How ‘The Last Jedi’ Failed Its Heroine

Lily Carollo Blocked Unblock Follow Following Dec 19, 2017

This critique contains spoilers for The Last Jedi.

The promise of another adventure. Photo credit: Lucasfilm.

In the week leading up to The Last Jedi, I couldn’t sleep well. I kept waking up in the middle of the night due to sheer excitement. I was having dreams about the movie, too.

Two years ago, while I was recovering from surgery due to a medical illness, I saw The Force Awakens in theaters with a friend. I still remember that moment when Rey grabbed the lightsaber out of the snow — the best Star Wars moment ever, might I add — and I fell in love with her like I never did another female character.

When I left the theater after seeing The Last Jedi, I didn’t feel a similar sense of awe. I felt numb. After turning it over in my head, I realized it was because the movie had let Rey down. The film wastes her character on a plot it knows doesn’t sit well with her, undermines her character with its goal for Kylo Ren, sends some unsettling vibes about their relationship, and doesn’t allow her to be the hero of her own trilogy until the end.

The result is a disappointing, precious missed opportunity in an entertainment environment devoid of female protagonists.

The movie wants Rey to be tempted by Kylo, but it also doesn’t

Rey learned about the island’s Dark Cave after her first meditation. Photo credit: Lucasfilm.

If you came away with the impression that Rey goes through a dark-side temptation because of Kylo in The Last Jedi, you couldn’t be blamed for it. In the film, she confided in him, explored an area within an island on Ahch-To that was powerful in the dark side (a Dark Cave), was told of a vision in which she turned to the dark side, and was given an offer to the rule the galaxy.

What’s weird was that the movie, simultaneously, knew this type of story didn’t work for Rey. The result was this half-hearted attempt that only wasted time with her character.

Why? Well, it all comes down to who Rey is. She’s probably the most moral character in the franchise outside of Leia, and arguably even more so. After getting a short summary of her life, the first hint we saw of Rey’s character in The Force Awakens was when she selflessly rescued BB-8 from Teedo. Not too long later, she refused to sell BB-8 for what was essentially a lifetime supply of food, protected him from Unkar’s mercenaries and, when BB-8 identified a strange man wearing Poe’s jacket, we saw her go after Finn with all her energy. “What’s your hurry, thief?” she asked Finn with a particular disdain and self-righteousness. Soon after, she’s whisked off Jakku to help a droid she met not a day ago to deliver information about Luke Skywalker, doing more than anyone could have possibly asked.

Rey is not only moral, she’s fiercely moral, and The Last Jedi doesn’t shy away from this about her character. Early in the film, she flat out told Luke she would not fail him. Like Luke in Empire Strikes Back, Rey found an area in her immediate surroundings that was strong with the dark side. She paid it a visit. Unlike Luke, whose failure in his Dark Cave revealed that he had the potential to become Vader, Rey only saw herself. Surrounded by all this darkness, she remained resolute. She even said about the whole exercise, “I should’ve felt trapped or panicked.” But she didn’t.

In Snoke’s throne room, the Supreme Leader said, “Darkness rises, and the light to meet it.” In other words, as Kylo grew stronger in the darkness, someone would rise up to face him. Snoke had assumed it would be Luke, but no, it was our scavenger from Jakku.

Rey lived up to this calling: She did all she could to fight Snoke. For goodness sake, at one point she grabbed Kylo’s lightsaber and ran straight at the First Order leader in a desperate attempt to kill him. She fought Snoke until she couldn’t. And once she and Kylo had killed his Praetorian guards, she expressed disappointment in Kylo when he went on and on about galactic domination but this time, of course, it will be done right.

To underlie all this, near the very end of the film we saw Finn open a drawer to find something to help take care of Rose. In this drawer were the sacred Jedi texts. Rey took them before she left Ahch-To.

This is Rey, our hero. Even though her parents sold her off for drinking money, she was able to form this rock-solid sense of good. Neither The Force Awakens nor The Last Jedi give us any hints to suggest, even when either movie could have, that Rey isn’t anything other than a person of outstanding moral conviction. She might as well be Rey the Incorruptible; she more than deserves the title. In this regard, she could be a legend just like Luke Skywalker ends up being.

And Luke seems to be the only reason why this movie halfheartedly tried to tempt Rey: because he went through it, too. Rey, however, is a completely different character. The movie realized this, so in addition to its half-hearted aim to tempt her, it gave Rey a goal that sat far better with her character. One that posed just as much risk to her: Trying to turn Kylo Ren back to the light.

Sadly, the way the movie went about this story simply undermined her character a great deal.

The movie had a worthy goal for Rey, but it didn’t know how to get there

Rey doesn’t know what to do about Luke. Or Kylo. Everybody’s got problems. Photo credit: Lucasfilm.

Here’s the goal the movie gave to Rey in dealing with Kylo Ren. Rey learned how Luke had failed Kylo, and after getting the chance to talk to him, she sensed good in Kylo. Rey then resolved to help Kylo turn back to the light despite all the things he had done. She did this because, as explained previously, she’s fiercely moral and will help the bad guy even though he has done a lot of bad things. What also compelled her was a vision where she saw Kylo turn back to the light.

Indeed, Snoke basically told us this in the throne room. He knew Rey had a powerful moral attitude, and, sensing Kylo’s conflict, would try to help him. So he stimulated a Force connection between them.

This was her mistake of the film, which nearly got her killed and, to boot, she found out that Kylo had manipulated her all along. It’s great that Rey made a mistake, but the way the film set up Rey to make this mistake was a disservice to her character.

Before we proceed any further, we must first go back to Return of the Jedi. Star Wars, as a franchise, has a hard-to-understand morality in some ways. As Darth Vader, we saw Anakin Skywalker slaughter students, be an accessory to the murder of billions, and kill people who failed him. He had a redemptive act at the end of Return of the Jedi, but obviously that doesn’t forgive all the murder he did and helped cause.

Except, when we see Anakin as a force ghost alongside Yoda and Obi-Wan, two good guys, the implication we’re sent is that, yes, it did make up for all the death and destruction he caused.

This implication in Star Wars — that one act of good outweighs all the bad you do — carried over into The Last Jedi and helped undermine what Rey tried to do. While she was on Ahch-To, Rey conversed with Kylo a total of four times. During the first two instances, Rey was rightfully, horrifically angry with Kylo for what he did in The Force Awakens.

In the third, Rey, crying — because she wasn’t lucky enough to experience a parent’s love — asked Kylo how he could kill his father who loved him. He told her one has to kill the past in order to become who one is meant to be. He then insulted Rey for wanting a family and how she has looked to Han and Luke as father figures (which, of course, isn’t a bad thing to want).

Pissed, Rey headed off to the Dark Cave, and afterward, recounted her experiences there…with Kylo.

It’s worth it to pause here to underscore how baffling this development was. Rey confided in a man who, from when we last saw, had insulted her, and in which she, crying, was exasperated at how he could kill a father who loved him. Not only that, but this is the man who maimed her best friend. The same person who was the first in her life to care enough about her to not abandon her. The first person in her life to come back for her. Now that we know the truth about Rey’s parents, why she hugged Finn on Starkiller base for trying to rescue her has a much deeper, heartbreaking meaning.

And she’s confiding in the man who nearly killed that person? Mere days after he nearly killed this person?

Let’s put some things in perspective. Lt. Connix said at one point that the Resistance ships have six hours until their fuel reserves run out. The Last Jedi took place over a matter of days.

Now, it can be inferred that when Rey confided in Kylo, she obviously still didn’t like him, she’ll never like him, and she cannot forgive him for the horrible things he’s done. It makes sense, and it’s the way things should be — it’s the only way things can be — even if Kylo were to turn. But here, with the precedence of Return of the Jedi, the implication of Force Ghost Anakin crept into the movie with this suggestion: If Kylo were to turn, then everything can be forgiven. Once Rey confided in Kylo, at no point in the film was she given the chance to say that, yes, she will try to help him despite everything he’s done, and she may feel sorry for him, but she could never forgive him, never could be his friend, or like him in any capacity.

Keep in mind: Kylo is as bad or worse than Vader. Like his grandfather, Kylo slaughtered students. Kylo was complicit in killing billions more than Vader, as far as we can tell, thanks to the power of Starkiller Base. He killed his own father and almost killed his mother. Only when he stopped trying to be Vader did he supersede his grandfather into being something worse, with an authority Vader only dreamed about. He’s a petulant, homicidal, maniacal man-child.

Why is this the person Rey decided to confide in? The movie implied that, after she visited the Dark Cave, Rey felt very lonely, so she turned to Kylo. But there was no reason for her to do this! She had Chewbacca, she had R2-D2, and, yes, she had Luke. Even though Rey knew Luke hadn’t been entirely truthful about what happened with Kylo up until that point, he was still in a far, far better position to console Rey.

It might even have gone something like this. Perhaps our hero would be crying horrendously after her visit with the Dark Cave. Luke would find her this way and try to talk to her (he was already looking for her in the film, anyway). Because she felt particularly lonely at that moment, Rey would have exploded and fought him in much the same she did in the film. Her abandonment by her parents would have put her in the prime position to be pissed at Luke for so easily giving up on Kylo Ren. She would have mentioned this, too, by saying that after all the horrible things Darth Vader did, Luke never gave up on him — but he gave up on Kylo. She would then demand the truth about what happened that night.

Once Luke told her, she would have said that there’s still good in Kylo because she sensed it, and that, even though he can’t be forgiven for all the horrible things he’s done, they should still try to help him.

Not only is this more in keeping with her character, this would also have spared the movie of arguably its worst infraction against Rey. When she held out the lightsaber to Luke one final time only for him to reject it, she said something about how it was now up to Kylo to save the galaxy once he would turn. Why was this movie’s female protagonist put in a position where she vocally suggested she was going to give up her hero status to a man?

In the film, Rey told the audience she saw a vision of Kylo turning good, which is why she was convinced enough about him to go directly to Snoke’s ship. This motivation doesn’t work, though, because the audience never saw this vision; there’s a partial disconnect between Rey’s actions and what the audience has seen Rey go through.

There is, however, an event in the film that the audience did see and would provide Rey with the same surety that vision provided her: a glimpse back to earlier in the film where we saw Kylo spare his mother. The film has that moment and does nothing with it. Use it! Build off it! Rey could’ve received this memory after Kylo admits he is a monster at the end of their second conversation. By using an event from earlier in the film, one that the audience saw Kylo take, Rey’s actions would become more compelling.

“Let the past die,” Kylo said in response to Rey’s question about killing his father at the end of their third conversation. “Then why did you spare your mother?” Rey could have asked.

Despite these changes, Luke would still have told her this won’t go the way she thinks, but Rey would have left anyway, with history as precedent (Darth Vader), knowing Kylo really did spare his mother, and, in sympathy, as someone who understands what it’s like to be abandoned.

The film would then proceed much as we saw it, with two important exceptions. It places Rey firmly back in her role as the hero without her character being bogged down by this pseudo-temptation plot that doesn’t work for her. Additionally, the conversation in the elevator would have a much better dynamic. Rey would say she has sensed this conflict in him and, to back up this feeling for the audience, remind Kylo how he spared his mother earlier in the film. This version of events also has the benefit of reinforcing the tragedy of Ben Solo as an inverse of Darth Vader. It also would preserve Rey’s naïveté in that, of course, if Kylo is having this conflict he’ll turn.

All of that sounds more believable than Rey choosing to confide in The Man Who Killed Han Solo And Maimed Her Best Friend for feeling lonely. This isn’t to say Rey would never, under any circumstances, confide in Kylo in some way, but the way the movie sets it up felt completely undeserved.

This is getting depressing. Can we take a brief break?

Sure! Here’s Daisy entertaining the idea of a Star Wars musical.

Hello, Jakku!

By being so ambiguous about her goals, the movie implied something truly weird

There’s another consequence from the way the movie handled Rey’s relationship with Kylo Ren: A lot of people are taking away something quite disturbing about her interactions with the fallen son of Han and Leia. By not allowing our heroine to be clear in her dealings with the movie’s villain, people are coming away with some sort of romantic, if not sexual, undertone to Rey’s interactions with Kylo — even thinking that the film hinted at a possible relationship. Check out these pieces from Vanity Fair and New York Magazine to get a better understanding of why.

To be fair to the film, this isn’t true for a good portion of the audience. For others, all a male character and female character like Rey and Poe have to do is say hi to each other and — well, that’s it, really — it means they will hook up. The film, however, holds some responsibility for the way it portrays itself. For a film to leave any sort of implication that Star Wars’ first heroine could have a future relationship with someone like Kylo did not set well with me at all.

There is no believable reason, under any circumstances, that Rey could like Kylo in any capacity given her outstanding moral center and what Kylo has done. Joanna Robinson, author of the Vanity Fair piece linked above, fairly noted that Rey has agency in whatever interaction she has with Kylo, but agency isn’t everything.

Robinson also characterized the relationship as having a sexual subtext wrapped up in a bad romance that we want but we know we shouldn’t. This, however, only works if Rey’s character hasn’t been properly considered: someone who is uncompromisingly good.

This view of Rey and Kylo also doesn’t work within the larger history of the Star Wars saga. As FilmHulkCritic excellently noted in his review of The Last Jedi, the powerful Skywalker family has been horrible to the galaxy far, far away. Heck, the galaxy likely would’ve been better off had Anakin not been born.

Kylo is basically a self-aware acknowledgement of this. One reason he has been so pissed all the time was because he felt he was owed power due to his lineage, like a prince feels entitled to a throne, and doesn’t have it. When he eventually does have the power Vader was only able to desire, he wants to burn everything down — such privilege he has. He told Rey that she was nothing except to him, and his offer to her told the audience and Rey that he thought the only way for her to be something was to share in his regality, that in order to be great, she needed to share his greatness.

Setting aside the emotional manipulation, the power the Skywalkers have held over the galaxy is precisely why Rey could never, should never, be anything other than our hero and Kylo’s nemesis. “Rey from Nowhere,” Luke called her at one point. For so long she scraped together a meager existence on a desolate world, and yet here she is, the last hope of the galaxy. By being “nothing,” Rey is everything. Rey is already great.

You don’t need to be a Skywalker to save the galaxy. As Luke noted, and the end of the film showed, the Force belongs to everyone. Rey is a direct refutation of Kylo and his lineage.

That the movie doesn’t do everything it can to quash any sort of sexual or romantic notion for these reasons comes off as letting Rey down in a depressing way distinct from everything else.

Why wasn’t Rey allowed to be the hero earlier on?

You got a galaxy on your shoulders, girl. Photo credit: Jonathon Olley/Lucasfilm.

The culmination of the movie mishandling Rey is that it felt reluctant to embrace Rey as the hero until the very end.

When Finn, Poe, Rose, and others, drove toward the First Order’s cannon to buy the Resistance time for reinforcements to arrive, they were getting picked off by TIE fighters until the Millennium Falcon showed up. It was there, finally, the movie began to eagerly embrace Rey’s hero status. That’s our girl, right there. Helping people no doubt as selflessly as she responded to BB-8’s pleas for assistance in the deserts of Jakku.

But the movie didn’t fully embrace her status as the trilogy’s hero until the very end, in one of the film’s best moments. When Luke confidently declared to Kylo that he will not be the last Jedi, there’s a close-up on his face. The movie then cut to Rey’s face as she lifted the boulders aside for the remaining members of the Resistance to escape.

Episode 9 needs to deliver

This thing is gonna be a double-bladed lightsaber in Episode 9. Photo credit: Lucasfilm.

So where was this Rey, our hero, earlier in the film? Let’s be clear about something: This film has several protagonists in Rey, Finn, Poe, and Kylo as the antagonist. But there’s only one hero: the person who the audience rallies around, the person who saves the day.

This is Rey — or, well, it’s supposed to be.

There’s a theme of failure throughout The Last Jedi. Rey failed to turn Kylo. Kylo failed to kill Luke and turn Rey. Rose and Finn failed in their mission. Holdo’s plan failed. Luke failed Kylo. Poe failed to trust Holdo.

And, ultimately, The Last Jedi failed Rey. Our entertainment doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Very few movies have female protagonists. At this point, it’s still so rare — to the point of it being a precious thing — that a franchise as big as Star Wars has a heroine. It’s something to cherish. In this context, The Last Jedi’s treatment of Rey stings and it stings badly. As fans of Star Wars, we only have so much time with our characters. As far as we know, we’ll only get three episodes, three movies, with Rey. We’ve just spent one where her character was partially undermined, left some viewers with the impression of a possible sexual or romantic relationship with a disturbed, unhinged man-child, and Rey doesn’t get to be a hero until the end.

Episode 9 should put Rey front and center again like in The Force Awakens. She needs to be the one the audience rallies around. In context of the film, she needs to be the spark that will light the fire that will burn the First Order to the ground. She needs to save the day and, if all goes well, finally give Kylo his comeuppance.

And with Anakin/Luke’s old lightsaber broken, hopefully she’ll do it all with a double-bladed lightsaber made from parts of her staff. Seriously, look at how comfortable she was when she fought Luke with her staff compared to using the laser sword in her fight with the Praetorians. You know it’s coming.