D. Hart St. Martin

I make female heroes badass AND believable

Star Wars

My Take on Star Wars: The Last Jedi (repost)

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With the release of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (which I have not yet seen), I thought it appropriate to repost this review from 2017.

So, here’s what I thought of The Last Jedi. I didn’t love it. I haven’t quite figured out why because I think it will end up #2 on my Star Wars favorite list, but there you have it. I started crying when Luke kissed Leia on the forehead and didn’t stop until after I got in my car. It still makes me cry because my Star Wars is over. If Carrie Fisher hadn’t died, she would have been left for episode IX, but we know they’re going to have to off General Organa somehow. Sigh.

Kudos to Rian Johnson for finally getting the whole balance-in-the-Force thing right. The prophecy of “The Chosen One” always bugged the crap out of me. “The Chosen One will destroy the Sith and bring balance to the Force.” That’s like saying the Chosen One will kick the kid on the left side of the teeter-totter off and bring balance to the teeter-totter. Or let’s keep the sun shining 24 hours a day. We need the dark. We need to recognize the darkness deep within is if we are to remain whole. If the prophecy had said, “The Chosen One will destroy the Sith and save the universe,” I wouldn’t have an issue with it. But it says “balance,” and you can’t have balance on a scale when only one side carries any weight.

Adam Driver was brilliant. That first scene with Snoke (the scene without Rey) where Snoke smacks him around verbally and tells him he’s still a child and then the closeup on Driver’s face where he looks like a child with that pout—great. Daisy Ridley—doggedly carrying on the seeker’s role and doing it well. Carrie Fisher—I wish we’d had more. But Luke, beloved Luke, ripped apart and desiring nothing save dying on that island to put the Jedi to rest for good. I love the conflicted ones, and he was undeniably and beautifully conflicted.

I want to see it again and again. There’s so much going on, I suspect it will take several viewings to catch it all.

MY TAKE ON STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI

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YONDER BE SPOILERS, TRED LIGHTLY

So, here’s what I thought of The Last Jedi. I didn’t love it. I haven’t quite figured out why because I think it will end up #2 on my Star Wars favorite list, but there you have it. I started crying when Luke kissed Leia on the forehead and didn’t stop until after I got in my car. It still makes me cry because my Star Wars is over. If Carrie Fisher hadn’t died, she would have been left for episode IX, but we know they’re going to have to off General Organa somehow. Sigh.

Kudos to Rian Johnson for finally getting the whole balance-in-the-Force thing right. The prophecy of “The Chosen One” always bugged the crap out of me. “The Chosen One will destroy the Sith and bring balance to the Force.” That’s like saying the Chosen One will kick the kid on the left side of the teeter-totter off and bring balance to the teeter-totter. Or let’s keep the sun shining 24 hours a day. We need the dark. We need to recognize the darkness deep within us if we are to remain whole. If the prophecy had said, “The Chosen One will destroy the Sith and save the universe,” I wouldn’t have an issue with it. But it says “balance,” and you can’t have balance on a scale when only one side carries any weight.

Adam Driver was brilliant. That first scene with Snoke (the scene without Rey) where Snoke smacks him around verbally and tells him he’s still a child and then the closeup on Driver’s face where he looks like a child with that pout—great. Daisy Ridley—doggedly carrying on the seeker’s role and doing it well. Carrie Fisher—I wish we’d had more. But Luke, beloved Luke, ripped apart and desiring nothing save dying on that island to put the Jedi to rest for good. I love the conflicted ones, and Mark Hamill played that conflict right up to its razor edge.

I want to see it again and again. There’s so much going on, I suspect it will take several viewings to catch it all.

Carrie on, Courageous Sister

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Two events stand out in my life from 1977—I read the third (and what I thought of as final) book in the Dune series, Children of Dune, and I saw Star Wars at the Chinese Theater in Hollywood on a Thursday afternoon with two friends. Both moments contributed to what eventually became my Lisen of Solsta series. The first because upon finishing it, I threw the book across the room and declared, “If Frank Herbert won’t write the book I want to read, then I will.” (Upon re-reading the book, I discovered it was actually pretty good when I didn’t make my personal expectations impediments to my enjoyment.)

As for Star Wars, what can I say? The ads and teasers left me thinking swashbuckler in space. Swords and young people swinging across chasms? I was on board before I ever saw it. Months later when I set out to write “my” story (you know, the one Frank Herbert didn’t write), I chose a female hero because I thought it was time for as many Princess Leias as there were Luke Skywalkers.

carrie-fisher

Carrie Fisher died today, and I’m one of thousands, if not millions, recording their feelings for posterity about this woman who stood proud and never attempted to hide her reality. And her reality was often brutal. Standing as an icon to geek-dom while still in her early twenties, struggling with addiction and then facing the diagnosis of bipolar disorder—she could have played her little violin, and all her fans would have fallen in line to pity her. But Carrie Fisher wasn’t a violinist, and she declined people’s pity. Instead she wrote. And what she wrote!

She wrote biographical novels about her relationship with her famous mother. She wrote memoirs about life in a brighter-than-light spotlight. She wrote one-woman plays detailing her battles with the iconic life of a princess, drugs and mental disease. Rather than run away from these things, she celebrated them with humor and fearless reflection.

I suffered a few losses of my own this year (previously documented), but when I learned of Carrie’s passing, although not unexpected, I cried and realized her loss leaves me as empty as those other losses do. May the Goddess bless her on this new leg of her journey, but damn it, I had so wished to read her take on flat-lining on a plane.