequence. I think it its pretty easy to figure out which side of the fence I’m standing on.
Apparently it has nothing to do with RYAN (sp)’s next trilogy because it will be brand new with entirely different planets, so the conspiracy theory about lore dropping/marketing for a future film is out the window. That is if he makes it because in the Star Wars world the films are always larger than the directors. “I want to see Tahiti, Guillermo, or Denis make a Star Wars film”. – If they know whats good for them they will run away in the opposite direction once the first offer is formally made.
The way I see it, while the sequence may be needed thematically for that reason, in a 150 minutes long movie they could have used cutting a bit with all the action and chase scenes in it, which certainly didn’t contribute jack to those themes, weren’t especially entertaining, and felt utterly pointless after seeing how the whole thing ended. In fact even the themes are jammed on, because all we get is simply Finn and Rose talking and Rose goes “well the only people who get this rich are arms merchants for the First Order” and that’s it. We’ve just got to take her word for it, these people are all left actually as complete background figures. It’s a prime example of telling rather than showing. So it’s not like the themes come off very well.
Just as when Star Trek tries to do Star Wars by being simple, hyper dramatic action stories, Wars trying to do Trek is just as awkward. Because, as Canto Bite illustrates, social commentary really isn’t your strength, Star Wars.
@21: “how does anyone but Kylo know that Luke was a Force projection?”
They don’t. Kylo knows. The First Order troops saw him disappear, but don’t have the context to know what that means. All anyone else knows is that Luke Skywalker, Jedi Master, stood alone against an entire army, held them off for long enough, and now he is gone.
What I wonder is if Kylo knows he’s actually dead – would he have felt that through the Force? Is he still connected enough to him to sense that? Or does he still think he’s out there somewhere (in a physical sense) and is going to still be obsessed with finding him.
Also, if he does ever find out, wonder how pissed off he would be to realize he is not the one who actually killed him (although that’s debatable since you might be able to argue the projection was to face him and so therefore he’s indirectly responsible…but I wonder if Kylo would find that satisfying enough).
I haven’t even read the entire article yet, but I have read some other articles here, and I am glad there are people left who go beyond moaning negativity, and (frankly) opinionated myopia, and actually watch the movies intently – and by that provide useful insights to the stories, how they relate to our current societies and state of the world, and therefor what they can truly mean to people. It gives me some… hope.. actually.
My favourite detail from the Canto Bight sequence was that Mark Hamill played the little drunk alien who thought BB-8 was a slot machine.
I read The Last Jedi so so so differently to most.
I thought the entire film was about the right to life being the most important concern to freedom. Totalitarian societies like The Empire or First Order treat life as a means to an end. Corrupt societies on their way toward totalitarianism treat life as a means to an end. But healthy societies treat it as an end in itself. The Resistance must not be another ideology in a spiral of profiteering war with an opposing ideology, but must exist to protect life itself.
Luke tries to tell Rey that The Force is all life’s struggle to continue in the universe, the energy of that growth. That the desire to aid it, and the force of it’s momentum, cannot be extinguished, does not die with the Jedi, that it’s vanity to think they own the force. He does not realize himself that he is fighting a defensive war of death in regards to his self-doubt, until Yoda destroys the Jedi Tree and tells Luke that tradition isn’t so important as compassion, and living in the here and now is more important than dogma – living in the past is anti-life.
Finn is saved by Rose at the moment of sacrifice, because in her words, it is better to preserve what you love, than to destroy what you hate – another comment on how one is entropic and corrupting of motives and institutions – the other edifying and timeless. As Yoda said, a Jedi uses the Force for knowledge and defense, never for attack.
So Poe was acting purely in keeping with this – he thought that Admiral Holdo was fighting a purely defensive war to prolong the morbid wait for death – and he chose to instead take a risk on a plan of small hope, that would potentially save them, rather than wait for the inevitable like someone stuck in a deathly spiral of negativity and attempts to preserve what they have. Leia and Holdo even recognize him as someone who will bravely follow his moral compass, no matter how personally damaging. Now people in these comments have highlighted some things I didn’t notice, but I still don’t think that Poe is arrogant – it seems to me he was just, like Rogue One before him, following the principle of protecting life and seizing any small hope – only it didn’t work.
What this is trying to say about Poe, I don’t know, but I don’t think it’s saying he was wrong to have those beliefs. In A New Hope, the Rebellion blesses it’s pilots with May The Force Be With You. They want and need people just like him, who are incorruptible by the Empire’s horrible cynicism.
That is also why I found the Canto Bight arc so important to the film – another society which cannot see the value of life is it’s true wealth – and DJ, a man so disillusioned with what he has seen of galactic hypocrisy that he has fallen into darkness. The film was an answer to that nihilism.
That was something cross posted from the other thread, because I thought it was relevant here – the Canto Bight arc is important to the film because it contrasts with Luke’s message and the theme of protection of life.
It’s important because they had to do something with Finn.
Okay, I’m commenting on this way late, in part because I had an interesting (to me) thought and this is actually the most relevant place to share it, because who knows, somebody else might think it’s interesting.
I’m kind of a soundtrack nerd. I’m mildly obsessed with the Star Wars soundtracks and love following blogs/podcasts that catalog/count the uses of the themes, call out the various motifs and sub motifs, and all that I’m one of those people that nerded out when the Death Star motif and the 1977 Imperial Theme were included in Rogue One (Also everybody should listen to the old Star Wars Oxygen podcasts on Rebel Force Radio which sadly are no longer being done, and so Last Jedi will never get the same treatment, but the Rogue One podcast was fascinating and there are so many other things to nerd out over in that score). I also enjoy picking out similarities to other tracks even if they’re just incidental.
ANYWAY – when the Last Jedi soundtrack was released, I listened to it before I saw the movie (or even reading the track names) as a fun thought experiment and listed out my predictions/thoughts, and only recently got a chance to really do a deep dive into it.
There are really only two new ‘themes’ in the Last Jedi soundtrack – Rose’s Theme, and a theme I’ve heard referred to elsewhere as “Luke in Exile” which plays over a lot of the island scenes (think spearfishing Luke). The TLJ soundtrack release only contains one concert suite, a track called “The Rebellion is Reborn”. This track goes back and forth between Rose’s Theme and Luke in Exile, interweaving them (which I don’t think he’s done before on a concert suite). But what I think is really interesting and brilliant is the way this track unites both halves of the movie, and connected two characters in a way that even I hadn’t thought much about until listening to it. The track title comes from Luke’s quote at the end and so (along with his theme), clearly associates it with Luke. But the other half of the track belongs to Rose. And while Rey and her journey are also part of the spark relighting the Rebellion, the film ends on the child that Rose inspires on Canto Bight (who, of course, had just finished playing with his makeshift Luke Skywalker action figure). And so in a way, Luke’s quote is also about Rose, and in a way, Rose possibly opened the door for them to be interested in Luke’s legend in the first place.
Other music inspired thoughts:
-The Spark, which is the march that plays over Luke’s march across the salt flats is actually a reworked Imperial March given a more ‘heroic’ slant, and there’s something rather cool about Luke being the one to have that music Not Kylo, the wannabe Vader fanboy – but Luke, who redeemed him and represents his true legacy.
-Also, if you listen to the track Revisiting Snoke, at about 1:55 you get a few notes that hint who Snoke really is: VOLDEMORT ;) (Okay, not really, but there are a few notes that are very similar to ‘The Face of Voldemort’ in Williams’s HPSS soundtrack, but you could also argue that all of them are similar to the Emperor’s theme so…but it was one of those things where I was listening to the soundtrack and then the phrase ‘there is only power and those too weak to seek it’ immediately jumped into my head. There’s so much bleed through in style when it comes to the HP soundtracks, but the thought made me chuckle).
I’ll have to listen to the soundtrack again and pay attention. Thanks.
All of you folks give me ways to try to like this film a little more. That’s the part I find most odd about it, as someone who even loves the prequels: I have to struggle to find things to make me feel ok about this film. I’m not gnashing me teeth or going off into fanrage, etc.: I simply saw it several times to make sure I had a hold of it (I am a SW fan to the max), and I just feel bad about it in the sense I don’t want to ever see it again! The Canto Bight scene would play a role in that: even at the fourth time in the theater I had to go real patient on it to wait it out, fuming at parking tickets and trashing casinos and no Lando, etc. As someone who has watched all the PT and OT many, many times (must be in the high hundred for some of them LOL) my judgment so far on TLJ is that I have zip desire to see it again. But I wish everyone else the joy of their enjoyment!!!!
@48 – hah, I kind of know what you mean. One of the moms I know at church has absolutely refused to see TLJ because she knows it kills Luke Skywalker and that’s a dealbreaker for her. LOL. I almost wish I had her principle.
But yeah – I honestly really enjoy the prequels (I’m sure both age and being relatively new to the fandom when they came out had a part in that – I really had no preconceived ideas) so even though I can certainly pick out all the reasons others don’t like them, and why the sequels in some ways surpass them…I just don’t feel the same way about the sequels. Although for different reasons than you – the Canto Bight stuff isn’t my favorite part of the movie, but it doesn’t bug me either.
I’m trying to go in with an open mind and I can enjoy them for the most part now, but there are still parts I think I’ll never really be awesome with. I’m not sure I’ll ever watch them as much as I do the OT and prequels – although part of that could just be growing up and not having the time anymore, or the mental energy to obsess over things like I used to (I actually took pride in the fact that I saw Phantom Menace 20 times in the theater, lol. Back then I had the time and spending money to do such things…).
But like you, I am glad others love it, and I will say in general it’s helped my Star Wars enthusiasm just because it’s fun to see the fandom so active again. And it definitely has led to a ton of interesting discussions and new ideas.
On the other hand – when I was listening to the TLJ soundtrack it struck me how embedded things like Rey’s Theme and Kylo Ren’s theme or March of the Resistance already were to me – to me those are just as much ‘Star Wars themes’ as any of the classic or prequel themes. I think a lot of that is John Williams being awesome but I do think part of it is that the movies have taken hold a little bit for me. And when I watch the movies, my associations with the music end up carrying over into it. I still think the best thing TFA ever gave us was The Jedi Steps which is probably one of the greatest single pieces of music JW has composed in all of his canon. And coming from somebody who was devoted to the RotS soundtrack (Immolation Scene for life!), for something to nudge that out of the top spot…that’s saying a lot. That song alone softens a lot of my feelings for the movie, ha.
(I’d love to see Tor do a series on John Williams btw. Not there there aren’t plenty of music analysis blogs and podcasts already – Star Wars alone has spawned a ridiculous amount of content/analysis – but it would just be so fun – Star Wars, Harry Potter, Jurassic Park, Superman, Indiana Jones, ET, Hook, Close Encounters and a ton of other stuff I’m not as familiar with – I’m a bit obsessed with music in general so but I feel like he’s a huge part of all of those works and incredibly important to the emotional impact those stories have. In some ways, for me, I’ve noticed when I watch movies, the music is more of a factor than the plotting or dialogue terms of how I feel about the movie and the impression it leaves. Maybe that’s why I like the prequels so much ;) The music is great and what carries the thematic and emotional arcs for me, so the crappy dialogue/acting doesn’t phase me. I’m also a bad judge of acting/dialogue and I wonder if my own poor social/emotional skills are part of that – music, on the other hand, is something that I intuitively understand and one of the few things that actually causes me to emote).
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