INCOMING: The Last Jedi

Like the teasers for The Force Awakens, this doesn’t reveal much plot. Out of context battles between The First Order and The Resistance are shown but other than X-Wings, TIE Fighters and stormtroopers shooting each other, we know nothing. Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) tries to escape a Resistance base alongside his orange robot ball and Finn (John Boyega) is still asleep in some medical pod. Luke Skywalker’s (Mark Hamill) whispery Obi-Wan-esque voiceover as he trains Rey (Daisy Ridley) in the ways of the Force and presumably the Jedi is the bulk of the trailer. I say presumably because Luke says “It’s time for the Jedi to end.” My eyes widened when I heard it. Will Disney have the balls to really end the Jedi in Star Wars? One could argue without Jedi there is no Star Wars. But the Jedi are also a bit of a problem (hear me out before you shoot first). Star Wars has enough cool bounty hunters, aliens like the Wookies or whatever Yoda is, and other Force users who aren’t Jedi enough to sustain it, especially given how central to the Skywalker family the Jedi were in the films. I tried to picture what Star Wars is without Jedi and I am not entirely sure. And that is all the more exciting given we had eight movies and a billion expanded universe novels/comics/cartoons to see how awesome Jedi are. May The Force be with us all. — RICHARD SUPLEE