Star Wars: The Last Jedi sends trilogy into lightspeed

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By Lexi Lane

In honor of Star Wars: The Last Jedi coming out, Ainsley Davis, 11, purchases a ticket to view the Saturday afternoon showing. Photo by Lexi Lane

The Star Wars franchise continues with “The Last Jedi,” which is the second movie in the third trilogy. It continues the story of the two main protagonists Rey (Daisy Ridley) and Finn (John Boyega). Fans find them facing off against Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) and the First Order. The senior class attended early opening night on Thursday, Dec. 14 at 7 p.m, and the movie was a hit among the students with applause and shouts throughout.

The movie’s plot was action packed and intense, and the twists and turns between the characters made it an on-the-edge of your seat kind of Star Wars movie. On top of this, the visual and special effects have greatly increased since the franchise’s first release in 1977, and combined with the audio/musical choices, explosion and battle scenes became even more top notch and made you believe you were there.

(SPOILER ALERT)

The iconic introduction of golden words familiarizing audiences with the events of the last installment flying across the screen, kicked off music that filled the theater. The first scene is pilot Poe (Oscar Isaac) on a call with General Hux of the First Order who is messing with him, bringing some laughs from the crowd right away.

Rey is back on the island with Luke Skywalker where she found him in the previous movie, “The Force Awakens.” He begins training her to be a Jedi. Meanwhile, in the Resistance ships, Finn meets a new character, Rose (Kelly Tran) while he is trying to escape. Poe faces off against a new self-appointed leader Vice Admiral Holdo after General Leia Organa, played by the late Carrie Fisher, goes into a coma.

Holdo wants to send the people into smaller ships, which Poe disagrees with, sending Finn and Rose to find a way onto First Order ships so they cannot be tracked. This leads them into being captured but escaping with the help of lovable BB-8.

Kylo and Rey begin communicating with each other via the Force, leading some to question if either will switch to the other side – and an interesting question at that. Clearly, the director is leading viewers to question this, but in the end, neither of them does.

The movie peaks when Skywalker reunites with his sister Leia and the Resistance to face off against Kylo Ren. The crowd was set into shock when Ren pierces Skywalker with his lightsaber, only to find out Luke wasn’t actually there in person. He was still on the island where he was originally found and uses the force to appear that he was fighting Kylo. Skywalker, then, disappears into the sky, signifying his peaceful death. The movie ending wrapped up nicely, and in the favor of the protagonists fans know and love, thus escaping and winning against the First Order.