Monthly Archives: January 2018

Feminism and Heroism in The Last Jedi

The latest installment in the epic Star Wars saga, The Last Jedi, has been met with a potent mix of acclaim and outrage. While some fans are dissatisfied with Finn and Rose’s detour to Canto Bight or the killing off of Supreme Leader Snoke, the film’s portrayal of Luke Skywalker has infuriated many fans the most. In contrast to his portrayal in the original Expanded Universe of novels, comics, and video games, Last Jedi portrays Luke as mired in depression. One of the film’s strength’s is that virtually all of the characters with significant screen time–Poe, Finn, Rose, Rey, Kylo, and Luke himself–develop over the course of the narrative. Last Jedi achieves this with Luke’s character by pitting him against his own sense of failure, inadequacy, and imposter syndrome. The narrative pay off when Luke finally does reclaim his responsibility as the (presumably) only living Jedi master is huge. Yet, whiny Luke wallowing in self-imposed exile has scandalized many diehard fans.

Serious Star Wars fans may be especially disturbed by this portrayal of Luke because it so starkly departs from his portrayal in the original EU. Although he is written slightly differently by various authors, Luke’s core trait in the EU is his undying faith in the Force. This version of Luke is not without flaws, but he is consistently heroic and self-sacrificing and his perseverance in his mission to restore the Jedi order is unflagging–hard to reconcile with the character in Last Jedi. Luke’s resilience is impressive given the number of friends he loses in battle and apprentices who defect to the dark side. In the early days of the New Republic, Luke not only faces the brilliant  Grand Admiral Thrawn, but also fights a clone of himself and the insane clone of Jedi master Jorus C’baoth. During the brutal invasion of the Yuuzhan Vong, Luke suffers the deaths of Chewbacca and his nephew, Anakin Solo, as well as slaughter on a massive scale. Luke almost dies in the climactic battle with the Yuuzhan Vong’s Supreme Overlord Shmirra, but soon the galaxy is again torn apart by another civil war. Luke’s nephew Jacen falls to the dark side and kills his uncle’s wife, Mara Jade. After helping save the galaxy from his nephew, Luke voluntarily accepts exile from Coruscant because anti-Jedi sentiment is running high. Luke and his son Ben discover an ancient, parasitic dark side entity named Abeloth, who almost kills Luke twice and wreaks havoc on the galaxy. Despite decades of trauma and desolation, Luke never loses faith in the Force, the Jedi order, or his friends. Two EU storylines in particular serve as important parallels to Last Jedi: the Jedi Academy trilogy and the nine-book Legacy of the Force arc.

The Jedi Academy trilogy depicts Luke’s training of a new generation of Jedi. Luke’s efforts go awry when the ghost of Exar Kun, a long-dead Sith lord haunting the temple on Yavin 4, begins manipulating his apprentices. This parallels Snoke’s nefarious influence on Kylo Ren. Whereas in Last Jedi Kylo destroys the temple and murders the apprentices who won’t join him, in the Jedi Academy trilogy one of Luke’s apprentices, Kyp Durron, steals an imperial superweapon, the Sun Crusher, and destroys the entire Carida system. Once Exar Kun’s spirit is destroyed, however, Kyp realizes his mistake and flies the Sun Crusher into a black hole as an act of penance. Kyp survives by jettisoning himself in a message pod. In later novels, Luke defends Kyp from those who want him imprisoned or executed, and Kyp himself eventually becomes a Jedi master. Despite the structural similarities, the differences between the EU version and the film version could not be more extreme. In the former, Kyp is rehabilitated, justifying Luke’s faith in him. In the latter, Luke is so shattered by Kylo’s betrayal that he abandons the galaxy and retreats from the Force itself.

Jacen Solo’s characterization in The Legacy of the Force storyline parallels Kylo Ren’s in Last Jedi. Both Jacen and Kylo are Luke’s nephews; both explicitly seek to emulate Darth Vader. While Jacen skillfully maneuvers his way into power over the Galactic Alliance, Kylo seizes control of the First Order after killing Snoke. Jacen’s fall to the dark side is even more disheartening than Kylo’s. While Kylo fell to the dark side during a vulnerable period before he was fully trained, Jacen was not only a Jedi knight, but played a pivotal role in saving the galaxy from the Vong. Kylo’s fall is lamentable, but not unprecedented; Jacen’s fall was nearly unfathomable given his many years of Force training and his prior heroism. Jacen’s betrayal would be like Cyclops turning against Xavier or Nightwing against Batman. Although Luke is grieved by Jacen’s fall to the dark side it doesn’t prevent him from leading the other Jedi against his nephew.

Because of the nature of mass market publication and fans’ unquenchable thirst for new content the EU reflects a cyclical view of history in which the galaxy is ceaselessly plunged in and out of war, in which neither the Empire nor the Sith are permanently defeated, but also in which Luke Skywalker never surrenders. Last Jedi‘s portrayal of Luke violates our heroic archetypes, exemplified not only by the EU version of Luke, but by Batman, Superman, the Avengers, Neo, the X-Men, and the warriors in Seven Samurai. These heroes fight to the bitter end. Yet, one character in Last Jedi maintains stoic resolve despite catastrophic losses. While Luke eventually overcomes his despair to use a Force projection to distract Kylo long enough for the Resistance to escape, Leia epitomizes the heroic determination we expected of Luke. Leia has experienced at least as much–if not more–trauma as Luke: her son has fallen to the dark side and murdered her husband; the First Order has destroyed the New Republic; her twin brother has vanished. Despite all of this, Leia embodies hope for the Resistance. She even survives a direct hit to the bridge of her command ship, using the Force to pull herself back to the airlock. One of the best parts of Last Jedi‘s writing is the return of wise-cracking Leia. Whereas The Force Awakens portrays Leia as a bit deadened by heartache, Last Jedi gives Leia back the sharp wit that made her such a great character in the original trilogy.

Portraying Leia as the archetypal hero and Luke as a flawed man who overcomes his self-loathing is part of the film’s larger feminist stance. The Luke/Leia pairing is one of four male/female pairings, in which the men make rash decisions and the women hold steadily to the right course. The other three pairings are Rey/Kylo, Holdo/Poe, and Rose/Finn. Rey resists Kylo’s offer to join him on the dark side (her faith in Kylo mirrors Luke’s faith in Vader); Holdo sacrifices herself to the save the Resistance, while Poe makes a series of reckless decisions that lead to the deaths of many Resistance fighters; Rose prevents Finn from deserting and later saves him from needlessly sacrificing himself.

Last Jedi ends with the Luke fans expected from the beginning. Luke’s heroics in the final sequence don’t compensate for his absence over the previous decades, but that’s not the point. By the end of the film, Luke has truly become a Jedi master and one with the Force.