Re: Johnson’s Star Wars and the Ego That Makes It Inconsistent

Note: This is an expansion on a comment I wrote on a Quora answer related to The Last Jedi: https://www.quora.com/Why-is-Star-Wars-The-Last-Jedi-so-divisive/answer/Mark-Sulkowski-2

Why am I writing about Last Jedi at the tail end of 2021? That’s a good question and one that I hope to answer as I offer my thoughts on it in this article. The movie’s already almost 4 years old, and its sequel has already come and gone, yet it seems to have done quite a lot of things to divide the fanbase. I am quite certain that Disney’s not pleased with the impact it’s had on the franchise and its subsequent entry, which landed upon a jaded audience.

I believe that Rian Johnson didn’t do proper research when writing the script for The Last Jedi. Even as I type this, I find it amusing to think that an entertainment product such as this needs research, but such is the state of affairs with such a beloved, long-running franchise. Anyway, I say this because I like some of Johson’s other works such as Looper, Knives Out, and would even go off on a limb and say that Brothers Bloom was a very good effort despite a few small flaws. Johnson didn’t seem to be all that bad to me, so I was originally very positive about the possibilities that The Last Jedi could provide.

After watching the movie, looking at the critical reception, and the polarization among fans, I think that many factors affected the quality of the movie and its reception. I want to ignore the political factors, as it has come to my attention that many fans on both ends of the political compass place a lot of weight on that aspect. I don’t consider myself qualified enough to comment on that, and I also consider those factors too external to the movie itself for the purposes of this article. I will instead focus on what I believe was an egomaniac streak in Johnson and his decisions that ultimately harmed the script for the movie, as that is probably the aspect that I find the most interesting.

I’m not going to go through some small decisions such as the whole deal with decloaking transports that the First Order should have been able to easily see through their windows; there are too many of those small decisions that ruin immersion that I’ll be skipping. I’m more interested in Johnson’s ego and in the characters, as I believe that they hold the key to the bigger issues that lead to some scenarios playing out in unusual ways, many times even contradicting the universe that the characters inhabit.

To begin with, Rian Johnson did not want to be a team player. No matter how I look at it, I get the impression that he did not want to create a movie meant to link to two other movies. The Last Jedi, being the second part of a trilogy, should have served as a bridge between the start of the Sequel Trilogy and its ending. However, I get the impression that he wanted the glory, the recognition, the endorphin rush of knowing that he was the one who finished the story. There are many hints of this throughout the feature.

To begin with, he took Luke Skywalker and brought his story to a very anticlimactic end, treating him quite out of character and then having him die at the end. Who finished the story of the redeemer of the Skywalker clan? Rian Johnson did! Of course, this being Star Wars means that Luke can get to stick around for an additional movie or two in Force ghost form, but that’s it for his living contributions. It felt like a huge waste. I do understand the trope of the hero from the past that goes through some traumatic experiences and ends up as a cynical blowhard that is somewhat unrecognizable, even a shadow of his former self. Unfortunately, this movie suffers from the long period of time from the last film in the previous trilogy, Return of the Jedi, and its release. The Force Awakens didn’t do much about Luke Skywalker, so when presented with the need to have him be the cynical hermit, Johnson took too many shortcuts and the result ended up being too unbelievable.

Could Luke have turned into a cynical old man after losing all of his students to his nephew’s turn to the dark side? I’m sure it would have had an impact; the problem is that the change is handled so poorly that it verges on cartoony. While I can respect that movie characters are larger than life and that exaggerated emotions are a very useful tool employed by directors, it is very disconcerting to see the Jedi who did not give up on Darth Vader turn his lightsaber on in front of his sleeping nephew and contemplate striking him down. That was unnecessarily dark and added a very evil streak to a character that had, for so many years, stood up as a paragon of virtue and example for a generation or two. It’s fine to play with expectations to a certain degree, but this felt like too much, too suddenly. It’s not Kylo Ren that comes off as villainous from this exchange. Of course, Johnson had other plans for Kylo Ren in his vision, so I suppose that he took the chance to add interesting layers into Kylo Ren’s character while at the same time trying to depict how time had worn Luke down. I consider it as a narrative shortcut with terrible repercussions later on.

He took Finn, who had a very good arc in the previous movie and who had a lot of potential as a character concept, and halted his progress. His arc in the first movie took him from just wanting to escape from the First Order to someone who took on the responsibility and began to grow as a hero. That was supposed to be a very big deal, and it made fans immediately sympathize with and root for this character. For some reason, Johnson took him back to square one, turning him into someone who now wanted to escape from the Resistance. Not content with taking his growth away, Johson also decided to slap him with the comedic relief role and then, to add insult to injury, made him subservient to a new character that just didn’t start on a positive note. I mean, was Finn a member of the Resistance? Should he have been treated as a deserter? He was a guy who defected from the First Order, helped out, and was still finding himself. He had been very valuable in helping Rey and had formed a bond with Poe, but he wasn’t an enlisted member of the Resistance. That’s an important detail. So when he wakes up in a Resistance ship in The Last Jedi, understands that the thing is under attack, and tries to escape again, he is back to his old shenanigans. Growth canceled. Was it the coma? Anyway, Rose’s introduction is to treat him like a deserter from the Resistance even though she was well aware of who he was. That was a very bad first impression Rose. I understand that she was upset because of what happened to her sister, but I’m an audience member. I need to relate to these characters to root for them. I can’t. She’s being unreasonable and treating someone that had helped them out but wasn’t affiliated with them as a deserter.

So Finn? Back to square one with you, because Rian Johson decided that any development that happened before his film was meaningless. He had to be the one to provide any meaningful development for Finn for it to count! Abrams’ work in the previous film, canceled! It’s not like I think that The Force Awakens was brilliant, but there had been some character development there, and it was completely reversed. Oh, of course, Johnson had to introduce Rose to rein Finn in. Johnson’s characters all need to be more important than the ones we already knew, which once more makes me think it was an ego trip from Johnson.

What about Poe Dameron? I thought he was supposed to be some amazing pilot and an important member of the Resistance. Yet here we have a new character introduced in the movie that treats him like some sort of foolish neanderthal that has no right to know what the plan is and only exists to put the hotshot Latin guy (as a Latin guy myself I sure picked up on this, which was a senseless trope in a Galaxy Far Away but hey, they couldn’t resist I guess) in his place because, in Johnson’s mind, that’s what people like him deserve. What? And seriously, I know there is no concept of Latin culture in Star Wars, but that was a little too on the nose to ignore. This brings me to Admiral Holdo. Oh, dear Admiral Holdo.

Admiral Holdo is a high-ranking military officer in the Resistance. Considering the amazing Holdo maneuver, which nobody attempts again and which is lampshaded in The Rise of Skywalker, she seems to be a genius when it comes to outer space navigation and weaponization of hyperspace. She is, however, not a very good commanding officer. Throughout the movie, she is belittling the people under her command and keeping secrets from them. To what end? For an unearned heroic sacrifice using a maneuver that pretty much breaks the entire Star Wars universe, but what the heck. It looked amazing, and it is very easy to tell that it was visually designed by an extremely talented visual effects team. It does break the Star Wars universe, so don’t think about it too much? That’s a conundrum though. See, it is a big challenge to turn your brain off just for this moment when your movie is trying to make some deep points within an established franchise. Quotes such as “Let the past die. Kill it if you have to,” and scenes such as the boy at the end using the force to pull a broom to himself want to have very deep implications. But such an important scene as Holdo’s sacrifice to save the transports can’t stand to even cursory scrutiny within their context. It’s a very big dichotomy to which I see no solution.

Moving on to Captain Phasma, she is a case of where Rian Johson, the great auteur, got the satisfaction of getting rid of a potentially interesting villain that deserved a more personal link to Finn. She had potential; a female stormtrooper commanding officer in an awesome chrome-plated suit of armor and wielding weapons that could stand toe-to-toe with a lightsaber. That’s a very good female character, and an antagonist at that, worthy of further development. Unfortunately, the great Johnson gets the credit for killing her in his movie with little to none of that necessary groundwork to develop her. I understand that she was no longer necessary for the story that Rian Johnson had in mind, but this wasn’t just his movie though. Again, it was a bridge to connect a movie that was already out there, and a movie that hadn’t been released yet. But it seems that everyone involved in The Last Jedi forgot that part.

How about Kylo Ren? I did like him in The Last Jedi. I feel he made for a much more compelling character than in The Force Awakens. Not sure if it’s because I like his story or maybe it is that Adam Driver owns this character and his portrayal is so amazingly well done that I was enthralled. So good job here Rian! Kylo Ren gets a pass; too bad that with Abrams back at the wheel, his character loses some impact, but that’s not the point of this particular article.

Moving on to Rey. Uhh, I have no idea what to say here. Was she developed? I mean, she’s in the movie, and she gets to do some cool things, but I get the impression that Johnson was so focused on his desire to finish the story that he forgot to do much to make Rey grow. Oh sure, he dropped a surprise in making her parents supposedly inconsequential, but I feel that Rey got very little development. She spent some time with Luke but he didn’t spend that much effort to train her, and overall she was kind of bland and they didn’t seem to have much chemistry, thus negating some future developments.

Then there’s Snoke. Poor, pathetic Snoke. We all know he got an unimpressive name for his role, but to die as he did? So unceremoniously betrayed by his pupil while sensing nothing suspicious? I mean sure, they are the baddies, even if not quite Sith so I guess that’s par for the course when they lack scruples, but to wipe him out of the series so easily? It was extremely underwhelming. That was probably Johnson’s goal, to be underwhelming for the sake of surprising the audience but it doesn’t mean that it was properly pulled off. Maybe this is more of an issue of his lack of development in the previous film, but it just seems like he was a wasted character. So yay for Snoke. We hardly knew you, you poorly constructed clone thing. Cool bathrobe though!

Moving on, there’s that shot at the end, the broom boy. While a welcome scene, that seems like an end of trilogy message, not a link to the next movie scene. Again, I believe Johnson had no interest in bridging movies together. I believe he took this opportunity to create his own story, bending existing characters and situations to fit the story he wanted to tell instead of using Star Wars characters and situations. There is a character called Luke Skywalker in The Last Jedi, but he’s not Luke Skywalker from the previous movies. There’s a character called Finn in The Last Jedi, but he’s not the same Finn from The Force Awakens. His growth seems to have been stunted, and he is unable to draw from his previous experiences and what he learned in the previous film. I think that’s why Johnson decided that Finn had to kill Phasma here and not develop her much more: he needed his big moment to complete the arc that he wanted Finn to have in his movie: the part when Finn says that he is “rebel scum,” thus accepting the Resistance.

I also believe these movies have a fundamental misunderstanding of Star Wars, its mythos, and the Force in particular. Yes, the Holdo Maneuver isn’t consistent with what we already know about Hyperspace in Star Wars, but the misunderstandings run deeper.

I constantly hear how they wanted to have a message that everybody can access the Force for these movies and well, wasn’t that an important message all along? Before we knew that Luke was Darth Vader’s son, he was just a farm boy that ends up going with Obi-Wan to help him rescue the beautiful princess in distress because he had nothing else to lose. At this point, and within the Star Wars lore, Luke doesn’t seem particularly chosen. Yes, Obi-Wan does mention that Luke’s father was an established pilot, but there’s no sign of the whole Force lineage thing.

Ok, but now we know that Luke is Darth Vader’s son (something added later on, which was an amazing story beat but also a retcon so it doesn’t fully betray Luke’s commoner origins) so let’s go to the Prequel story and the way the Jedi operate. So, these Jedi warrior monks (or space wizards if you prefer) happen to carry these Midichlorian (yes, I hated the idea myself but what the heck) testing kits because it was known that anyone and everyone could have access to the Force and they tested kids to see if they could find some to train. Random kids, from all over the galaxy. Heck, Anakin was a slave boy. How much more lowly in the class hierarchy can you get? There’s nothing special here folks. Anyone could have had this power; the difference is in the training. Luke wasn’t the son of some galactic king. He was the son of a slave boy. Yes, further movies and books kept piling on the lore (uhh.. immaculate Anakin conception?), but a few facts remain: Anakin was a lowly slave, the Jedi had been training children from all walks of life to be Jedi for a long time, and anyone and everyone could have access to the Force as the Midichlorian testing kits can attest to.

Or how about another Disney movie, Rogue One. Did they forget their fantastic character named Chirrut Îmwe? He was not a Jedi, but he was Force-sensitive. He had no Jedi training, but he could do amazing things that can only be explained by untrained access to the Force. His catchphrase, “I am one with the Force and the Force is with me,” is amazing and hearkens back to the way that Obi-Wan originally explains the Force. Oh, yea, speaking of which, in Master Obi-Wan’s words: “The Force is what gives a Jedi his power. It’s an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us. It binds the galaxy together.”

There, the Force gives a Jedi their power. It’s an energy field created by all living things. It’s a very simple and succinct explanation that had been present since the very first Star Wars film. When moviegoers got that explanation the very first time, they instinctively knew that it was not something destined for a chosen few. No, it was something created by all living beings. It’s not a weird power that only a selected few that descended from other selected few can access. Everyone, every creature, every living being creates part of the Force! It takes sensitivity to it and training to access it effectively, but it is not this elite thing that only a very few very special beings can access, which seems to have been a big misunderstanding that the people who wrote the Disney Trilogy have. As poignant and deep as the idea of “with broom boy, we teach the audience that now the Force is available to all regardless of their station,” it is a redundant idea. It had always been available to all, regardless of their station. I have no idea why this misconception was turned into such a big theme with the writers and producers of the Disney trilogy.