This is my take on the theme of The Last Jedi:Retributive/aggressive violence is ineffective.Every other Star Wars movie frequently handwaves the consequences of violence - we blow up some nameless bad guys and some nameless good guys, and just move on. In this movie, every act of aggressive violence either backfires, or is portrayed in a negative light. Consequences of violence are always examined. Here are a few examples:Poe attacks the Dreadnaught out of hatred for the First Order ("these things are fleet killers!") and loses a bunch of bombers. This is universally regarded by the characters in the film as a bad trade - the destruction of the dreadnaught was not worth the loss of life suffered by The Resistance. Poe himself pays a significant emotional price for the decision; he's demoted and reprimanded by his superior officers, and he immediately shows signs of remorse and guilt. Later he learns from that mistake and calls off the attack on the cannon at the end of the movie, in order to preserve the lives of his comrades.Rey's use of her blaster and lightsaber on Ahch-To are shown as foolish and clumsy. Whipping out your lightsaber on a rock doesn't make you a badass - it makes you an asshole who destroys nature and makes more work for the nuns who clean up.There's a scene where a First Order commander explains to Hux that The Resistance ship is too far away, and firing the guns on it is ineffective. Hux says to fire the guns anyway to "remind them we're here." A huge chunk of the movie plays out with this demonstration of completely ineffective violence as the backdrop.We see the victims of Chewbacca's carniverous diet.Finn and Rose wreck the casino of corrupt slave-owners/arms-dealers and then believe they are about to be apprehended by the police. Finn says "it was worth it though... to tear up that town... to make them hurt." Rose frees a horse and says "now it's worth it." She's teaching Finn that making bad people hurt isn't worth anything - doing good means creating a tangible positive impact for good people.Luke's split-second instinct to resort to violence rather than compassion in order to defeat the evil in his nephew was the biggest mistake of his life. He regrets it so much that he runs away to a remote island to die.Rey's attack on Snoke is pointless, and it comically backfires on her. Kylo also failed to attack Snoke earlier in the movie. Kylo succeeds in killing Snoke only when he does so to defend Rey.Hux's attempt to kill Kylo is laughably unsuccessful.Finn's rushes the cannon at the end of the movie, and his ship begins to melt. Poe and Rose tell him it won't work, and order him to pull off. Finn continues on his suicide run anyway, determined to attack the First Order, even if it costs him his life and saves nobody. Rose saves him, and tells him that blowing things up is worthless if it doesn't help save people.Kylo shoots every gun he has at Luke, in a grotesque caricature of excessive use of violent force; Luke walks away completely unscathed. Kylo spends a full nine minutes of screen-time trying to kill Luke, and instead of attacking back or even arguing, Luke just stands there untouched. By allowing Kylo to use every weapon at his disposal to no effect, he forces Kylo to realize on his own how ineffective his violence is. Luke even lets Kylo put his sword through his gut just to drive the message home. Luke tells him flat-out how pointless it is - even if Kylo could slice him in half with a sword, it would be in vain and Luke's memory would haunt him forever. Kylo can't murder his way to emotional salvation because murder is a path to emotional enslavement.I really liked this theme. If you're using violence aggressively (not defensively) then you're going to find out that it just doesn't work out for you. The idea that aggressive violence can help you achieve your goals is a lie. You can violently murder your father, but you can't violently remove him from your own heart. via /r/StarWars http://ift.tt/2CrN5hw
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