The Last Jedi and the Death of Entitlement

*SPOILER WARNING*

The thing I’ve always loved about Star Wars is that it brings nerds & non-nerds together. Being a nerd 
can be isolating when you can’t find anyone that shares your passion for the things you love. Sure, we 
live in an time when nerd culture is more mainstream than ever, but being a nerd isn’t about liking sci-fi 
& fantasy. Being a nerd is about being obsessed with sci-fi & fantasy. Sure, all your friends might 
watch Game of Thrones & The Walking Dead same as you, but for them, they’re just shows. They’re 
something to kill time and generate water cooler conversations. They may like the show, but they don’t 
read the books or the comics, they don’t have detailed fan theories on them, they might not even 
remember all the characters’ names. It can get a little frustrating when no one else has your level of 
enthusiasm.

But Star Wars is different. Star Wars is universal. The release of a new Star Wars movie is the closest 
thing nerds get to their own Superbowl. EVERYONE goes to see a new Star Wars movie, even people 
who don’t like Star Wars, if only to not be left out of the next few weeks of water cooler chatter. The 
least nerdy people in the world suddenly go full blown poindexter whenever a new Star Wars comes 
out. For a brief but glorious time, the nerds & the straights geek out together in harmony.

Which is why Star Wars being not very good for the longest time was so depressing. The prequels 
were bad, sure, but the fact that they were bad Star Wars movies is what cut so many so deeply. Star 
Wars is more than just a franchise. It’s a cultural institution, a way of life, an anchor in a world that 
sometimes gets so unbearable we all need to escape to a galaxy far, far away where all your problems 
can be fixed with a lightsaber and a little belief in the Force. The world lost something when Star Wars 
lost that magic. Sure, other franchises stepped forward to fill the void, we have never been short on 
escapism as a society. But still, a world in which Star Wars sucks just feels incomplete.

So it’s no wonder that everyone suddenly became little kids again when the first teasers for The Force 
Awakens (TFA) came out. It was like an old friend was returning after a long absence. That Star Wars 
feeling the prequels failed to really capture saturated everything about the movie. The Millennium 
Falcon! Han & Chewie saying “we’re home”! Practical effects and alien puppets! Jedi Master Luke!! 
The world fell in love with Star Wars all over again.

I wish I could say I felt the same, but I have to admit I wasn’t really onboard TFA with everyone else. I 
liked the movie fine, it was definitely a step in the right direction and easily the best film JJ Abrams has 
ever made. But it was still a JJ Abrams movie, with everything that implies. Meaning, it was a fun, 
exciting nostalgia trip that ultimately lacked substance and didn’t stick with you afterwards like it should. 
Plus there was the usual mystery box horseshit and excessive lens flares he’s become known for.

I allowed myself more excitement leading up to The Last Jedi (TLJ). I was still apprehensive, but by now 
I was well familiar with Rian Johnson’s filmography. The man is one of the most consistently great 
filmmakers working today, and I was psyched about what he could do with this franchise. But 
experience has taught me to temper my nerd enthusiasm, so I kept cautiously optimistic while I waited 
for the release. I went in with as few expectations as possible, thinking I was probably in for at least a 
better than average Star Wars experience.

Guys? I think The Last Jedi might be my new favorite Star Wars movie.

It still needs time to set in, obviously. History will be the judge, but I feel pretty confident TLJ will be 
considered among the best the franchise ever produced, every bit as good as Empire, if not better. It’s 
the first time the series has really felt fresh and relevant since the Original Trilogy (OT). Don’t 
misunderstand, Star Wars is and always was a basically indomitable cultural institution, and likely will 
be for decades to come. But for some time, the franchise has felt out of touch. The prequels’ cardinal 
sin, more than their obvious flaws, was to refuse to let Star Wars grow up. They were, appropriately 
enough, backwards looking instead of allowing the series to innovate and evolve.. The prequels are 
much like their protagonist Anakin: sullen, self-absorbed, loudly and proudly rejecting any attempt to 
educate or grow. The series felt stuck on a loop, recycling old ideas and expecting them to be just as 
fresh and exciting as they were 30 years ago, unable to grasp how the world and the audience had 
changed since then.

TFA was definitely a step in the right direction, but still felt a little too reliant on nostalgia, practically 
xeroxing A New Hope’s story beats with mixed results. But it succeeding in endearing us to the new 
cast of characters, and planted the seeds of some new ideas with exciting potential.

TLJ delivers on that potential in a big way. It doubles down on developing and testing the new 
characters while still staying true to the spirit of the series and giving the old guard a sad but poignant 
sendoff. Rather than withhold random information in the name of mystery, it deftly plays with the 
audiences expectations with an ease & fluidity I don’t recall feeling in a movie in years. Topping the 
iconic Cloud City fight from Empire sounds like an insurmountable challenge, but honestly I think 
Johnson pulled it off. The whole third act sequence between Rey, Kylo, & Snoke is just poetry, 
narratively & aesthetically. The story takes apart its characters new & old, challenging and testing 
them, and the audience right along with them. How people react to TLJ honestly reflects more on the 
audience than it does the movie.

The movie has been called “polarizing”, as if it wasn’t always going to be. Star Wars was one of the 
biggest thing ever to happen to pop culture, and people are always very frightened of change, 
especially fandoms. A Star Wars movie that exists to phase out the old cast that had been the most 
beloved faces of the franchise, and pass the torch to a younger, more diverse cast of characters 
moving forward, was always going to cause an upset. Nobody likes seeing their heroes get old. And 
that’s perfectly understandable. Change is scary, and even tho you’ll always have the original movies 
you loved, seeing them replaced reminds you that you’re no longer the youngest generation. There’s a 
new one coming to replace you, just as you replaced your parents. It’s hard to deal with, I get it.

But while it’s okay to feel sad that Star Wars is no longer being made specifically for you, it’s also 
important to think about why it’s no longer being made for you. Whether we want to admit it or not, the 
real reason everyone wanted, or at least assumed, Rey to be a Skywalker, or even a Palpatine, was 
because Star Wars has always been about lineage defining greatness. One cannot come from nothing 
and become great in Star Wars, one has to be born great. The heroes are all royalty, or secret Jedi 
messiahs. Middle or lower class characters like Han Solo are always criminals or anti-heroes of some 
kind. We assumed Rey had Skywalker blood because the idea of some nobody of humble origins being 
strong with the Force without being genetically predestined to be by their secret parentage is such an 
alien concept for a Star Wars film that we hardly even considered the possibility. Surely she has to be 
the daughter of someone important, because otherwise she’s something new. Otherwise the future of 
the galaxy is not in the hands of just one family. Otherwise power can be achieved by anyone from 
anywhere.

Star Wars is not an outlier in this. Storytellers in general have always been obsessed with legacy, Star 
Wars is simply the most recent permutation of the most archetypal fairy tale. Luke Skywalker is the 
modern Hercules or King Arthur, sired by gods or kings to protect the defenseless commonfolk.

The reason for this is pretty simple: most of these stories were written by, for, and about white dudes. 
Enforcing a cultural narrative of heroism being hereditary is a good way to maintain the current power 
structure. If greatness can only be inherited, not earned, then the ruling classes never have to fear a 
challenge to their dominance. That’s why powerful female characters like Rey are almost always 
somebody’s daughter, and almost always a man. Obviously every woman has a father, but any woman 
that shows any degree of assertiveness or physical power almost inevitably has a defining male role 
model as the central component of her background. A woman cannot simply choose to become 
powerful, she must be inherit power from a man. A girl can’t simply be skilled with firearms, she has to 
be an army brat or a cop’s daughter. It’s a comforting tactic to ease the culture into the idea of female 
power and independence, while still allowing men to feel a certain sense of, for lack of a better word, 
“ownership” over women. “Yes, she can kick ass, but I taught her to kick ass, so I’m still in control, I’m 
still important”. There’s nothing really wrong with it on a case-by-case basis, most women will grow up 
with some kind’ve male role model in their lives, and many of them are positive influences and that 
makes for great stories, but as a trend it always had a short shelf life. It was necessary once to make 
meaningful change in media representation, but films like TLJ are demonstrating that it’s quickly 
becoming outdated.

This is why the revelation about Rey’s parentage was so powerful. We went in with the assumption that 
Rey’s parents are special, because we’ve been trained to believe that’s the only way she could be 
special. Likewise, Rey has convinced herself of much the same thing. She has lived a life of struggle 
and loneliness, holding on to the idea that she was meant for something better, that her parents were 
out there and would come as save her one day. She believes what we are all born believing: that life has 
a happy ending.

But Kylo points out, deep down she knows the truth, even if she never admitted it to herself: Her parents 
aren’t coming. They weren’t anybody special or important. They were poor, and selfish, and they sold 
her for booze. There’s nobody coming to save her, no great plan or destiny laid out for her. She is alone. 
It’s up to her to make her future, because no one is going to do it for her.

This is a revelation we all come to at some point. It’s part of growing up. If we’re to stand on our own, to 
be our best selves and achieve all we’re capable of, we have to let go of our adolescent assumptions of 
importance. We have to take the reins, no matter how hard or terrifying, and accept responsibility for the 
course of our own life, even when it is out of our control. It’s a painful process. It’s the hardest thing in the 
world to trust yourself, because you know yourself too well. You know how human and fallible you are. 
And the revelation that everyone you rely on to make sure things are always okay, your family, your 
friends, you partners, your mentors, are just as lost and hurting and flawed as you is utterly devastating. 
Suddenly the world becomes a very different, very scary place. Your safety net is gone. The future 
becomes foggy, and you start doubting everyone and everything. You realize, like Rey, that you’ve been 
lying to yourself just to cope, just to pretend the world is something it isn’t.

This is paralleled in Kylo Ren. Like Rey, he feels let down by his parents & mentor. Like Rey he feels 
confused and hurt and alone. Like Rey he’s convinced himself he’s the heir to a great legacy, worshiping 
the evil grandfather he never knew and seeking to follow Darth Vader’s path. But unlike Rey, he was born 
into privilege, the son of the heroes of the galaxy. Unlike Rey, greatness was expected of him, handed to 
him. But the thing about expectations is we tend to either rise above them, or fall beneath them. Rey saw 
her station in life as a challenge, something to be overcome. Nothing was expected of her, and she was 
determined to prove that wrong. Kylo was a Force prodigy born to legends, given every opportunity. But 
the weight of that impossible legacy combined with his parents’ neglect & his mentor’s mistrust crushed 
him. Like most privileged kids, he felt smothered by the expectations of his birth, without an identity of his 
own, so he was driven to rebel. It’s a very human emotion, to feel unable to live up to the standards of 
behavior asked of us, so in order to feel free we openly reject them. We become the opposite of what is 
asked of us in a desperate attempt to feel in control.

Ironically, Kylo has the right idea in telling Rey to let go of the past, but is completely incapable of 
following through on it. Despite his increasingly desperate attempts to purge himself of any emotional 
vulnerability, he is helpless to rid himself of the ghosts of his past, of his shame and self-loathing. Kylo 
desperately wants to take control of his own destiny, but can’t stop defining himself through his hatred 
of his parents and his reactionary hero worship of the grandfather he never met (much like Gen X’s 
glorification of their grandparents as “the greatest generation”). He blames Luke for all his pain and 
misery, and to be fair there is some blame due there, but ultimately, his only real enemy is himself. He 
walks onto the battlefield of Crait looking for vindication, to take out all his hurt and rage on his uncle & 
mentor, to prove that he has risen above him. Like the audience, he expects an epic battle, a cathartic 
end. He, and we, are denied that, because Kylo was, literally and figuratively, never really fighting Luke, 
he is at war only with himself. Luke doesn't need to be a force ghost to haunt Kylo, he knows he will 
stay with Kylo forever. “See you around, kid” is spoken almost as a threat.

The way these Kylo reflects Luke & more importantly Rey sheds new light on the entire series, and for 
me makes TFA about 5 times better in retrospect. For one thing it recontextualizes Kylo’s defeat at 
Rey’s hands at the end of TFA, showing that it really reflected more on him than it does her. Sure, he 
was the trained as a dark side warrior, but he’s also a hot mess of a human being who has no idea 
what he wants (plus he’s still reeling from killing his father and is already injured), and Rey is focused 
and determined, so of course she kicks his ass. Going back to what I said before, audience 
expectations reveal more about us than the movie. We all gawked in disbelief, believing that Kylo was 
entitled to win, because he had the heritage & training that was denied Rey.

And that’s a big part of what TLJ is about: Entitlement. The movie is the refutation of the Skywalker 
family’s stranglehold on the Star Wars galaxy, and by extension challenges white patriarchy’s 
stranglehold on pop culture as a whole.

For example: Poe Dameron is the most old school and classic feeling of the new characters (and by no 
accident the oldest as well): a dashing, square-jawed ace pilot straight out of the Flash Gordon serials 
that first inspired the series. His arc largely consists of butting heads with Laura Dern’s Vice Admiral 
Holdo, who favors a strategic escape over Poe’s hot-headed leap-before-you look tactics. We’ve seen 
this setup many times before, and we’ve been trained to side with Poe. He’s the handsome white hero 
who wants to go kick some ass, she’s the stern authority figure that just wants to retreat. Sure, her plan 
is was more practical and Poe’s just shooting in the dark, but we’ve been trained by countless movies 
before this to assume Poe will be proven right in the end just by virtue of who he is. He is entitled to be 
right.

I had to admit, I was getting more than a little irritated with Poe around the point he started a mutiny just 
because Admiral Holdo wouldn’t take his suicidal advice in an impossible situation he doesn’t even have 
the full scope of yet. I was tired of seeing this old trope again, where the impulsive manchild who wants 
to blow stuff up gets proven right despite there being ever reason he should be wrong.

And then General Leia walks in and stuns his entitled ass like a stern nanny sending him to his room.

My jaw hit the floor. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I almost thought I had imagined it, but no, the 
movie had just cleverly lured me in which an old predictable plot point, and turned it on its head. Poe’s 
recklessness that normally would’ve paid off and saved the day just by virtue of him being the 
handsomest white guy in the room, instead is met with appropriate discipline while the adults come in 
to sweep up his mess.

This is also demonstrated in the fate of Supreme Leader Snoke, and the reaction to it. After the release 
of TFA, the was much speculation as to his backstory. Most assumed he was connected to Emperor 
Palpatine in some way, or was Palpatine himself, which is perfectly natural, since he basically is 
Palpatine. They’re both generically evil withered old dark side users of unknown and unquestioned 
origins manipulating a powerful but angry and vulnerable young Skywalker into murdering all the Jedi. 
He’s essentially the exact same character.

Kylo Ren & General Hux, on the other hand, have archetypes that are new to Star Wars. They are the 
millennial answer to Darth Vader & Grand Moff Tarkin. The latter two were reminiscent of the stoic 
supervillains of the sci-fi comics and serials that first inspired Star Wars, as well as real world dictators 
like Hitler & Stalin. The former are not so reserved. Hux is a blustering bully who behaves more like a 
member of the Trump family or a North Korean dictator than a dignified military dictator. Kylo meanwhile 
seems drawn straight from anime villain tropes, a brooding long haired bad boy prone to sword fights 
and melodrama. That's why Kylo, the new generation's cartoon villain, kills and supplants Snoke, an 
obvious knockoff of Emperor Palpatine representative of the outdated cartoon supervillains of the OT. 
Once again, fans are upset at Snoke’s ignominious end because we have been trained to see him as 
the main villain because he was more serious. We have been trained to see emotional characters as 
inherently weaker than stoic ones. That's why at the end of TFA, instead of the Star Wars tradition of 
losing a hand, a symbol of physical power, Rey scars his face, the means of expressing emotion, 
symbolizing the crack in his faux-Vader facade. He carries that wound throughout TLJ, appropriately 
bandaged with metal as he tries all the more to harden his heart. Killing Snoke off and leaving the First 
Order in the hands of a petulant child with godlike power and no impulse control is far more interesting 
and far more frightening than yet another unflappable dark lord of evil.

I’ve always felt just a step removed from Star Wars fandom due partially to my age. I saw the OT fairly 
early on, but growing up in the 90’s Star Wars is just the old, cool adventure movie your dad shows you. 
You may love it, but you don’t have quite the same perspective as those old enough to remember when 
it all began. I never knew a world without Star Wars, it was something that had always been there, like 
Bugs Bunny or Superman. As a result, no many how big a fan I am, I never got to be a part of the shared 
cultural moment when everyone first experienced it. I never had that feeling of being part of a big moment 
in cinema history like I did with The Matrix, or The Dark Knight. Star Wars never really felt like it was 
“mine”, it was something that belonged to my parents generation.

I think that’s why I find TLJ so affecting. It’s not just a great Star Wars movie, it’s a great Star Wars movie 
made for me. It reflects and speaks to the world I grew up in and what it’s become, draws on the pop 
culture that shaped my childhood rather than my parents’. After running in place for 30 years, Star Wars 
feels new & exciting again.

A lot of the backlash towards this movie revolves around the idea that the movie is leaving old fans 
behind. That the heroes of the OT are shown dying as failures in order to prop up the new cast. It’s hard 
to deal with when you find out that your childhood heroes aren’t perfect, that eventually they let you down, 
grow old & die. It’s perfectly natural to be saddened & upset by that. But to say that this movie is 
disrespecting the legacy of the OT is a completely backwards interpretation, because the story literally 
does the exact opposite of the that. TLJ is an examination of the legacy of Star Wars, true, but it is far 
from a condemnation. Rey’s entire arc is about proving Luke wrong: the Jedi (read: Star Wars) may 
have been flawed, may have failed and made mistakes, but the spirit of what they were is real, and 
special, and worth preserving. They may need to change and evolve in order to move forward, but what 
they represented: peace, justice, freedom, and compassion, will never die. The Force (once again read: 
Star Wars) is more than just one man, or even once family. It belongs to all of us, from the knights & 
princesses to the lowly scavengers and stable boys. It is as powerful & universal as the human spirit. 
For the first time in the series, a Star Wars film ends not on any of the main characters, but a nameless 
child, weilding a broom as a lightsaber (in a touchingly non-comedic nod to the famous Star Wars Kid), 
staring up at the stars, dreaming of adventure, inspired by Rey, Finn, & Poe the way Luke, Leia & Han 
inspired a generation all those years ago. If you can honestly look at that as say this movie hates Star 
Wars fans, you weren’t paying attention.

P.S. Somebody get me one of those secret Resistance rings pronto.