"It's time for the Jedi to end."

You all know Star Wars. Star Wars is the ultimate film series filled with so much imagination and it completely changed the film medium when the first film came out in 1977. It also created easily the biggest, most passionate and most obnoxious group of fans I've ever seen. So many articles, posts, blogs and videos have been made about this series in the past and Star Wars discourse has become absolutely obnoxious to me. I loathe it. I love Star Wars, Empire Strikes Back is among my all time favorite films easily. Yet, the knowing every detail in the expanded universe and wanting fan service and to see certain things happen to fulfill your desires is something I hate. Films should challenge you and make you feel differently about the world after you walk out of them. The best films should do this and I believe 2017's divisive film The Last Jedi is a perfect example of that.

The Last Jedi is the perfect example of a divide among critics and audience members. On Rotten Tomatoes, the critic score for The Last Jedi is a 91% while the audience score is a 43%. This is an interesting divide for me and it makes me wonder if either critics are out of touch or the audience is? Film discourse is all very subjective so in the end of the day, no one is right or wrong when it comes to what they like and don't like. Yet, I've certainly seen discussion of The Last Jedi and what it did that doesn't seem accurate. I see The Last Jedi as a victim of expectations. If The Last Jedi was just a typical science fiction adventure everyone would probably love it. It's a Star Wars movie so it gets held on a different standard. It must fulfill audience expectations or else it will get roasted by sweaty Star Wars fan.

Director Rian Johnson didn't cater to fan expectations and instead wanted to twist the expectations of its audiences. This is much like another film in the same franchise, The Empire Strikes Back. Here's a fun fact, when The Empire Strikes Back came out people were not kind to it. Several stating that it lost the charm the original film had by making it darker and making the story less consistent. We now realize years later that The Empire Strikes Back is an absolute masterpiece. With its incredible characterizations and amazing twists that subverts the audiences every single expectation- it just rules. It makes Star Wars about finding yourself within the force and facing your own inner demons. Do or do not, there is no try.

In one of the first scenes of The Last Jedi, we get the pay off from The Force Awakens. The Force Awakens, the film preceding The Last Jedi, our main character Rey hands Luke, the Jedi Master we all know and love, his lightsaber. This scene plays out the same in The Last Jedi, but Luke chucks the lightsaber into the water and walks away. Our first expectations are that Luke is gonna drop everything and join the Resistance and be the Luke we all know and love. Would this be realistic? Absolutely not. From a story perspective that is a really boring way to introduce that character back into the series. It's safe. In The Last Jedi, they have shown that there is a reason why Luke has ran off onto this island by himself. He is running away from a monster he has created. We first think Rey has come here to be trained by Luke. While this does happen, the real reason Rey came here is to save Luke from his own demons and show him he needs to face them. This is good and compelling character work and I really appreciated it.

Kylo Ren, the main antagonist of the film, knows he is a villain. This is different from Darth Vader in the past, who gets sold into his role from The Empire after being converted to The Dark Side. Kylo is just an angsty kid who is working out his feelings. This makes him such a more compelling villain. He is the one to actually kill Commander Snoke in a super satisfying way. We have built up Snoke as this super powerful Emperor force and just to off handedly kill him by a whiny brat is a perfect subversion from what you expect to happen in the film. Big powerful villains who just want to rule the world are excuses to have a force for our heroes to want to fight. So when we see them dead we can be happy and not have to think any further then that. Kylo, while evil has shown that he is vulnerable and human. He saved Rey from Snoke and wanted her to join him and stop the Jedi and the Sith from the War. She says no but now we see that Kylo has more layers to him then just, "bad guy" which will make his defeat mean a little bit more and hurt a little bit more.

In the same scene, Kylo tells Rey that she came from nothing. A lot of fan speculation online said that Rey could have been a Skywalker or from another blood line. Coming from nothing makes her character a lot more relatable and intriguing to me. If Rey was to just be from a bloodline of powerful Jedi's then some of the magic and mystery of the character is gone. (Also seriously, if each Star Wars movies have characters that come from the same blood line, that would just get old after a while). This detail debunked so many fan theories and once again, subverted expectations to create a more compelling movie.

Rise of the Skywalker comes out this weekend to conclude the Skywalker Saga. Will it debunk or rewrite what The Last Jedi has done? I sure hope not. Yet, I'll go into the film with an open mind and realize that this is another filmmakers take on what Star Wars should be. In analyzing a film, a person shouldn't expect a certain movie but expect anything to happen. When a film can genuinely subvert your expectations you had and give you something you didn't know you wanted- well that's the magic of what movies can do. So if you watched and hated The Last Jedi, give it another go. I get that it has issues. The Canto Bight scenes are kinda pointless and floating Leia in space was certainly a weird choice that doesn't really work for me. Watch the movie and realize this isn't trying to cater to lore but be its own concise film that's actually about something. Best illustrated when the force ghost Yoda burns the sacred texts. "Page turners they were not". Let the past die. Nostalgia is a good thing to hold onto and it's good to appreciate what came before. Don't let the past determine all your decisions for the future. Always look to the future and always come up with new ideas because then we will learn more about ourselves.