I'm hopping on the Bandwagon: Why I LOVED The Last Jedi (Spoiler Alert)

I think it’s safe to say that The Last Jedi is one of the most controversial movies that we’ve seen in a long time. People either love it or hate it, there is no in-between. Even Mark Hamill hated it at first, until he saw the film and had some time to think about it. I’m going to be really controversial, and say that I thought this movie was very Catholic.

I’m not going to rehash what the movie is about. If you’re reading this, you’ve probably seen it. I’m flattered that you care what I think (or maybe you just like a good argument). Either way, I respect that.

First of all, I totally understand why some people hate the Finn/Rose adventure. At first, I thought it was kind of pointless and then it ended up blowing in their faces and, in fact, made things worse. That bothered me at first. Until I realized—that was the point.  In movies, we like to see these daring adventures against all odds that save the day, just in the nick of time. But that’s not real life. In real life, we often do take risks that just don’t work out, and sometimes make things worse. Sometimes we can try as hard as we can and do everything right, and have the best intentions, and it all blows up in our face. That’s life. But even when that happens, God is there to help us, and our friends and family are there to help us. And we learn, and we do better.

Yes, I, too, thought that Rose was a bit annoying at first. But after thinking about, I realized that she is very authentic, and I respect that about her. She has her quirks and can be irritating, but Finn cares about her anyway and she cares about him. That’s how life is. Sometimes the people in our lives are put there to teach us something. And sometimes that something is to be the outsider’s friend, to care about the person that nobody else likes.

The lack of communication on the rebel ship was abysmal. If Admiral Holdo (Purple-haired lady) had just told Poe Dameron what was going on, then the whole Finn-Rose catastrophe could have been avoided, peoples’ lives could have been saved, etc. Putting aside that Poe is a maverick who Admiral Holdo couldn’t trust with that information, this situation definitely reflects real life. How often could conflict and hurt, or even catastrophe, be avoided if we just talked to each other? If we trusted each other? The whole problem on that ship was a lack of trust, communication, respect, and the list goes on and on. Maybe we should learn from their mistakes and start talking to each other instead of about each other.

It bothered a lot of people that Rey was just the daughter of a couple of nobodies. Everybody wanted her to have some amazing backstory, to be someone important. But what happened was even more beautiful: she was a nobody who became a somebody. Who can’t relate to that? We all feel like nobodies sometimes. But the beauty of that message is that every single one of us, no matter where we’re from, can be important and make a difference. We don’t have to be famous or powerful to stand out. After all, wasn’t Jesus just a nobody from Galilee at some point? He didn’t come from royalty. He wasn’t a king. He was a carpenter. And nobody would have guessed it… but the Son of God!

Finally, the big one: Luke’s decision to become a grumpy old recluse and abandon his faith. Not to mention that he was going to kill Ben Solo (gasp! Told you there were spoilers). I get that Luke Skywalker has always been this perfect, saintly Jedi, who always does the right thing. But that isn’t realistic. Nobody in life is like that. We all make mistakes and we all sin and we all do things we’re not proud of. Luke had a moment of weakness. Was it the right decision? Of course not. But the guy is only human. He saw that Ben Solo would do, what he would become, the number of people he would murder, that he was going to kill Han! He had a moment of weakness. But then he realized what he was doing and repented.

And you know what? That’s bound to mess a guy up, to make him question his faith and to even run away from it. How many of us have ever screwed up in a big way with God? Okay, maybe we weren’t going to kill someone (at least I hope not). But we can all relate to thinking we’re doing the wrong thing for the right reasons, and then suddenly realizing what we’ve done, and be afraid of God, afraid of ourselves, afraid of the mistakes we might make again. So Luke was human, and he ran from his faith.

But what matters most is that he came back. And not just in a little way, but in a big way. He gave his life so that others could live. He reconnected with his faith, with the force. He sacrificed himself and made up for what he did in all the ways that mattered. He became a better person, and gave hope that no matter what mistakes we have made, we can come back from them. What could be a better lesson than that?

Honestly, I think the reason a lot of people didn’t like The Last Jedi is that it was rooted deeply in real life. There were things that didn’t make sense, things that seemed pointless, things that went horribly wrong, characters made terrible decisions. It was real, and authentic, and human. It didn’t hold back the difficult parts of life. But they triumphed, despite massive losses. In the end, goodness won. People learned from their mistakes. And they had hope.

That’s what made it a great movie. And that’s what made it Catholic.