Posted on 07/04/2018 4:50:47 AM PDT by otness_e
SPOILER ALERT: This article reveals several key plot points from the movie Star Wars: The Last Jedi. If you haven't seen the movie, please beware.
In 1977, George Lucas revolutionized not only film but the entire entertainment industry with Star Wars.
But, 40 years later, Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017) isn't a revolution. A revolution is when the oppressed overthrow the oppressor, the old are replaced by the new, giving rise to new countries and concepts. The Last Jedi doesn't change the boundaries established by Star Wars in its story, expression (technique and design) nor how its business operates.
However, rather than this being something negative about the film, it is proof that The Last Jedi is indeed the right kind of Star Wars for the 21st century.
Lucas' original Star Wars is a story of revolution, where the rebellion led by Princess Leia along with Han Solo and Jedi Knight Obi-Wan Kenobi and Luke Skywalker stand against the Galactic Empire. The Last Jedi depicts the battles between the heavily armed First Order and the Resistance fighters. This structure is inherited from The Force Awakens, an "Empire versus Rebellion" theme that is persistent throughout the Star Wars series.
Near the end of The Last Jedi, Kylo Ren kills Snoke, the Supreme Leader of the First Order. This is a coup d'état by Kylo, and should be considered an internal structural revolution. However, while Kylo invites Rey to create a new order along with him, he never actually attempts to do so. Instead of destroying the First Order, he merely occupies the now vacant position of Supreme Leader. It seems that only the leadership in the organization changes, while its objective and power structure are left intact. What happens next might be portrayed in future episodes, but at this point, the First Order has only undergone a succession in administration, rather than an actual revolution.
The motif of succession is present throughout the film: Vice Admiral Holdo takes command when Leia is incapacitated, and Poe Dameron is demoted for disobeying General Leia's orders. And most importantly, there is the succession from Luke to Rey.
This is not a revolution. And just as the story isn't about revolution, its themes and portrayals aren't revolutionary either. This is only natural, though, as the film is but one piece of the continuous, eternal kingdom of Star Wars.
Star Wars and New American Cinema Let's first look back at the revolution that George Lucas started in 1977.
My first encounter with Star Wars was through a metallic sticker included in a movie magazine. It featured Luke Skywalker using binoculars while standing next to C-3PO, and that alone was enough to transmit how groundbreaking Star Wars was. However, it would take more than a year after its release in the US for the movie to be released in Japan. Actually, Star Wars ended up being released in Japan after Close Encounters of the Third Kind. At the time, there was no internet, and the speed at which information from overseas came to Japan can't begin to compare to the flow of information we have today. Even then, though, there was a daily influx of Star Wars news and reviews: a blockbuster science fiction epic that sparked a global SF frenzy. Fueled by the SF craze, Japanese Star Wars-like movies such as The War In Space and Message from Space were rushed into production so that they could be released before Star Wars in Japan.
I was one of those kids excited about watching Star Wars, but even I felt something odd about this movie being categorized as science fiction. Back then, to me, science fiction was not restricted to just movies or novels, but any expression that portrayed problems and contradictions in today's society and brought them under examination by presenting them from a different angle. 2001: A Space Odyssey, Planet of the Apes, Soylent Green, Z.P.G., Godzilla; their social commentary and philosophical perspective made them SF. At the time Star Wars was criticized in some corners for having no philosophy, and for being preposterous and childish.
Star Wars wasn't science fiction per se; it was more of a fairy tale set in space. However, it wasn't a superficial, childish soap opera either. It was a revolutionary film, set to change films altogether: a work that created a genre and a culture of its own.
It may not directly tackle themes that afflict modern society, and some might brush it off as a shallow popcorn flick, but that's not the case. It is well known that Lucas used mythologist Joseph Campbell's The Hero With a Thousand Faces as a base, and through Star Wars Lucas expanded on timeless themes such as father and son relationship and the journey into adulthood.
On top of that, by introducing ideas based on Eastern mysticism such as the Force and Jedis, he brought non-western religious and philosophical elements into the realm of science fiction (or better put: to space opera). One of those elements is how the Force extends beyond good and evil, diving into the idea of the duality persistent across all things (perhaps some of this thinking was influenced by Lucas' affection in his youth towards Akira Kurosawa's work).
There are those who claim that the success of Star Wars ended the New American Cinema, but that's not the case. George Lucas, who stood up to make films in the 1960s, had an aversion to Hollywood's system and created his own indie development company along with Francis Ford Coppola (Lucas’ debut film with the studio being THX1138). Lucas didn't end New American Cinema: he created a new way of making films.
Tech, Merch and Process Star Wars also revolutionized the technology and business of movies. The trilogy, consisting of episodes four to six, utilized analog special effects (SFX) such as filming miniature sets with motion control cameras, while episodes one to three created aliens, droids and environmental art mostly through digital effects (VFX), always creating its worlds with state of the art technology.
Companies such as ILM, THX and Skywalker Sound were created to pursue further research and development of these technologies, and the knowledge they accumulated would go on to significantly transform the film industry on a global scale (you may remember that Pixar was also born from the CG division of Lucas Films).
Star Wars and George Lucas blazed a new path for VFX, CG, sound systems and other film technologies, and took their development to new heights. James Cameron, a few generations younger than George Lucas, would make similar contributions down the line.
Lucas continues to use the latest technologies to edit the films on each subsequent release, whether it’s the 1997 Trilogy Special Edition or other releases on DVD and Blu-ray. This was a foreshadowing of the transformation from movies as finished theatrical products to continuously morphing entities, much like social games and TV series.
On the business side, by acquiring the merchandising rights, Lucas was ahead of his time in acknowledging the potential movies had as a royalty driven business. All the merchandise born from the movies - toys, figures, games, comics, animations, etc. - helped form the Star Wars universe. And each of those provides a form of entertainment different from a movie. I can't even begin to count how many Lego sets and figures I've bought over the years!
Lucas' Star Wars movie revolution gave rise to a creative process mimicked by all films since, and established the current movie business model. Of course, The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi are no exceptions. Even though The Last Jedi utilizes the latest VFX to deliver ever more astounding visuals, it's just an extension of the revolution of some 40 years past. A case in point: A lot of attention has been brought to the fact that a life-size mock-up of the Millennium Falcon was created to lend an authentic atmosphere, but the very same thing, albeit only the right half, was created way back in Episode IV. We are, in fact, not in the midst of a real technical revolution.
For each new Star Wars movie, the world setting, characters, mechanical creations and other designs must fit within the Star Wars framework, which of course makes it difficult to deliver an experience as all together new and fresh as the original. In addition, with mainline and spin-off films coming out every other year, it's impossible for a single creator to control all aspects of production. Instead, multiple directors must create films that keep fans continuously engaged, while staying within the confines of the Star Wars universe.
The Last Jedi is a movie that gallantly confronts this challenge. In fact, it is on this point that writer and director Rian Johnson really shines. Faced with the questions of how to build upon the back of an already successful revolution, and just what is the right course of action to take, Johnson chose to portray a modern, 21st century Star Wars story of succession and replacement.
The Last Jedi Despite coming in at a new Star Wars record running time of roughly 152 min., the story of The Last Jedi is actually quite simple. Over the course of the film the resistance is constantly on the run from the dogged pursuit of the First Order. During that time Luke and Rey's succession, Kylo Ren and Supreme Leader Snoke's showdown, Rey and Kylo's Force-enabled communication, not to mention Finn and Rose's infiltration mission all play out.
As far as the story is concerned, little waves are made and there are no space-shattering conflicts. Although, to be fair this may be an inescapable result of being the second act of three parts.
In any case, the story immediately reminded me of Christopher Nolan's Dunkirk. Both are only one part of a larger story, and focus almost exclusively on the theme of escape. Like Dunkirk, The Last Jedi largely sets aside any questions about the causes of conflict and what effects the outcome may yield. Rather than tell a story, it's more concerned with effectively presenting characters and situations.
This method, akin to the portrayal of TV series characters, eschews plot progression in favor of deeper character development. Significant effort is applied to diving into and increasing the allure of characters from the previous episode: Rey, Finn, Poe, Kylo, as well as a host of new characters. However, failure to follow through with these character developments yields regrettable results. Poe gets kicked to the side early on and never finds a place to shine, and Rey and Luke's interactions fail to reach a satisfying conclusion.
The Last Jedi does boast a series of striking scenes, from Kylo and Rey's intense battle with the Elite Praetorian Guard (featuring backhanded lightsaber action!), to the final showdown on the blood-like red plumes of the white salt flats.
The Force Conversely, unlike previous episodes, there is no mention of the trade federation that initially sparked the war for the Republic or other deeper political machinations. Instead, a great deal of care is paid to the positioning of characters. This is evident in Leia's role as a female general, the heroine Rey, and Finn's Asian female compatriot Rose. The film is conscious of gender and minorities in a way that could surely not have been seen in the era of Lucas' Star Wars.
The film doesn't waste its breath on bold revolutionary or political declarations, but instead sets its gaze upon social problems the audience experiences on a daily basis. Women are not princesses waiting to be rescued, but warriors who take up arms in their own fight. This fits the trend of Disney movies as well, where the once common theme of a princess waiting for her prince has all but become the ancient past.
The revelation behind the mystery of Rey's birth also brings another of the trilogy's central social themes to light.
Rey is one of the, if not the most powerful conduits of the Force, but her parents were not Jedi - just commoners (note: this truth may very well change in the next episode). This is directly opposed to Kylo Ren, who is the son of Leia and Han Solo, and Luke Skywalker, whose father is Darth Vader. Anakin's birth is also veiled in mystery. It's said he is without father, and an abnormally large quantity of midi-chlorians in his body grant him remarkable Force powers. So, just like the others, his birth has a mysterious mythological and privileged air about it.
Until now, the Force has always been something that only the chosen can come to possess, but this assumption is turned on its head. As we learn from Luke's lesson, the Force is, in fact, omnipresent, there for everyone.
The Democratization of the Hero Episodes one through six center around the Force and the story of Luke Skywalker and his father Darth Vader. The heroes in these episodes are all special carriers of the Force. Indeed, episodes one to three are almost exclusively focused on the birth of Darth Vader.
(As a bit of an aside, it is sometimes hypothesized that perhaps due to Metal Gear Solid 3's position as a prequel and its focus on the birth of Big Boss, it was influenced by Star Wars. Darth Vader = Big Boss, or something like that. This is wrong. I was actually referencing the structure of Planet of the Apes and Stephen Hunter's Swagger Saga.)
Just as the power of kings is passed to their lineage, so too the Force is passed to the chosen few. At least that's how we've viewed Star Wars until now. The Last Jedi throws this concept out the window. Anyone can awaken to the Force. Anyone can be the hero. The spotlight isn't reserved for those special few, it can shine on anyone. Princess Leia is no longer a princess, but a general, a position that can be replaced by another.
The same movement has happened within the world of games. Previously the hero was an elite, a chosen figure coming from a unique background or possessing special powers, but from the time of Grand Theft Auto and the like, minorities and oppressed members of society have become the heroes. In this day and age, the leading role isn't reserved just for the chosen, but anyone can become the hero = the player.
The Last Jedi may be the first attempt to free Star Wars from its era of mythology, and propel it into the present. The closing scene of the young boy hopefully gazing up at the stars is as fitting an indication of this intent as any.
In Star Wars, anyone can be the hero. That's what The Last Jedi tells us. It's a new era, starting in a kingdom without a king.
The revolutionary age of toppling kings is past. Star "Wars" has entered a new era of festivity, welcome to one and all. The "all flash and no blood" red plumes on the salt planet signify this change of stance. To ensure the stability and prosperity of the kingdom, a festival is held each year as part of a never-ending celebration. This is what it means for Disney, not George Lucas, to helm the Star Wars franchise. In the magic kingdom anyone can become prince or princess, no blood is spilled and there are no revolutions.
The Last Jedi is just the prologue.
Hideo Kojima, best known as the game creator of the Metal Gear series, became an independent game developer at the end of 2015 after releasing Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain. He established his own studio, Kojima Productions, and is now making PS4 game DEATH STRANDING, starring Norman Reedus and Mads Mikkelsen,
Star Wars needs a Reboot or maybe just Booted Out
I’d love to see a sequel to Solo..I loved it, and so has everyone I’ve spoken to. Felt much more like a real SW movie than anything since Empire. I hope it does well on ITunes...we may get another chance.
“The film doesn’t waste its breath on bold revolutionary or political declarations”
The author must have missed the last scene.
1. Democratization? Now that Snoke and Luke are gone (and Leia will be going with Carrie Fisher's death), looks to me like Rey and Ren and that little kid with the broom at the end are the only people shown to have any direct access to that mystical Force thing (which, for all its being based on a lot of real-life Eastern occult religion and philosophy, has always basically been the scotch tape holding the stories together; e.g. it's the reason those storm troopers are all such lousy shots when they're aiming at the heroes). Nobody in the film ever said the Force is now available for everyone to use; Luke merely points out that it doesn't need really any priesthood (such as the Jedi) or practitioners (such as himself) at all to go on operating.
2. Poe kicked to the curb? Looked to me like (for all of his mistakes) he was undergoing a lot of character development and was firmly in command by the end: "What are you looking at me for? Follow him!"
3. Feminism? Rey fails to heed Luke's warnings that things aren't going to go the way she thinks and ends up getting humiliatingly whacked in the head with her own saber and manipulated into helping Kylo Ren overthrow his master and seize the throne. Admiral Holdo is deliberately written to be an obnoxious character who lets her feelings get in the way of getting her job done as part of teaching Poe what not to do as he's learning how to be a responsible leader (and contrary to some of the dumber critiques I've seen, dying your hair weird colors, wearing what looks like an evening gown into battle, and chewing out a subordinate for getting an entire fleet blown up with his insubordination does not make you an SJW). As for the much-despised character Rose, her selfishness likewise contributes to the failure of Finn's missions and stands in stark contrast to his heroic selflessness and noble edification of those around him.
If portraying the men as responsible heroes who learn from their mistakes and the women as selfish, needy, hysterical weaklings who let their personal grudges get in the way of doing their jobs is feminism, I'd hate to see what actual misogyny looks like!
Abrams and Kennedy and Johnson certainly aren't helping their case by lobbing wild accusations of racism/misogyny/whatever at people who didn't like the movie, but a lot of those people in turn aren't helping their case either by lobbing wild accusations at people like me who did like it, and attacking us for pointing out how much of the SJW crap they're professing to see in the movie simply isn't there.
Don’t get me wrong, I personally think The Last Jedi’s better than The Force Awakens solely for the fact that it doesn’t retread the plot of The Empire Strikes Back (though then again, it doesn’t take much effort to be better than The Force Awakens.). However, it’s STILL a very bad movie overall.
Also, in A New Hope, it’s implied the Stormtroopers were missing the heroes on purpose in order to effectively trick them into leading them straight to Yavin 4, and even The Empire Strikes Back implied that the Stormtroopers missing the heroes was specifically to lure them to the Executor to be drawn in.
As far as democratization, I think Kojima’s referring to “democratization” in the vein of, say, what Lenin did or what the Jacobins did, where they tried to topple kings and any form of power structures, given is utter adherence to the left-wing.
Regarding feminism, yeah, going by what I’ve heard of the film, it seemed more like the film was trying to paint Poe in a negative light, and painted Leia and Holdo in more positive lights, despite it being obvious that they were in the wrong. And I can tell you this much: Most normal people don’t dye their hair colors those kinds of colors (certainly not conservative people). The few people I’ve seen to dye their hair like that tend to be very liberal in outlook. Either that, or anime cosplayers. Besides, Kojima himself had claimed that MGS2 was meant to promote the idea that women are going to be protectors of men instead of the other way around in the 21st century, to the extent that it would be their age, and last I checked, Rose basically was held hostage by the Patriots and forced to effectively act as a spy for them even after developing feelings for Raiden, Emma ends up getting killed by a bisexual vampire-like creature in a hostage situation while hating her stepbrother for most of the game [not to mention was subject to a massive escort mission], and Olga’s primary motivation for “protecting” Raiden was more protecting her daughter Olga, and even there, it’s implied that she failed since her kid is STILL under Patriot control and still being used as leverage. In fact, the closest it ever got to women protecting men was Fortune somehow managing to deflect the missiles despite her EMP device being deactivated.
And just as an FYI, a lot of the leftists saw the whole thing as well, and even some of the staff who, you know, wrote the film and acted in it made it far too clear it was meant to push SJW stuff. So it’s not just anti SJW critics who noted it, but actual SJWs as well, some of whom even included the actual development staff.
They didn’t just reinvent the hero being a heroine, they had to destroy Luke as a heroic character. Men are worthless and run or on you, womyn are there saving.
Just saw The Last Jedi for the first time on Netflix this week. It is far and away the worst Stars Wars movie. If fact I’d say it would rival Congo as the absolute worst movie I’ve ever seen.
Thanks so much for the clear, concise reply! I suspected it was something like that. If any of the SWJ’s were functionally literate and had read any significant amount of literature, they should at least have heard of Annie Oakley and Pippi Longstocking.
The thing that cracks me up the most is that the SWJ’s embody every negative feminine stereotype and as far as I can tell, none of the positive ones.
BTW, the original link’s dead, you need to go to this one. Sorry, guys:
Concerning The Last Jedi being good or bad, well, I definitely place it as being better than all of the prequels, at least. Better than The Empire Strikes Back as some of its defenders have been saying? Well, no: I doubt anything will ever be able to top the "No, I am your father!" reveal from that movie. Better than The Force Awakens? Possibly, though I'd put them more on a par with each other, and with Return of the Jedi; appealing to nostalgia with a part reboot/part retread movie is fine for kicking off the new trilogy, but trying to sustain the whole trilogy on nostalgia would never work.
What's been bugging me about the people saying The Last Jedi is bad is the ridiculous lengths to which they're going to turn every minor nitpick into a FATAL FLAW THAT RAPES MY CHILDHOOD AND RUINS THIS FRANCHISE FOREVER!!!, proclaim this the WORST MOVIE EVAR!!!, and demonize everyone who dares to like it. I had one of these idiots asking me "How much is Kathleen Kennedy paying you?" for daring to point out how unreasonable he and the others were being. (That's what anti-Semites and climate cultists say too when you dare to confuse them with the facts: "How much is big oil/the Mossad paying you, troll?") Um, no one has to pay me to like a good movie, people, any more than anyone has to pay me to note that "anti-Zionism" = anti-Semitism and to point out how none of the catastrophes the climate cultists have been predicting have ever yet materialized.
Of course, the occasion for this 9/11 troofer-esque slur was my sharing this video pointing up the very same complaints people were making against The Last Jedi could just as easily be applied to the original trilogy. I can already imagine the companion videos showing how someone can interpret everything in the original trilogy as SJW propaganda ("So Han Solo stops helping just for the filthy lucre and starts doing it out of the goodness of his heart. Yeah, we get it, Lucas: Capitalism = bad, Communism = good. Gender Studies Professor Leia can do no wrong while Clueless Straight White Males Luke and Han can do nothing right. Never mind that it's her not telling them she suspected their ship was bugged that gave away the Rebel base's location to the Death Star in the first place. *Cough* Misandry! *Cough*") and the savage reviews The Last Jedi would be getting if it had gone any of the ways the angry reviewers are currently saying it should have gone.
("So they had to stop the whole movie just to tell the main characters who already know all this stuff that Snoke really is Darth Plagueis as we predicted all along? Lame! Oh, get this: Rey is Luke and Leia's daughter, except they never knew they had her because some 'clever writing' brought back the cloners from the prequel trilogy to help explain why Rey is such a Mary Sue but it's not Luke and Leia's fault or anything; how convenient! Gee, thanks for making all of us Reylo shippers feel like perverts, Disney! Thanks for reminding us of that incestuous kissing scene from The Empire Strikes Back we had all agreed we should probably just forget and raping our childhoods all over again! Oh, and Obi-Wan is somehow Rey's grandfather too because Padme had a fling with him behind Anakin's back? Nice going: you just totally undid everything that made the original trilogy great, Ruin Johnson! Lamest. Retcon. Ever!")
Bovine excrement posing as a serious analysis! The far-left-wing Rolling Stone is spewing toxic propaganda to muddy the waters around the abject failure of The Last Jedi.
Again, all this SJW-ism, feminine supremacism, misandry people keep claiming to be seeing in this movie? It's just not there.
Well, regarding the Rebels/Vietcong thing, unlike Vader being Luke’s father (or for that matter, Greedo always shooting first), that actually WAS backed up by development notes that Lucas personally wrote, dating back to 1973 no less. Case in point: https://otnesse.tumblr.com/post/162081709399/this-is-from-george-lucas-1973-notes-for-star I’d definitely buy at least that since that actually IS backed up by actual development notes he wrote (by contrast, the shooting script for the same film, which definitely was written by Lucas, if anything, pointed to Han Solo originally shooting Greedo instead of Greedo shooting Han and then Han shooting Greedo in turn).
And quite frankly, when Lucas already made clear he didn’t like capitalism (heck, he practically based the Trade Federation on the left’s view of capitalism [well, that, and also the 1994 Republican Revolution], and has made no secret that he doesn’t want “capitalistic democracy” and advocated for a pure democracy akin to the Occupy groups, even voicing solidarity to the so-called “99%”. This is all stated in interviews made by Lucas.) and rooted for known Communists (even quoting Marx at one point regarding the Hollywood studios, and that’s not even getting into how he freely admitted that he based the Ewoks and the Rebels on the Vietcong and the Empire on America), I’m pretty sure those things definitely were very apt descriptions of him and what he tried to push. To be fair to the bit about Leia in the original film, she did actually warn them about how the Empire most likely let them escape specifically to track them, and if anything it was Han Solo who blew off the warning and cited he was only concerned about his pay, not in their revolution. So in that case, it was more Solo’s fault that the Empire succeeded in tracking them than Leia’s fault.
As far as the Prequels, eh, I’d say the Prequels are barely better than The Last Jedi, to be honest. At least they don’t pretty much cut the story short when they aired, while The Last Jedi was notorious for doing that by killing off a lot of plot threads that would have been necessary for continuing the story. And I won’t accuse you of being paid by Kathleen Kennedy, BTW, even if you voice support for the film. After all, I have no evidence, so what good would accusing you do? Plus, she’d really need to have a lot of resources at her beck and call to bother paying someone who doesn’t have any known connections to Disney to defend her or her film.
And the developers are the ones who actually MADE the film, so yes, they actually DO have the final word ultimately, just as George Lucas had the final word on Obi-Wan’s home planet’s name, despite it only being given as a joke on a talk show/fake news station like the Jon Stewart Show. So if they say it was meant to push feminism and SJWisms, that’s pretty much what it’s trying to do, not in our position to question it even if we disagree. After all, Kojima’s praise for Che Guevara as shown in Peace Walker via Big Boss and Miller to the extent that the game treats him as a sinless saint doesn’t stand up to close scrutiny when you remember he nearly caused World War III via the Cuban Missile Crisis in a genocidal campaign against America for his ideas of Marxist liberation [basically what Volgin nearly tried to do in Snake Eater]. Doesn’t change the fact that he clearly was shilling for Che Guevara, as you can see here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usYtK3d2ydk
IOW:
Anyone can be a militant leftist anti-hero hero.
Anyone can be a Mary Sue.
Any SJW stuff these people are allegedly pushing seems to have gotten lost in production too. As I say, if making the women so unsympathetic and the men so awesome is what constitutes pushing an SJW agenda, I'd hate to see what pushing the opposite agenda would be like! Of course, if those SJWs on staff wanted to help their case, they'd shut the hell up and let the fans interpret things any way they want (the way they're obviously going to do anyway).
Concerning how the prequels "didn't cut the story short" when they were in theaters, I should point out that's a lot of the (non-ideological) reason I heard for people not liking them back when they first rolled out: all that talking and conferencing and parliamentary procedure "just to get to five minutes of cool stuff!" as Honest Trailers put it. The way George Lucas regularly packed all material he deemed relevant into Star Wars was also nearly the downfall of his first movie, as detailed in this video.
Something I can also point out is that a lot of the stuff they cut for pacing purposes from that first Star Wars movie works just fine in the original novelization, where it was not cut: that scene with Jabba that got spliced back into the later Special Editions, for instance, and the scenes with Luke's friend Biggs telling him about his plans to join the Rebel Alliance, and warning him that he and farmers everywhere may be enslaved soon because the evil Empire is nationalizing industries. (If George Lucas was such a commie sympathizer as you say, I wonder why he ever wrote that part into it; commies typically love nationalizing industries.) My conclusion: had LucasFilm decided to adapt some sequels from the franchise's expanded universe novels of the time (several dozen of which I bought and read and still own, incidentally) instead of doing the prequels, the fandom's reaction might have been very much the same: "Aw, why'd the movie have to go on and on about the New Republic's political reforms? Just give us a light saber fight already!"
I'm also not seeing The Last Jedi killing off plot threads so much as putting them on hold. Actually, my only concern for the final film is that J.J. Abrams is notorious for being better at starting stories than finishing them: this is the guy who left everyone dissatisfied with the ending to his TV series Lost, after all. While I'd rather not have a focus group ending to the final movie (because those tend to suck), Abrams definitely needs to come up with definitive answers to all of the questions left unanswered from The Force Awakens in The Last Jedi, or else step aside and let someone else answer them.
Anyway, yes, George Lucas definitely flirted with the dark side (i.e. the leftist dogma his pals were pushing) in film school and ultimately tumbled to it a long time ago. Like many a leftist who substitutes "big corporations" for "big government" and "fascist" for "commie" as his favorite objects of blame for being the source of all things evil, the close relation between Communism's international socialism and Nazism's national socialism is typically lost on him, as is the irony of bashing big corporations while selling his company and its franchise off to Disney's gargantuan corporate conglomerate. The incestuous relationship between corporations and governments in actual fascism, of course, leaves who has ownership of whom far more ambiguous; the Nazis' main reason for purging Ernst Roehm and his loathsome S.A. was that they were determined to put a stop to his rather Stalin-esque plan to nationalize their corporate bedfellows, but only because they considered themselves to be the real controllers of those corporations and weren't about to hand control of their "turf" over to anyone else.
In any case, The Last Jedi actually did leave plenty of questions to be answered, though again I wonder whether J.J. Abrams can work up the proper resolve to answer them:
1. So who was Snoke anyway, and how did he corrupt Ben Solo into Kylo Ren? (Industry rumors indicate Andy Serkis is still on call to reprise his role as Snoke in episode IX, if only in a flashback, so we might actually get an answer to this one.)
2. Now that Kylo Ren has actually done what Darth Vader always planned on doing (killing his master and taking control of his empire), how effectively will he actually rule? How many insubordinate underlings (such as General Hux, for one) is he going to have to Force choke to keep the rest of the First Order in line?
3. Will hyperspace missiles based on replicating Holdo's final heroic sacrifice become the galaxy's new super-weapons, sparking an arms race that renders Death Stars and everything else like them (*cough* Starkiller Base *cough*) obsolete?
4. Are any of the main characters' potential romances going to come to fruition? (If the "romance" in question proves to be between Finn & Poe or Rey & Rose, however, that's where I abandon the franchise forever, just as I abandoned Marvel Comics back in the early aughts for the very same reason.)
5. Are those last two dozen or so survivors really all that's left of the Resistance, or were their Outer Rim allies actually just too busy with the First Order in their own corners of the galaxy to answer their call for help?
6. Where's Lando Calrissian?
7. What have those Knights of Ren (heavily implied to be Luke's other apprentices Kylo Ren corrupted) been doing in the last two movies, and what will they be doing in this one?
8. What are Rey and Ren going to do about their involuntary Force bond with each other (still present even now that Snoke's gone), from which (incidentally) the novelizations indicate she's been receiving so much of that raw power and rapid training that has her detractors calling her a Mary Sue?
9. Now that Yoda has established Force ghosts can do things like calling up lightning storms from the afterlife, what will Force Ghost Luke Skywalker be doing in this next movie? (Like Alec Guinness before him, Mark Hamill will almost certainly be returning for at least one more paycheck.)
10. Of course, the biggest question of all The Last Jedi left unanswered: what becomes of Leia now that Carrie Fisher is gone and LucasFilm has sworn not to recreate her digitally?
Hmm, yeah, I’m not so sure nihilism and Nietzschean philosophy would have been even remotely conservative (Hideo Kojima and the Wachowskis were definitely adherents to Nietzschean philosophy, the former even quoting Nietzsche’s “there are no facts, there are only interpretations” dictum in a certain infamous twist ending to MGSV, and the latter makes clear in an interview that they had based their trilogy on the works of Nietzsche, as well as Theodor Adorno and Arthur Schopenhauer, and those guys definitely were not conservative or right-wing by any stretch). Though yeah, the left definitely has a tendency to call anyone they dislike Nazis, often failing to realize that the Nazis actually are on the same spectrum as the left. And eh, unless there’s a noticeable change in profits over a person’s appearance, I don’t really give a darn about physical appearances (besides, he’s a guy, I’m a guy, I wouldn’t find him attractive since I only focus on the opposite sex).
And yeah, Lucas definitely tried to push a lot of leftist thought, and certainly was a leftist himself. Ironically, though, regarding big government and big corporations bits, the Empire’s not even fascist if you really think about it: In the old EU at least, there was this group known as the Corporate Sector Authority that inhabited a region of space called the Corporate Sector, which was effectively a Corporatist fiefdom. Anyways, after the Empire was formed, the Empire managed to expand their territory by about 30,000 star systems, gave them more legroom in other words, and other than maybe a yearly tax, they don’t demand anything else from them, and if the Imperial Handbook is anything to go by, they actually deliberately avoid interfering with the CSA specifically to allow for transparent mercantilism due to having zero problem with corporate competition in itself, and implied that this was the reason for the booming economy. I simply can’t imagine even the Nazis doing that, let alone the Communists, since that comes closer to what Adam Smith advocated with free markets. Of course, then again, the EU generally tried to depict the CSA as being at least as bad as if not even worse than the Empire due to it being made up of Corporations (essentially the Trade Federation and/or Separatists from the prequel trilogy before there was a prequel trilogy) to the extent that the New Republic after being formed effectively boycotted the organization in the EU, and in fact, it debuted in a Han Solo story where he essentially stole money from it and we’re supposed to root for him. And on that note, I know you mentioned that deleted scene from A New Hope, but I didn’t see any indication in the Imperial Handbook that the Empire had any interest, long or short term, in nationalizing moisture farms (and believe me, considering the book made clear they nationalized some industries, and were willing to commit speciescide if such measures were necessary, plus taking control of the HoloNet, if they actually were planning to nationalize something like moisture farms in the old canon, they would have specifically mentioned it in that book, and that book in-universe was first published around the time of A New Hope based on some of the comments.). And far as Rohm, heck, Rohm’s plan wasn’t even Stalinistic (in fact, ironically, Hitler himself came closer to acting like Stalin during that time), Rohm’s plan if anything was closer to being outright Trotskyite (since he desired permanent, continuous revolution, which is a key tenant of Trotsky that Stalin ignored in favor of Socialism in one country). But otherwise, I agree with you fully on that bit about why Rohm and the SA were wiped out (his homosexuality had very little to do with his death, especially when Hitler was fully aware long beforehand). Heck, forget the communist or fascist things Lucas argues for and misses the point on, in I think the 2005 Cannes Film Festival, he actually implies at one point that he based the Old Republic on, among other things, Robespierre’s French Republic and that it was at the very least better than either King Louis XVI’s France or Napoleon’s France. Now, I can understand why he might base it on the Weimar Republic (that was a broken system that ultimately made Nazi Germany or even Soviet Germany inevitable thanks to the stupidity of forcing Germany to give up its monarchy at the behest of that idiot Woodrow Wilson), or even the Roman Republic (while not quite as bad as the Weimar Republic, the Roman Republic nonetheless showed some elements of corruption as well), but Robespierre’s French Republic made the Old Republic look even WORSE than the films implied since it would result in the implication that the Republic just had mobs slaughtering people left and right for a sheer kick, many of which were exceptionally brutal. I don’t think you can get any more proof of his being a leftist than that (since the left tends to worship the French Revolution to some degree, some only going as far as to support the generalities, some actually worshipping the more depraved elements like the Reign of Terror or the September Massacres).
Regarding those questions you brought up.
1. If they kept him alive, they would have actually answered that question in the next movie. Sadly, they killed him off prematurely, so it’s unlikely they’ll do so unless they manage to have him pull an Emperor Mateus from Final Fantasy II and, say, come back from Hell in a bestial form to take over both sides of the plane of existence.
2. Considering how the ending was shown, I’m not even sure the First Order’s even going to have much respect for Kylo Ren at all.
3. Yeah, I’m doubtful they’re going to cover that in the new movie. Besides, even if they were to, that was technically an extension of the trick Han Solo used to get on Starkiller Base (and quite frankly, in both instances that was a stupid plot point. I mean, really, if it were THAT simple to hyperspace beyond a planetary shield, or deflector shield of any sort, they wouldn’t have even NEEDED to blow up the shield generator on Endor in ROTJ, they’d just hype in and blow it up, save them a whole lot of trouble.).
4. Maybe, maybe not. At the very least, Finn and Rose’s romance is pretty much confirmed.
5. Probably the only other person I can think of who might be of some help is Maz (who is dealing with a trade dispute that was bad enough that she’s in a firefight as a result), and considering none arrived to make the call, I’m pretty sure that’s all they’ve got left.
6. We were actually going to see him in The Last Jedi. But unfortunately, they decided to cut his scene out and replaced him (he was apparently going to be Rose and Finn’s contact at Canto Bight, the one whom they never got a chance to meet because the police arrested them for illegal parking before they could do so).
7. Okay, now THAT one might actually be addressed in Episode IX. Though then again, they didn’t show them at all in Episode VIII, which would have been a perfect time to show them off.
8. It probably will still be there.
9. Maybe we’ll find out, maybe not (let’s not forget that Mark Hamill DID give a strongly worded complaint about how Luke was handled in the film, so that might affect his chances of being hired again especially if Disney management right now is intolerant of any deviance from their lockstep SJW ideology right now).
10. That’s easy, they’re probably going to do to her what they did to Tank in The Matrix Reloaded (ie, kill her off offscreen). I don’t need to know the plot for Episode IX to know that.
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