Star Wars tonight. Equal parts excited and wary of them undoing Last Jedi. There should be a name for this kind of weird nerd feeling.
Watched Last Jedi again recently. I hadn't appreciated quite how incredible that central 20 minute saber/spaceship bit was.
Seems to me Johnson is asking three big questions of Star Wars in that film: the lack of democracy or meritocracy in the force, the reliance on a young cocky bloke to fix shit by shooting it, and the childish light vs dark simplicity of its morality.
The first is tackled in the Rey stuff, the second in the Poe stuff and the third in the Finn stuff. And in that central section they all come together, culminating in that amazing silent explosion.
It's this perfect moment of character, plot and themes. Actually flawless. Star Wars fans, who from my experience seem nearly completely deranged, obviously hated it.
But actually Johnson was full of love for the source material. The whole Rey-Luke bit parallels the Luke-Yoda scenes in Empire Strikes Back, including the decision to ultimately hope in the decent of their opponent. The approach to Kylo Ren is a perfect riff on Vader's arc.
And more than that, he loved Star Wars enough that he wanted it to evolve, to grow up and stay relevant, not just eek out diminishing reserves of nostalgia.
So we'll see how tonight goes. But ultimately my sense is that the backlash to that film, and fact it was listened to, will a big step backwards for Star Wars and nerdery as a whole.
True nerd love is like true relationship love: You've got to let them grow and change. You can't freeze them in time.
