“Unlike Empire, which leaned on the burgeoning romance of Han Solo with Leia Organa, in Last Jedi our three main heroes are kept entirely apart for the bulk of the movie’s screentime.

This has two effects. First, it separates the various plotlines much more than one might expect, resulting in a movie that feels like an elaborate (and high budget) Netflix series binged watch all at once, rather than a cohesive narrative. Second, it prevents our three main leads from growing the bonds between one another that we would expect to find leading into the third and final movie of this “trilogy”. They are effectively unchanged (as between each other) from the end of The Force Awakens to the end of this one.”

“The Last Jedi is more interested in being Subversive than in telling a Coherent Story.

[…] In Last Jedi it seems clear that Rian Johnson prioritized shock above all else, whether or not it made the story more compelling, better, or even coherent. One event simply happens after the next, and the characters react.“

“Last Jedi is a very modern (or post-modern) film. Where the original trilogy is comprised of sweeping tales of heroism of almost mythological stature, Last Jedi is small, concerned primarily with establishing that there are no real heroes and that the actions taken in the original trilogy would more likely end up killing people than saving the galaxy for freedom and the force.

And I don’t think that Last Jedi is wrong…exactly.

There are no heroes in the real world, not as we know them in movies.  It’s foolhardy to rely on “one shot in a million” or “the odds are three thousand seven hundred and twenty to one” to save the day, and if your leadership does so then people will most likely die.

And yet.

Star Wars has always been about heroes accomplishing the impossible. Of believing in the smallest glimmer of hope to see light through the encroaching darkness.  Last Jedi stands as a deconstruction of that, and as an essay, an academic whitepaper, one might even find it well-considered, nuanced. But it is not Star Wars.

The backlash isn’t (entirely) about who Snoke is, or who Rey’s parents are, or even how Luke treats his father’s lightsaber after 30 years of separation, it’s about ordering a pizza and receiving a hamburger.  The chef could explain to you that the hamburger is comprised of Wagyu beef on handmade rolls cooked to perfection over open flames crafted solely for this burger experience, and…it still wouldn’t be a pizza.

Sometimes people just want to believe in heroes.”

Everyone who worked on the film has a Carrie story, but the sweetest and most heartbreaking one belongs to Isaac:

“One of my favorite things that would happen from time to time on set would be when Carrie would sing old songs,” he says. “Whenever that would happen I would offer her my hand and we would waltz around the set – on a starship, in a Rebel base, on an alien planet, and she would sing and we would dance. So surreal and beautiful to think about now. For all of her delicious, wicked humor and fiery energy she also had such sweet grace. I miss her dearly.”