Lynn Lee looks at the new Star Wars film. Warning: Minor SPOILERS ahead...
It’s hard to put my finger on why I remain resistant to the recent Star Wars resurgence despite being a lifelong fan of the original trilogy. So far the new movies have been solid pieces of entertainment, meticulously crafted to capture the scrappy, underdog-hero ethos that made Episodes IV-VI so appealing and the prequels feel so stilted and airless by comparison. Maybe a bit too meticulously – and therein lies my ambivalence. There’s a fine line between homage and recycling, and The Force Awakens, in particular, was a skillful exercise in the latter. (Rogue One was superior in this regard, perhaps by virtue of being a spin-off that had to be able to stand on its own.) On the other hand, TFA also introduced new protagonists who were so engaging you could almost overlook the fact that they were moving through the same beats as A New Hope. I hoped that Episode VIII would give them a bit freer rein to move in new directions.
Does The Last Jedi do that? Yes and no. It makes a point of subverting certain narrative expectations, although this has the unfortunate side effect of making some of the subplots feel like unnecessary detours and/or dead ends. But the overall arc remains a highly familiar one, albeit with some tweaks...
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Friday, December 22, 2017 at 8:00AM 
Chris here. No matter where you fall in your thoughts about The Last Jedi, you have to admit that Kelly Marie Tran's Rose is the single most joyful addition to the galaxy far, far away. And that's not just because of her touching show of emotion on the Star Wars red carpet or that she also wants some gay action between Finn and Poe. No, it's that she provides the newest saga's emotional epicenter and embodies its timely moral thesis: "That's how we're going to win: not by fighting what we hate, but saving what we love."
