The Last Jedi’s Lessons for Today’s Resistance
The themes of The Last Jedi are perfect for the time we live in today.
*MAJOR SPOILERS*
The Last Jedi spends much of the film subverting many of the typical Star Wars tropes from past movies to fully transition us to a new generation. In a time where there is an unprecedented energy in grassroots opposition on the left, there are things some can learn from the “Resistance” of the Star Wars universe. For being a Disney movie, the political commentary is substantive and encourages us to think of resistance in a very different manner.
Throughout the entire movie we are confronted with the idea that our heroes are not as pristine as we think they are, and that the romanticized actions of a few are not to be relied on and repeated. Poe’s first instinct is constantly to rush headlong into the fight like an action hero to save the day, but comes to find out over the course of the movie that the less flashy plan was the sounder one, and his own actions put the Resistance into grave danger. Finn and Rose’s bold plan of infiltrating the First Order’s main ship fails miserably and they’re swiftly betrayed by DJ, and jeopardizes the plan Admiral Holdo had set out. Our heroes aren’t really heroes at all, but just ordinary people thrust into seemingly unwinnable situations.
While many expected to see a Luke Skywalker that was optimistic and wise from the end of Return of the Jedi, we find that Luke has become a bitter old man, cut off from the Force. We learn of his own incredible failures and his responsibility for the creation of Kylo Ren. Luke even references the past of the Jedi Order and their role in creating Darth Vader to begin with. He detests that he’s become a legend because he knows that it’s just looking at the past through rose tinted glasses. The failures of the original trio are apparent. Luke fails as a teacher, Han fails as a father, and Leia fails as a leader of the Resistance, with no allies to call upon at the end and just a handful of people left. And through investigating a stolen ship by Finn, Rose and DJ, we find an arms dealer is selling to both sides of the war, adding a shade of grey to what has historically been a black and white conflict.
These are people that the young characters and us as an audience grew up idolizing, and that’s why it’s so important we see them fail and it is left to the young to undo the mistakes of the past. The real-world comparisons are numerous, and Mark Hamill says it best himself when describing where he drew inspiration from in his portrayal as Luke:
“Now, I was eleven when the Beatles hit and they were the peace and love generation, and when I was in high school I said, I believed all that. I thought by the time we get in power they’ll be no more wars. We’ll end world famine. Hey baby, Love Is All You Need. And that, we failed! Basically, we failed, so even though this is a fantasy, you try and find something that you can relate to in life to be able to portray that element of the screenplay and so that’s what I was thinking of. Is the potential of the flower power generation and now the world is worse than it’s ever been. Thought Watergate was bad? That was just two parties. Now it’s a political entity with a hostile foreign government and that we’ve been in perpetual war. I thought, well at least after Vietnam will never get into another pointless war that will, with no clear objective. We’ve been in perpetual war for what seventeen, eighteen years now?”
The Baby Boomer Generation (and part of Generation X) has failed us in the same manner that our heroes from the original Star Wars trilogy failed decades later. The politicians that millennials have looked up to (in varying degrees), Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Bernie Sanders, all failed in their own way. It’s been difficult to come to grips with those failures for those that were major fans of them. Barack Obama’s numerous policies that betrayed many of the promises and ideals that young people were expecting from him. Hillary Clinton’s past policies and remarks and Bernie’s failure to capitalize on the energy that propelled him to the national spotlight.
They did not all fail in the same way, and they are not the only politicians that have led the country to ruin. It does show us that putting any one individual or set of people on a pedestal and expecting them to save us, to drive back the darkness, is incredibly dangerous. Their actions will never live up to the images that we’ve created in our head. And there is no need to try and reach their individual heights to do good in the world. The lesson of The Last Jedi is to rely on the communal struggle rather than individualistic heroism. It’s important that those that consider themselves a member of today’s #Resistance or the burgeoning socialist youth turn away from the urge to create new idols out of other politicians or personalities that seem to align with their interests whether it be Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren, or any other prominent leftist or anti-Trump figure.
There are two key moments in the last part of TLJ that tell what our generation’s role is. The first is when Poe stops Finn from trying to help what is just a Force projection of Luke battling against Kylo Ren. He reiterates a line heard times before. “We are the spark that will light the fire that will burn the First Order down.” Poe realizes that the future is more important, and that The Resistance has to live rather than just some blaze of glory end and helps the survivors escape while Luke buys time. It may have made a great story for Poe to charge out once again, but realizes that would have been the end of the struggle. Live to fight, live to struggle another day.
The ending sequence is not with any of our protagonists, past or present, but the children we met during Finn and Rose’s casino adventure. While they still tell the romanticized stories of old, it inspires them to take up the fight, to be the fire as we see a force sensitive child summon the broom to his hand before looking at the stars as Luke Skywalker did as a young farm boy. Our idols are flawed, sometimes severely so, but they are the ones that inspired us to join the fight. When I was in high school I looked up to Obama so much even when he repeatedly failed and compromised to a point that only solidified the horrifying systems I was witness to.
I imagine my story is not too different from many others in my generation. While there is that immense disappointment in Obama and every action that has culminated in an even worse horror show, we can take our energy for the cause and translate that into the justice we have always wanted to see in the world. It is perfectly within our capabilities as regular, everyday people to create that change. Rey is not the daughter of Han and Leia, or of Luke. She was just like any other person, and that’s the beauty of it all. The ones that we need to look to and believe in, are ourselves and each other. Things look bleak right now, but if we trust in each other, and struggle together, we can be that same spark that lights the fire that burns the evils of capitalism, racism, sexism, and imperialism down.
