It is Christmas Eve and the penultimate week of the New 52 challenge! There's a nice symmetry to that, which, of course, is why I picked today to write a post... and nothing to do with it being the run-up to Christmas as well as the approach to a fairly major shift in life direction (more on that at a later date, I'm sure), leading to a distinct lack of downtime.
But that's not what this post is about. I'll likely cover the whole 52 project next week (and sort out the numbering), but right now I want to discuss a recent holiday tradition: the annual return to a galaxy far, far away. Keeping to their promise of one a year until people stop watching them, Disney have just released the latest episode of Star Wars, and boy has it been an interesting response. Oh, and just as a heads up there may be spoilers ahead!
I want to state straight away that yes, I've seen The Last Jedi, and no, this isn't going to be my review. I'll leave that for the December MiM as is the norm, but a quick summary would be that I thought it was enjoyable but a little odd. I think at its core there is a good film, backed by some great performances, and even the slightly odder thematic choices have the possibility to pay off in the next episode. I didn't leave the cinema leaping for joy but I definitely didn't leave feeling like my childhood had been trampled all over[1]. Nor did I feel the strong urge to petition for the film's complete erasure from history.
To say, then, that The Last Jedi has been divisive is a bit of an understatement. It's fairly rare for a film with a 92% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a critics metascore of 86 on IMDB to receive this kind of backlash. That disconnect, where critics are lavishing praise but viewers are voicing scorn, is generally a bit weird but especially when the film is a main-stream blockbuster, not some hyper arthouse concept. I'd honestly expect people to be doing a reverse BvS and claiming that Disney are just buying good reviews, but can't find any such claims.
To be fair, the user score on IMDB seems to have settled somewhere around the 7.7 mark, but even that doesn't tell the whole story. Take a look at the breakdown of those user scores (see graph below) and you'll notice more oddities in the data. Most people are rating the film at 8 stars or higher; combined with a solid grouping of 7-star reviews and 75% of people think this is a 7+ star film. If you look at its direct predecessor, The Force Awakens, you see a similar trend, with the majority rating 8 or higher and a strong minority favouring 7 stars. In fact, TFA shows a stronger tail-off towards 10-star reviews, which (again, weirdly) are more common than 9-star reviews for TLJ. But despite the similar trends, TFA sits with an average score of 8.1, still lower than its 93% on Rotten Tomatoes but sitting spot on the 81 Metacritic score and more inline with general industry trends. So why is TLJ so low? That would be the 6% of people giving this film a 1-star rating, a huge and very uncommon spike. The other low reviews all tail off in a normal trend line, then you hit 1 star and it jumps right back up.
It's important to note here as well that the initial reaction was much, much more negative. Early aggregate scores placed TLJ at a meagre 5.6 from user reviews, which is even more fascinating. That implies that those who rushed out to see the film, people you can expect are big fans of the franchise, were the least impressed with what they saw.
Which is a long-winded way of saying: this film isn't just a film some people aren't getting – it's a film which some people hate. You only get that kind of anomalous trend when emotions are involved and it's fairly clear from reading any of the actual user reviews that these are running high. It's something I find fascinating, as it suggests the kind of emotional response and cognitive shut down normally associated with tribal defensiveness. It's the kind of reaction you get in the US when gun control or abortion is brought up; in the UK when you mention Brexit or class. It's a hardwired defence of an idea that you see as integral to your in-group, your tribe. It's not normally something you see on this scale with popular culture.
Sure, there are plenty of instances of fandom infighting and tribalism. Heck, Star Wars vs Star Trek has been raging for nearly half a century and don't even begin to prod the circle-jerk that is PC vs console, but whilst these ideas evoke strongly-worded arguments and never-ending debate they rarely result in the kind of knee-jerk anger and frustration The Last Jedi has kicked up. And yes, some of that is likely misplaced political idealism reacting to a film which glorifies female and ethnic minority characters whilst demonising classic white male figures, but I struggle to believe that's even close to the majority of the story. As the author of that now-infamous Change.org petition himself has stated, most are just fans of Star Wars that feel that The Last Jedi has hurt the franchise.
The biggest arguments and most grief seem to centre on the aspect of The Last Jedi that I, and seemingly a large, silent majority of people, particularly liked. TLJ is not a standard Star Wars film. Yes, there are plenty of call-backs to the original trilogy, fan service is still here and the major themes are all still caught up with concepts like the Force and rebels and evil empires, but it also goes out of its way to flip as many of those tropes as it can. There are times this does feel forced, but ultimately it works more than it fails and creates a film which actually forces the audience to question themselves. It is flawed, but it definitely isn't mindless. I mean this is a Star Wars film which actually tries to argue that bravado and pure heroics are sometimes the worst course of action possible. That's a bold move for a franchise built on death-defying acts of heroism and concepts of fate, destiny and prophecy.
What we're left with is a film that delivers on the promise not to repeat the main criticism of The Force Awakens and be just another carbon-copy of stories already told. In doing so, it takes the franchise far outside of its well-worn comfort zone and casts it, quite literally at times, out into unknown, unmapped territory (do you see what I did there?). It massively expands or completely obliterates canon and fan theories, elements that the Star Wars universe is particularly heavily associated with, and actually dares to develop several of the main characters from the original trilogy, often in ways that casts past actions in new lights. Most importantly, it ensures that the Star Wars story is about more than just the Skywalker lineage. I can understand why that would piss a whole lot of people off, but frankly it also needed to happen. Personally, what I'm most fascinated by is what the legacy of the film becomes next. Will people grow to love it over time? Will it age poorly, as with the prequels? Will it force Disney to do an about-turn and mix up episode IX to be more fan-friendly or will they double down on their new, now truly expanded universe? I'm honestly not sure, but I'm excited to see where Star Wars will now boldly go[2].
