Teachings of the Last Jedi

I think Rian Johnson made this movie for you and you just don’t know it yet.

Luke represents the Past. All of us old school fans, those of us who grew up with Star Wars and now we’re seeing this new thing as adults. Some of us are so high in our tower that we cut ourselves off completely from the new canon, our EU novels arranged like a shrine in our bookshelves, surviving on speculation and fan theories like disgusting green milk gleaned from lonely corners of the internet.

But Rey is the Present. The Sequel Trilogy. She’s insistent and headstrong. She’s here whether you want her to be or not. If you’re going to continue the story of Star Wars, you’re going to have to engage with her. She’s also the new Fans. They’ve heard the myths and legends about the Original Trilogy, but they don’t really see them the same way once they watch them. Still, they feel that same pull we do — the call to adventure, that indescribable magic of Star Wars that implies something so much bigger just beneath the surface. So sometimes they reach out. To us, the old mentors. To our stories. Sometimes we open up to them; we share our lore and create a link between the old and new. A balance.

Other times, it reminds us of the inevitability of the Future, and we grow afraid. Things are in motion now. Star Wars is growing faster than ever. It’s everywhere. A Star Wars movie every year forever. It’s going to make ungodly amounts of money and it’s not going to be for nerds anymore it’s for everybody.

For us old folks, it’s too much and too fast and if it keeps going we feel like we’re going to lose everything we love. So we retreat from it again. We peek out from our island every now and again, but instead of looking forward with hope we look on with the harrowed gaze of someone just trying to see how much damage might be done.

And we know it’s our fault, worst of all. You see, Ben Solo before his turn represents the Prequels. Star Wars as it was during those years with so much potential — but bad enough to frighten us, to embarrass us, to threaten to destroy our love of Star Wars.

And we lashed out at it. Briefly, in the grand scheme. Many look on them fondly now. But the damage was done. We killed what Star Wars was going to be in a moment of weakness when we lost faith. You’ll have to come to terms with that before you can move forward. The Sequel Trilogy we would have gotten had long been mapped out by George. The son of Han and Leia would have been trained by Luke at his New Temple, along with many others that would usher in the next chapter of the Skywalker Saga.

That’s over now. With the fans against him, the Creator severed that timeline. And that created Kylo Ren.

Let the past die. Kill it if you have to. Burn it all down. The Jedi. The Sith. I’ll destroy it all. Kylo Ren represents how many fans view the Sequel Trilogy. This antagonistic force that is fighting for the soul of Star Wars: Rey. He keeps trying to pull her towards a new thing, as she seeks to understand the old. He sees all the theories and lore you’re clinging to and the direction you hope Rey/Star Wars will go and he laughs at it. He kills Snoke and dares you to argue about his backstory. He tells Rey she’s no one and doesn’t even belong in this story. He’s talking to you. He’s saying you don’t get to have the Past and what you feared is true — you’re going to be left behind unless you just give in.

And the fighting, the fans turning on each other and arguing over what Star Wars is supposed to be is ripping it apart. The Sword of Skywalker shatters in two under the pull of a fandom in chaos.

But The Last Jedi, via this meta narrative, is trying to give us all a path forward.

Yoda is Rian Johnson. He appears not only as Yoda, but very intentionally as an obvious puppet. This is saying two things clearly. He’s saying “I can only do so much, but I’m here as one of you. Stop and listen to what I’m trying to tell you.” Rian is a massive Star Wars fan. He grew up with it just like us, and he knows the lore and the controversy and the importance of Star Wars very, very well. And he gives you some good advice.

Star Wars has been a lot of things over the years. For a long time it was for us nerds and didn’t have as much broad appeal, especially outside of the movies themselves. A lot of that stuff was bad. The lore got pretty convoluted. The gems that were there were almost lost among the debris of So Much Stuff. It’s time to move on from it and have new adventures — but the spirit of Star Wars is always going to carry what you loved inside of it. “Those books contain nothing the girl Rey does not already possess.” The creators are fans like us. They can’t help but be inspired by the decades of Star Wars stories that came before. (And, you’ll notice, Rey took the books with her after all — a sly nod that some stuff will be brought into the new canon.)

And yet, while also saying it’s okay to move on, Rian doesn’t undervalue the power of myth. He understands that we all have a version of our childhood heroes that exists only in our hearts and minds. There they are untouchable, unassailable, immortal — and we need them to be, because they gave us strength in a special way that nothing else could.

“I can’t bear to lose anymore,” Leia says.

“Sure you can,” Holdo smiles a smile that breaks the fourth wall, tears in her eyes. Leia was Laura Dern’s hero too. “You taught me how.”

When Luke returns, he’s strong. Hamill looks younger, hardened, determined, and with a beard that would make Chuck Norris sit down. Like he stepped out of our imagination, he’s the Old Luke we thought we needed to see wielding his green lightsaber like a badass because we thought that would give us something of value. This is Luke as he is and always will be to us.

But the final lightsaber duel isn’t a duel at all, and that’s the point. It can’t be. He’s untouchable, unassailable, immortal. He even wields the Sword of Skywalker: a deliberate choice rather than the green, as Rian returns the saber to its rightful place before the end — in the hands of the old fans. Rian is saying you have power unlike anything else. Once a story has affected you the way the Original Trilogy affected many of us — that never goes away. Unless you kill it. So don’t. Hold on to your mythic heroes because they do have real power, even when it’s only in your mind.

Kylo Ren, the dark fear we have about the future of Star Wars made manifest, can’t even touch Our Luke. The whiff of Kylo’s lightsaber feels like a promise. It’s also Rian reminding us if we don’t move on and tell new stories, eventually the mythic legacy of the Past will be diminished. We thought we wanted Luke going off on crazy adventures, but do we really need more of those? We have 40 years of Luke Skywalker stories — some of them are the ones you were clinging desperately to. Keep them. Even if they are just myths and legends told around a campfire, things that may not have turned out to be true, the power of story is still there.

Yet the threat is still real as well. Kylo Ren screams at us that he’s still going to destroy it all. And it might go that way. Rian is imploring us to unite, to give voice to the kinds of stories you want to see and to accept even the failures as lessons to take forward as you continue keeping the spirit of Star Wars alive.

Luke and Leia will always be behind us to help us.

After all, Rey is still undecided. She has taken the Jedi Texts with her. She cradles the broken lightsaber and Rian shows us that Anakin’s kyber crystal is still intact. The spirit of the Skywalker Saga is still in her hands.

We have to move on. Rian’s question to you is simple: Will you come with us?

The true power of stories and heroes lies in us, and Star Wars is going to be stronger if we use our knowledge and love for the past to help keep it alive. To inspire and unite instead of cast out and divide.

Star Wars is for that kid in everyone who looks out at the horizon and feels a call to adventure.

As long as that spirit survives, it’s Star Wars.

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