In 2015, after a decade of lying dormant, the Star Wars franchise came roaring back to the cinema screens with Star Wars: The Force Awakens. It was a massive success upon release, breaking numerous box office records and getting met with nigh universal acclaim from fans and critics alike. And with that under their belt, Lucasfilm creatives turned their attention to its sequel, Rian Johnson's Star Wars: The Last Jedi. A bolder and infinitely more unique film that capitalized on the solid groundwork laid in the previous movie in massive ways, Johnson's The Last Jedi is a genuine masterpiece.

The Last Jedi Treated All Star Wars Stories Equally

Rey Activates Her Lightsaber In Star Wars The Last Jedi

If The Force Awakens was the result of Abrams' professed love for 1977's A New Hope, then The Last Jedi is the result of Johnson's professed love for George Lucas as a filmmaker. The Force Awakens made a concentrated effort to keep the memories of Lucas' controversially received prequels at bay, deliberately harkening back to the aesthetic and narrative sensibilities of the original trilogy. Conversely, The Last Jedi embraces the entirety of Lucas' saga, Prequels very much included, as well as the films that inspired Lucas in the first place. Films like Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon, Orson Welles' Citizen Kane and Michael Curtiz's Casablanca are just as much a part of the movie's visual grammar as Flash Gordon or Buck Rogers are, with Johnson finding the meaningful ties to these stories present in Lucas' work and elevating them to the forefront.

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That is very much a recurring theme in Johnson's work. Despite what some particularly rabid corners of the internet might have viewers believe, The Last Jedi is actually a sublime sequel to The Force Awakens. It takes every development of The Force Awakens' story, from the introduction of new characters to the establishment of core beats like Luke's exile, in earnest and builds organically upon them. Characters like Hux and Snoke, who were little more than Abrams' surrogate Tarkin or Palpatine, respectively, are fleshed out into fully formed characters of their own. The previously plot-driving factor of Luke's exile on Ahch-To is also authentically interrogated and given character motivation and emotional resonance. None of this is Johnson rewriting or trampling over developments from The Force Awakens but rather the opposite, with The Last Jedi elevating these elements with startling clarity and retroactively strengthening Abrams' film.

The Last Jedi's Brilliant Use of Rhyming Storytelling

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And it is with this same adoration and articulate eye Johnson approaches the story of the Star Wars saga at large. The Last Jedi builds beautifully upon threads from previous films in a deeply affecting fashion. As Lucas famously said of Star Wars storytelling, "it's like poetry, it rhymes," and Johnson demonstrates a profound understanding of this rhyming stanza. Luke's exile on Ahch-To is deliberately reminiscent of Yoda's exile on Dagobah, with both characters disappearing from the fight entirely in the aftermath of their own perceived failures. In Revenge of the Sith, one of Yoda's final lines is "Into exile, I must go. Failed, I have" after he lost his duel with Palpatine. Yoda feels his own hubris led to this destructive result, with nearly all of his students dying and the Jedi Order he oversaw crumbling before him. Luke's arc in The Last Jedi is a rhyme of all of this, down to blaming the death of his students on his own hubris.

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But wonderfully, Johnson doesn't stop there. The stanza culminates with Yoda and Luke's conversation, in which Yoda says, "the greatest teacher, failure is" and "we are what they grow beyond." That moment brings 40-years-worth of storytelling to a head -- bringing Yoda's story from the Prequels full circle, providing an emotional epitaph to Luke and Yoda's relationship in the Original Trilogy and serving as a resolution of Luke's internal conflict across Force Awakens and Last Jedi, all in pure Lucas cinematic storytelling fashion.

The Last Jedi is full of meticulously constructed thematic threads like this that are immensely emotionally satisfying. Rey and Kylo Ren's relationship is a rhyme of Anakin and Padmé's, with Johnson and editor Bob Ducsay cutting their Force connection scenes to invoke both Anakin and Padmé's connection in Revenge of the Sith and Luke and Vader's Force connections at the end of The Empire Strikes Back. Finn, Rose and DJ donning First Order garb to infiltrate the Supremacy is also a rhyme of the original trio's infiltration of the Death Star in A New Hope, used to emotional effect in pointedly challenging Finn's beliefs by reimmersing him into the system of corrupt power. Even Kylo Ren revealing Rey's parentage to her is a rhyme of Vader doing the same to Luke in The Empire Strikes Back, and the reveal itself directly taps into the core thesis of the Joseph Campbell-penned works, which so heavily inspired Lucas.

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Luke's Franchise-Long Arc of Growing Beyond

One of the most impactful instances of this thematic rhyming scheme comes with Luke's final stand at the Battle of Crait. The entire theme of Lucas' A New Hope is that of technology versus spirituality. Luke is put squarely in the middle of this theological conflict, with Obi-Wan on one shoulder preaching the spirituality of the Force and Han Solo on the other telling him that "hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster." It culminates with the Death Star trench run, as Luke lets go of his conscious self and embraces spirituality, turning off the targeting computer and saving the Rebellion.

In The Last Jedi, the Battle of Crait comes down to the First Order's latest technological terror -- a siege cannon -- and the literal spirituality of Luke Skywalker. By Force projecting himself to Crait, Luke's spirituality saves the Resistance in an entirely pacifistic fashion. That not only sees Johnson bringing Luke's franchise-long arc full circle in an unexpected way, but it also sees Luke laying down his life to become an embodiment of the very ideology that the Jedi have sought across the entire saga: a true guardian of peace and justice.

Rian Johnson's The Last Jedi is a miracle. It's a big-budget franchise movie that feels like a profoundly personal passion project. Lucas' mentor, Francis Ford Coppola, often spoke of making his "one for them" films be "one for you" by imbuing them with immense personal stakes, and that is a lesson Johnson has taken to heart. The Last Jedi is a deeply personal love letter to not just Star Wars but to George Lucas as a filmmaker, which internalizes the thematic works of all that came before it in the name of delivering an immensely satisfying culmination that builds upon all of it.