The Reinvention of Luke Skywalker

I dawdled a bit posting this piece I wrote about Star Wars: The Last Jedi and Luke Skywalker, mostly* because I’m lazy. (*Entirely because I’m lazy.) But that shouldn’t give you reason to think the piece isn’t important to me. It’s actually one of the most important things I’ve written all year in the sense that it’s actually kinda personal to my pop culture upbringing. Luke Skywalker was one of my heroes growing up. In The Last Jedi, not only do I finally get to see a good Star Wars movie in a theater 18 years after The Phantom Menace nearly turned me off the series entirely, I also get to catch up with my erstwhile idol, who has fallen on incredibly fucking hard times since The Return of the Jedi. It’s tragic, really.

So of course I loved it, and I loved the direction Rian Johnson took Luke here. In support of that love, I wrote an essay for The Hollywood Reporter** on how The Last Jedi takes Luke to new, bittersweet places and gives him the homage he deserves.

 

**I realize that this whole time I’ve been neglecting to italicize the names of my outlets on this blog. I’m not about to go back and correct my old posts, but I’ll make a point going forward to pay attention to proper writing habits.