I realized watching the new Star Wars trailer that the greatest sin of "The Last Jedi" is that I don't care about these characters any more. They seemed an appealing bunch in "Force Awakens," big improvement over the Prequels, but nothing about them makes sense any longer.
Part of the problem is that the adversaries faced by the new Star Wars crew don't make any sense. Nothing about their situation adds up or resonates. The villains are inexplicable and incomprehensible, other than Kylo Ren's motivations flickering into focus every now and then.
The big problem with "Last Jedi" is that it needed to clarify the details from "Force Awakens" that seemed nonsensical or blandly derivative of the original trilogy and give these new characters depth. Instead, it mocked the very notion of clarity and mythic resonance.
Instead of deepening the characters, "Last Jedi" had them act in random ways so it could make snarky jokes at their expense and subvert the original trilogy. They became satires of the original series heroes, remixes of Luke, Han, and Leia played for sarcasm.
"Empire Strikes Back" challenged the original heroes, shook their faith, and revealed deeper layers of their personalities. They faced the ultimate adversity, breathtaking danger, and emerged even more human and relatable.
By the end of ESB, we knew exactly what the stakes and odds were for our heroes. We had learned things about them that made the original Star Wars story deeper, riskier, and darker without invalidating any part of it. Everything felt right, felt legendary.
But now we're rolling into the last act of the new trilogy without anything making much sense. The characters are random and some of them already feel superfluous. The villains are so vague and inexplicable that it looks like the Emperor from the OT will be subbing in.
There's some really beautiful imagery in that new trailer - love the Star Destroyer rising out of the water - but without characters we can connect with and care about, it lacks context. None of their individual journeys resonates like the original heroes did.
The new cast is great and brings a lot of warmth and charisma to characters who would be even flatter on paper after "The Last Jedi." They could have done so much more with better writing, and I really hope they get it with the last movie.
The new trilogy is putting the audience through what the heroes endured in the original. "Last Jedi" shook our faith in storytelling the way "Empire Strikes Back" shook the characters' faith in the Force, destiny, and the Rebellion. Hopefully triumph and redemption await. /end
