Jedi, Thou Art Not the Last

Has it really been nearly five years since Ian Doescher's Shakespeare's Star Wars series began? It was just one of those random, fun concepts that could have played out and died all in a moment, except that the combination works so naturally and he plays it out so well that . . . keep it coming.

When you begin the eight book in a series like this, you kind of pause, like, okay, here we are again. And you're not exclaiming over all the verses and the references like you did the first time, except that that's what suddenly makes it all so wonderful. You're reading it at a regular pace, like a piece that simply flows. This language, elevated and poetic, fits the story perfectly.

If there is anyone who had mixed feelings about character actions or motives in The Last Jedi, this is the perfect book to read. When I talked about The Force Doth Awaken, I mentioned how Ian was able to do less of a look into characters' heads than he'd done in previous books because for the first time he was going over a story where we only had one piece so far. He couldn't add extra bits about, for instance, Kylo's motives because we didn't really know all of his motives or all of his story yet. The same thing is happening here but to a lesser degree because, of course, there is much about the story that Episode VIII reveals. And even with what we don't know, he did such a beautiful job at expressing what we do know that it hid the fact that there may still be a little more to the story.

Kylo's conflict. Rey's similar identity crisis. Luke's feelings of failure. Poe's reasons for going against Holdo and Holdo's reasons for doing things the way she did.

As I've mentioned before, this series has moved on from being just a humor series. There are beautiful and genuinely moving passages in here. I particularly like the moment in which Kylo and Rey touch fingertips and also the moment when Kylo defeats Snoke. Does anyone truly think Kylo is weak; don't they see how much strength it would have taken to do the sneaky thing he did there? Wonderfully expressed.

So, yes, may this series live on.

Dualities & Why Kylo Will Be Redeemed

I recently finished the junior novelization of The Last Jedi. It's worth reading both the regular and junior novelizations because they each include slightly different content, maybe different scenes or different looks into character motivation. This book made quite a point of showing the theme of failure--and then hinting at the connections between the different times of failures in the three plot lines of the story.

Finn and Rose go off to try and disable the First Order's tracker so that the Resistance can escape. They try and they fail and nearly get killed. Poe tries to reroute the Resistance to his rule by leading a mutiny against Holdo; he finds out in the end that he was wrong to not trust that she had a plan and that his actions have in fact destroyed that plan and allowed the First Order to nearly wipe them all out. Luke is trying to escape his failure to teach Ben Solo to be a good little Jedi and Rey is trying to reach out to Kylo and bring Ben back. Luke realizes that he shouldn't have just tried to leave it all and Rey realizes that bringing Ben back isn't so simple as just giving him the offer.

Everyone in this story fails. That's life; failure happens.

Finn and Rose's adventure is obviously connected to Poe's because Poe tries to take control of the Resistance in order to follow the plan the trio has made apart from Holdo's plan. But Rey's adventure is connected, too. She seeks something (a great teacher and helper) that she does not find and she goes after something that she does not achieve (the redemption of Kylo Ren).

Just the way that this junior novelization wrote everything out made me hear Rose's words about saving what we love versus killing what we hate in a new way. It made me think of everyone's attitudes towards Kylo/Ben. Luke and Leia have given up on him and don't think that he can be brought back. Rey thought that he could, only to find him still hanging on to his current path. But what if they're all going about it in the wrong way?

Don't kill what you hate (Kylo Ren). Save what you love (Ben Solo).

When Anakin Skywalker became Darth Vader, Anakin died and Vader took over. When Luke initiated Vader's redemption, Vader died and Anakin came back. What if the redemption of Kylo Ren happens differently?

Kylo says that Ben Solo was his old identity. The identity of Kylo Ren he created for himself; it was his way of separating himself from who his parents and his uncle tried to make him. It was his way of saying, this is who I am. I'm not the son whose father won't spend time with him. I'm not the son who can never live up to his mother's reputation. I'm not the nephew whose uncle fears him. I am all powerful. I can, not I can't.

So maybe, even though Kylo Ren is the representation of evil and wrong, just maybe there is something about his new identity that will linger. Ben Solo didn't feel comfortable trying to be Ben Solo. So he tried to be Kylo Ren and that only brought him more pain.

Maybe he will find the happy medium. After all, isn't he supposed to be the one who is composed to equal parts of the dark and light sides of the Force?

Kylo Ren won't become Ben Solo again. He will just accept that he is on the wrong path and readjust his path. Rey, in reaching out to him as he is, will say, I don't hate you, I care about you and I know you're better than this.

We fail when we ignore the fact that we can be wrong. We achieve when we remember our weaknesses and move forward despite them.

The Last Jedi Comes Home

I'm a little late to be coming in with my post here, but wasn't the novelization for The Last Jedi great? Jason Fry is one of those Star Wars writers that I get excited about; he cuts to the core of characters and stays there.

Even though all novelizations include (or at least, they generally include and should include) some extra bits, this one was marketed as being an "Expanded Edition," as if it had even more than usual. I'm not even sure if it does--likely it doesn't. But it feels like it does, and that's exciting enough. The Last Jedi was very much an in-the-heads-of-the-characters type of movie to begin with, so it lends well to a novelization. Though, of course, we still had that fine line of treading: in certain moments, for instance, you hear what other characters are thinking rather than hearing what Kylo is thinking. Interesting that we even hear Snoke's thoughts sometimes above Kylo's. Kylo has to still have some mystery about him; there are still things that we don't know for sure. 

Speaking of Kylo, if anyone still did not like his character after the film, grab this book. It fleshes out everything that the film pushes the audience to think and further explains not just Kylo himself but other characters' thoughts towards him. Particularly interesting was learning that Snoke wasn't using Kylo in the sense of using him for his powers but rather using him to push Luke away--which makes sense to learn because that's why Snoke didn't see Kylo as a threat to him. He just wasn't viewing things through that angle. 

The more I think about the film (I haven't watched my brand new Blu-Ray yet, so I haven't seen the movie since January), the more I think that I prefer the pod-racing in Episode I to the whole fathier sequence. Yes, the fathier bit had theme, but the pod-racing had characterization and it also had my beloved Tatooine landscape to look at. With that said, the whole Cantonica bit and all of the Rose and Finn scenes played out better on page than on screen. On screen, I got the themes and I liked Finn and I liked Rose, but I was always looking for their scenes to end more quickly. On page, it was all very beautiful and Star Wars-y. Maybe it's actually seeing how Rose's thoughts about Finn change with each moment that helped. 

Certain of the extra scenes from the novelization did appear on the Deleted Scenes, like the whole celebration bit on the island. And the rest? It's definitely enough to want to read through this book; put together, it gives a whole further angle to the movie. As far as guessing about what's in store for the future, this book does remain a must-read even if it the same story we've already seen retold on page. 

Luke Skywalker & the Dark Side

Yes, spoilers for The Last Jedi. You haven't seen it yet?

Alright, then.

Not that I intend to come around and bash Luke (he's just a person, after all), but isn't he a bit hypocritical here? He looks at Rey with wide, fearful eyes and says in shock, "You went straight to the dark." How scary for him! First Ben and now Rey, too! Poor Luke with all these evil apprentices.

Think about it, though. What was one of the first things that Luke did when he was training with Yoda? He felt cold (which is a sign of the dark side) and he felt called to go into the cave in the tree that festered with the dark side. When Yoda advised him to leave his weapons, Luke ignored him and went and had a vision of violence and darkness. He dreamed he fought Darth Vader and then saw himself in Vader. All very dark. But was Luke overcome by darkness, or did Yoda say, oh, my, you're so deep into the dark side, boy? No, no, no. Luke just had to be aware of the dark side. He went, he saw, he left, he moved on. A couple decades or so later, Luke needed to let Ben and then Rey do the same.

He looks at Rey with such fear. Sure, he has bad memories of Kylo, but doesn't he treat Rey a little unfairly? She was just aware of the darkness under the island in the same way that Luke was aware of the darkness in Dagobah. Rey even went into that dark place and had her own vision--and it wasn't even a very dark vision. She just saw herself, a visual image reflecting the very fact that it is her own choices that shape her identity. For all that Luke pretty much washed his hands of guiding Rey from the dark side (though honestly all he needed to tell her was what the Force was and what what light and dark mean when it comes to the Force), Rey handled herself pretty well.

And Ben? Luke's reaction to Rey makes me wonder how much Luke also overreacted with Ben. No, I'm not saying that he completely made up Ben's infatuation with or weakness toward the dark side. But Luke did make up the fact that Ben was automatically aligned with the dark side. He says now that such "raw power" didn't scare him enough then, but I think the opposite is true. I think Luke was so scared by Ben's potential to be a second Vader that he withdrew himself and he forgot that it was the very connection between individuals, specifically between family members, that brought Anakin back from Vader. Rey says it herself: Luke's mistake was acting like Ben's choice was already made. Did Luke create Kylo Ren? No, everyone makes their own choices--but Luke did label Ben as something dark and evil. And Ben, already conflicted, believed him.

The first ill that Luke did Ben was to pull out a deadly weapon against him. The second ill was to tell him the lie that he was born of the dark side, that he was darkness who could only rise to be darkness. That is the lineage that Ben received. He was already an adult when he learned that Darth Vader was his grandfather (and that his parents and his uncle knew all along)--and then right after his uncle tries to kill him. So he embraces the darkness, the only thing he has left.

But isn't part of it true? We are all born into a certain darkness. In our galaxy, we call it sin. In the Star Wars galaxy, it's the dark side. Everyone has that legacy and that capability. The important thing is to choose the light over the dark. Kylo's still stuck thinking that the darkness is all he deserves. Leia gave up on him. Luke gave up on him. Snoke was just using him. Now even Rey has closed the door on him. So he's left holding the locks on his own chains, ignoring the key because it must just be a phantom vision, it can't be something real.

Ah, Luke, you didn't put the darkness in your apprentice--but you might have forgotten to tell him about the light of hope that extinguishes darkness.

Star Wars: The Bomber Squad

Cobalt Squadron by Elizabeth Wein seemed like it would be the perfect short novel to give us more details and backstory on a set of characters that we only briefly saw in The Last Jedi. The look of the (physical) book matches the style of Before the Awakening, which was a great pre-story to The Force Awakens. Turns out, though, that Cobalt Squadron was kind of disappointing.

I'm not entirely sure about the target audience for these books. Obviously I think that, despite the target audience age, people of any age can read a book whose target audience is younger than they are, as long as the book is good. But this book read, well, too young. I felt like I was reading a Disney Channel movie. Everything felt false and contrived, including the sisterhood between Rose and Paige--and I liked both of their characters in the film. So to come here excited to hear more about them only to get a flat representation of their story just didn't go over well for me. Also, I found this story less interesting because it takes place mainly in space with space battles and that sort of thing that I just generally find . . . less interesting.

I followed up right away with Jason Fry's Bomber Command, which is in the same style as Rey's Survival Guide. So kind of a combination of scrapbook and journal styles, with lots of picture and "handwritten" text. Cobalt Squadron was already a quick read at about 250 short pages, and this book was even quicker. While I can't say it was as good as Rey's Survival Guide, I did much prefer this one to Cobalt Squadron. Maybe Jason Fry just has more experience writing Star Wars. Maybe the informal book style meant that the tone of the book fell into place better. Maybe I just liked it because we got much of the same information as with the first book, just in a shorter and quicker space.

You could in fact skip Cobalt Squadron and just read Bomber Command, even though you'd think it would be preferable to do the opposite. Overall, though, the backstory that we got for Rose and Paige and their team wasn't what I wanted. Sure, it was nice to hear certain details (like how Rose came to be on a separate ship from Paige in The Last Jedi--and we also got more of a look at Admiral Holdo). But more of it wasn't satisfying; that Disney Channel tone may have even detracted from my view of these characters.

I guess since I walked out of the film saying positive things, I had to come back now and say some negative things about these two companion books. Balance. It's all about the balance.

The Last Jedi: The Second Time

Click here to read my initial thoughts on the film. And yes, both that post and this one have spoilers.

You know something? I think I just might be loving The Last Jedi. Way back when I was still giving early comments on The Force Awakens, I mentioned that I thought it probably wouldn't be my favorite in the new trilogy. And as "perfect" as everyone seemed to find The Force Awakens (and indeed it was generally quite well-crafted), I think I might possibly like The Last Jedi more (which, you understand, is not to mean that I liked every single aspect of it; that would be impossible). (And remember that all of this is separate from whether or not I think this film was "good," that is irrelevant and I won't be able to tell that yet for several months, anyway.)

The Last Jedi is beautiful and terrible--which is kind of the best of Star Wars, if you think about it. Star Wars, to me, has always been encapsulated by that moment when Luke is looking out at the twin suns on Tatooine and you hear that heartrendingly beautiful score playing. That's the type of thing that The Last Jedi gave us.

The Last Jedi: The First Time

At the time of writing this post, I had only seen the movie once and had not talked about it at all with anyone. I saw it Thursday night because I didn't want to know what anyone's thoughts on the movie were before I saw it; I didn't even want to know whether or not people liked it. I'm seeing the movie again today, so I will follow later with further thoughts. 

It is generally impossible and generally pointless to talk about a film without giving spoilers. All I can say, technically without spoilers, about Star Wars: The Last Jedi was that I liked it. So if you have not seen the film yet, don't keep reading.

Spoilers will be below the page break.

Leia: Princess, Senator, Leader

While I got the impression that everyone was more excited for the release of Phasma this past Friday, I was more excited for Leia: Princess of Alderaan by Claudia Gray. Phasma I really don't have much interest in, but a book focusing on young Leia? It's about time (and this gives me hope that someday there might be books about young Padme). The YA Star Wars books always seem to get less attention, though Claudia Gray's Lost Stars was pretty great--and she already has experience writing adult Leia in Bloodline. So it makes perfect sense that this book also went to her.

Overall, Leia a great book and highly recommended. It focuses on the time before A New Hope, before the Rebellion had fully formed, and before Leia had aligned herself with her parents' focus on defeating the Empire. That's an intriguing time to witness, especially since we'd probably all imagined that Leia was born and raised a rebel--but the truth of it had to be a little more complicated because Bail and Breha were of course working in secret and wouldn't have pulled their daughter as a child into such dangerous doings.

We also get to see quite a bit of Alderaan. We know that it's sad for Alderaan to have been destroyed, but the film shows only the destruction and even only an extremely brief moment of grief on Leia's part. We get the sense that Alderaan was a beautiful and peaceful planet, especially from that glimpse at the end of Revenge of the Sith. But that's it. So it's worth reading this book just to live in Alderaan for a while. Some scenes take place on other planets, but the main base is Alderaan. You could even say the main theme is Alderaan--which often takes on irony because all the readers know what will be the fate of Alderaan, even though Leia and the other characters can't even imagine how bad it will be.

I did have some issues with this book, however. The beginning was a little boring. I couldn't align myself with Leia's perspective because the source of her main conflict was obvious (and explainable) to the reader (though not to Leia herself); that made it all feel petty and like we were wasting time. The book did get better after that, though sometimes it returned to a certain simplicity that bothered me somewhat. I don't mind a concise plot. But at times I felt like it was overly obvious where this one was going--and I never feel that way with books. Like Kier. If Leia's falling for someone in this book, we know that either he's playing her (and he's a spy or something) or he dies in the end because of course the book can't end with them together (then we would be left wondering why he isn't around and she never mentions him a couple of years later). So Kier often felt like an obligatory plot element, as if there is some rule that YA books must involve a love story and therefore he had to be in here. I get that they were probably also trying to show that Han wasn't the first person Leia ever liked--but still.

It was great to see more of Bail and Breha, though. I feel like they are characterized so much in just the brief moments that they appear in the films. Breha, especially, only has one quick moment and then she's gone again, but you still get a sense of who she is. Like Alderaan, I liked seeing more of them and seeing how Leia's involvement with the "special politics" of her parents began.

Also wonderful? The little hints about Leia's parentage. In some ways, this is a companion book to Bloodline. Bloodline is when the galaxy finds out who Leia is, and in this book Leia's adoptive parents almost pass out from the fear that comes with realizing how close they just came to the secret getting out (and not to the galaxy but to Palpatine, which is even worse--danger rather than just disdain). The echoes of Padme in Leia were a welcome connection between the two movie trilogies.

I had almost forgotten until I'd finished the book that it's part of the Journey to Star Wars: The Last Jedi bunch. So that would imply that it contains hints about plot points in that movie. All that I can really see is Leia's identity. I think everyone has already revealed that Leia will have a much larger role in the upcoming film, so it isn't really something new to learn that there will be focus on Leia's leadership skills, her past, and her connection to the Force (which may not manifest itself in the whirling, twirling, levitating form but still helps her to get things done). But I guess seeing how Leia was raised and how, as a teenager, she brought herself into her parents' work might help us to start picturing Kylo in similar circumstances. Ben Solo was older than sixteen when he found out that his parents and his uncle/mentor had been keeping secrets from him. Leia, having been young and in the dark, should probably have realized that it would be better to put the truth out in the open than to try and shelter her son. By trying to protect him, she lost him--and maybe he'll never even have that chance to return to her and ask forgiveness.

Apparently today is 100 days until Episode VIII. 100 days until we see this last Jedi mess start to unfold. 100 days until we find out just what Leia's next move is. We've all been focusing on Rey and Luke out on their island. But the reality is, we know what they're doing (training); this was the only thing the trailer really showed because it's the only thing that's obvious already. The question perhaps should be, what is Leia doing? What is she planning? She's a person of action. She wouldn't have just sent Rey off with a "good luck" and then sat back watching holos. I'm predicting that she initiates much of the action of this next film.

Kylo Ren, Darth Vader, the Dark Side, and the End of the Jedi

All of the hints about Star Wars: The Last Jedi have been implying that there will be a new attitude toward the Force. Luke thinks it's time for the Jedi to end, presumably because he sees flaws in the Jedi perspective. Snoke deliberately keeps Kylo stuck on the line between the dark and light with the idea that having both sides is what makes him more powerful. Then there's Rey in the trailer, seeing a balance between light and dark in a vision. And some of the books and Rebels address other details, as well. Ventress, for instance, uses the dark side without letting it "control her" in Dark Disciple.

With all of this, here is my concern. Star Wars has always been about dark and light and this versus that and repetition and everything of that nature. However, it is central that dark is dark. I worry that the new perspective will go too far into saying that there is no dark. Rather, that the dark is not itself negative. It's a fine line there to say that the dark side isn't negative but can simply be used in a negative way.

Maybe some people would applaud a change like this (and maybe this isn't even the direction the story is going, in which case this whole post whole just be meaningless conjecture), saying that it embraces an open mind. But those were the Emperor's words when he put down the Jedi and tempted Anakin over to the dark side. How can we (or should I say how can Luke) suddenly start backing the Emperor's perspective?

Dark is dark and light is light. If you undo this simple fact, then doesn't everything else unravel? Anakin's fall and Vader's redemption--aka. the true heart of Star Wars?

Or maybe there's another possibility. Maybe Luke is making a mistake--or maybe he made one in the past. Maybe he thinks or thought that it was possible, after all, to harness the dark side without being consumed by it. I mean, this is arguably what Kylo is trying to do (and he's a great example of why it doesn't work: he's being eaten alive from the inside because of the darkness he surrounds himself with)--maybe he learned the technique from Luke and not just Snoke. That's why Luke feels responsible and had to go seek solitude. Maybe he explains all this to Rey, and it is Rey who, like a a ray of sunshine, turns him back toward looking at the light (actually, that doesn't sound very likely--especially since Rey will probably get her own temptation toward the dark side in this film).

I mean, for Luke to say that it's time for the Jedi to end almost sounds not worth saying--do the Jedi even exist anymore? Obi-Wan and Yoda were the last Jedi, and then Luke tried to take up the remnants. But all he had was the Force, and the Jedi were about more than just the Force (there are, after all, other Force-users in the Star Wars universe). So the Jedi kind of already have ended--and maybe now Luke is just admitting that simple fact that they are moving forward rather than backward. And that's always been the case, hasn't it, even in the EU? I haven't read stories yet where Luke and Mara Jade marry and have children--but the Jedi didn't marry. Simple things like changing the Jedi lifestyle could be what Luke means about ending the Jedi.

Because if he means that the dark side isn't really dark, then either he's wrong, there is some other detail that will help explain things, or I'm going to have a hard time accepting this change of perspective.

First Glimpse at The Last Jedi

Now that we've all had the weekend to absorb the new movie poster and trailer for The Last Jedi, it is time to share my thoughts.

First let me say that this is a well-crafted trailer. Though I was of course excited to see it, a part of me almost didn't want to watch it because I didn't want the secrecy to end. I need not have feared: there are no spoilers in the trailer. Just enough to let us see the movie without seeing anything that we shouldn't yet.

But what did we see and what did I think of it?

Rey, presumably training with Luke. Exciting, but nothing we weren't expecting.

Leia, in a shot that makes her look very much like Vader. Hinting at something? I can't see darkness coming from Leia, but maybe the shot hints at the legacy of darkness that Leia carries. Or possibly we do learn something that Leia did, perhaps in raising Kylo that helped give him an excuse to turn away. This could simply be the fact that, as revealed in Bloodline, Ben was already an adult when he found out that Darth Vader was his grandfather--which must understandably have made him pretty angry at his mother and his uncle, that they wouldn't have told him this before. Anyway.

Speaking of Kylo Ren. What's that we saw? His mask all broken up? What does that mean? Does his mask literally break, or are we seeing it in a vision, perhaps one that Rey has? Either way, for his mask to break has a symbolic meaning that his dark exterior he has cultivated for himself is breaking. Notice, of course, that we mostly saw Rey in this trailer. Presumably this is because showing Rey on the island "gives less away" than showing Kylo in probably most of his scenes. When we do see him, he isn't wearing his mask--and I'm expecting that he probably won't wear it much in this movie, for whatever reasons.

Finn and Poe are back. Cool. Again, nothing we didn't already know.

Luke speaks. It's funny, after leaving him with no words in TFA, he gets to narrate this trailer. His words are intended to sound like words he says to Rey on the island when he is training or considering training her. But they could be from anywhere in the film, or possibly not even be in the film (after all, he had lines in the TFA trailer that weren't in the movie). So bear that in mind.

When he says that it's time for the Jedi to end, I believe that he is primarily speaking out of guilt or regret for the past. He feels like he could have done better. That's all there is to that. As far as the movie title goes, I'm in favor of the threefold meaning: after all, many of the other titles have multiple meanings, as well. The last Jedi as in Luke is literally the last Jedi left, and it is him that Rey goes to meet and possibly train with in this movie. The last Jedi as in the last generation of Jedi, the trio of Luke and the two people he has trained, Ben and Rey. Perhaps we will learn more about Ben's past and Rey's past that will lend to this trio image. The trio image is also displayed in the movie poster, where Rey acts as the light and the agency and Luke and Kylo are the darkness and the power--and she has influence over them because she is the one holding the lightsaber and they are the ones that spring from the image of the saber. (Interestingly, the red/darkness does spring from the saber, implying that power can all too easily lead to darkness.) And the last interpretation of the last Jedi is, of course, that the Jedi Order as it is will officially come to an end. This is easy to see since the flaws of the Jedi are constantly visible, especially if you include the prequel trilogy. It makes sense that Luke, possibly with Rey's help or insistence, decides that making changes to the system is what will help them move forward into a new generation.

Overall prediction? This movie will see a change in characters' resolutions. Rey, Luke, Finn, Leia, and Kylo will all either make a new resolution or further resolve a current one. This is the start of a new day, and it will probably be a rocky start if it's anything like how fiction (and life, too, I guess) usually is.

The Last Jedi. Let's just relish the ominous sound of that phrase for the next eight months.