[Although Black Panther has already busted just
about every conceivable block, Memorial Day launches the summer blockbuster
season. So this week I wanted to return
to some BlockbusterStudying, focusing especially on big hits from last
year. Add your BlockbusterStudying thoughts, please!]
[NB: some SPOILERS
follow, so if you haven’t seen Last Jedi yet,
go do so and then come back to share your thoughts here!]
On the
thoughtful questions behind a controversial character arc, and why they’re so
vital.
It’s not exactly
breaking news to note that Mark
Hamill did not initially see eye-to-eye with director and screenwriter Rian
Johnson over his
character Luke Skywalker’s role and perspective in The Last Jedi (2017). Hell, there’s even a new documentary called The
Director and the Jedi that documents their disagreements, as well as
their evolution toward a more shared understanding (one that Hamill
now voices very eloquently). In the interests of full disclosure, I’ll note
that I absolutely love the film, and especially really enjoyed both Luke as a character
and Hamill’s performance (and it’s a tribute to him as an actor that he does
such a pitch-perfect job despite his reservations). But I get where Hamill was
coming from with those initial responses: for most of the film Luke is a bitter
and nasty s.o.b., and one who specifically expresses opinions and perspectives
that seem to dismantle quite thoroughly everything about the Jedi and the Force
that constituted his
character’s beautiful arc in the original Star
Wars trilogy.
Yet as I argued in
this post (still one of my favorites across the more than 2300 I’ve shared
in this space), I believe that the character of Luke has always represented a complex
combination of Jedi and anti-Jedi (at least as an influential character like
Yoda defines the Jedi). More exactly, Luke has always relied on emotion as a
guiding part of his embrace of the Force and role as a Jedi, despite Yoda’s
assertions that emotions are dangerous or lead to the Dark Side. So the Luke
that we meet at the start of Last Jedi—a
Luke whose missteps and failures with young Ben Solo have made him question
bitterly his own life and work, as well as the broader concepts behind the Jedi
Order and even the Force itself—is just experiencing and responding to another
set of emotions, ones still driven by love and family (Ben is his nephew, after
all) but now coming from a far darker place. Without spoiling entirely where
his character ends up by the film’s wonderful concluding moments, I’ll just
note that anyone who sees that bitter Luke as the Last Jedi’s only or central version of this character and his
perspective must have stopped paying attention a bit earlier than they should
have (or taken a really long and poorly timed bathroom break).
However, I don’t
think his character’s arc and evolution in the film is necessary to appreciate
Luke’s bitter questions about the past and his ideals. Indeed, I would argue
that another failing of Yoda’s seems to be that even after the disastrous
events of the prequels—and his own direct role in Anakin Skywalker’s descent to
the Dark Side, as I note in that hyperlinked post—he still when we meet him on
Dagobah in The Empire Strikes Back holds
to most of the same ideas about the Jedi, emotion, and the like. Even if those
disastrous past events had not taken place, I don’t think anyone should
continue to hold the same views across the arc of their life, not without
careful and thoughtful examination of them and a willingness to critique and
even perhaps set aside those that do not stand up to such scrutiny. While Luke
might voice his examinations and critiques in a more bitter way than would be
ideal (again, he’s an emotional guy!), the perspectives themselves are healthy
and exemplary for any person late in his or her life. And [SPOILERS one more
time] with the help of Rey, herself a combination of Jedi and emotion to be
sure, by the end of the film Luke moves past those critiques and into a
distinct but still heroic perspective on the Jedi and their role.
Next blockbuster
tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What do you
think? Other blockbusters you’d highlight and analyze?
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